The Press. — London, England, 1854-02-18 00:00:00

FEBRUARY 18, 1854 which is laid down in the Municipal Act, but to leave out, as not possessing in a sufficient degree that independence which would entitle them to vote, all persons rated below (IL a year. We propose to take all above 61. on the condi• tion that they possess the municipal form of residence— that is, a term of about two years and a half before they are entitled to be placed on the register, and about two veers and ten months before they can exercise the right of voting. By this plan you would obtain such an extension of the franchise as would include a large number of work ing men, and which would not preclude those who are most r emarkable for the steadiness of their conduct, or for the skill and ability with which they carry on their trade, and who are in einsequence enabled to live in houses of a better character than those which are occupied by the great mass of their fellow-workmen. (Expressions of dissent.) There is one change, however, which we propose to make, both with respect to this new franchise and the existing ten pound franchise in towns. According to the old doctrine of representation, persons paying scot and lot ' were persons who had the right of voting. That payment afterwards came to the payment of a poor rate in modern time, and was always insisted upon before the voter could go to the poll. This provision was retained in the Reform Bill for the purpose of ascertaining the solvency and sufficiency of the new class of voters which were then created. But con sidering that the proposed franchise will apply only to a person rated at 10/. value, or at 6!. a year, or who must re side a considerable time in the district, it appears to us that it is no longer necessary to keep in force that check of the payment of rates and taxes which has hitherto been ap plied. ( Cheers from the Ministerial side.) There is another change we propose with respect to the registration of elec tors. Much trouble and many conflicting decisions have attended the examination of the lists of registered elec tors ; but we propose that the list of registered electors once made should be final. What we propose, therefore, is, that the ten•pound franchise which now exists—that is, of 10!. value—shall be preserved exactly as it is, with the two changes—that with respect to the building on land not being a dwelling-house of the value of W. a year, and that the payment of rates and taxes is no longer to be insisted upon. There will still exist in fact the ten-pound franchise, with the relaxation I have mentioned ' • and we propose to add to this the other franchise which Ihave stated, founded on the six-pound rating." Lord J. Russell then announced his intention of pro posing two further incidental changes in the present system. First, the freemen electors in boroughs were to be disfranchised, after the expiration of ex isting interests, on account of the reiterated corn plaints of bribery and corruption among them. Secondly, the statute of Anne was to be repealed which compelled every member who took office to vacate his seat. For this enactment he declared the Whigs were not responsible. It had been passed in consequence of an impression among Tory members that Parliament would be rendered more independent of the Crown by the absence of placemen from its benches. Recapitulating his scheme, Lord J. Rus sell gave the names of the various places and districts whose representation would be affected by the bill. The list of boroughs totally disfranchised in cluded "Andover, returning 2 members ; Arundel, 1; Ashburton, 1; Calne, 1 ; Dartmouth, 1; Evesham, 2; Harwich, 2; Honiton, 2 ; Rnaresborough, 2 ; Lyme Regis, 1 ; Marl borough, 2 ; Midhurat, 1 ; Northallerton, 1; Reigate, 1 ; Richmond (Yorkshire), 2; Thetford,2; Totnes,2 ; Wells, 2 ; Wilton, I.—Total, 19 boroughs, returning 29 mem bers." The boroughs that would lose one of their two repre sentatives were : " Bodmin, Bridgnorth, Bridport, Buckingham, Chi chester, Chippenham, Cirencester, Cockermouth, Devizes, Dorchester, Guildford, Hertford, Huntingdon, Leominster, Lewes, Ludlow, Lymington, Lichfield, Mahlon, Melton, Marlow (Great), Newport ( Isle of Wight), Peterborough, Poole, Ripon, Stamford, Tamworth, Tavistock, Tewkes bury, Tiverton, Weymouth, Windsor, Wycombe ( Chipping). —Total, 33 members." Four seats being already vacant, this made an aggregate of 06 members to be supplied. The counties where additional representatives were to be returned comprised " Bedford ; Chester, southern division ; ditto, northern ; Cornwall, western ; ditto, eastern; Derby, northern ; ditto, southern ; Devon, southern ; ditto, northern ; Durham, northern ; ditto, southern ; Essex, southern ; ditto, northern ; Gloucester, western ; Kent, western ; ditto, east ; Lancaster, northern ; Lincoln, parts of Lindsey ; ditto, parts of Kesteven and Holland ; Middlesex ; Mon mouth ; Norfolk, western ; ditto, eastern ; Stafford, north ern ; ditto, southern ; Somerset, western : ditto, eastern ; Salop, northern, Southampton, northern ; Suffolk, eastern ; ditto, western ; Surrey, eastern ; Sussex, eastern ; War wick, northern : Worcester. eastern ; York, East Riding : ditto, north. Wales :—Cilumorgan, 1. Additional mem. berg, 3H." The West Riding of Yorkshire and southern divi sion of Lancashire formed an exceptional list., and, being divided into two districts, returned six members each. Additional number of members, eight. Among the boroughs the following additions were to be made : " Birmingham , Bristol ( city ), Bradford ( Yorkshire ), Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester (city), Sheffield, Wolver hampton, which now returned 2 members, to return 3 ; Salford, which returns 1, to return in future '2 members ; Birkenhead, Burnley, and Staleybridge, now unrepre sented, to return 1 member each ; and the united districts of Kensington and Chelsea, 2. Total, lit members." `.~. THE PRESS. There would be two new memberships for the inns of court and one for the London University. Sixty three out of the sixty-six vacancies would he thus filled up, and the remaining three it was proposed to reserve for Scotland. Thus the number would be complete. After entering into these details, Lord J. Russell left his project to the consideration of the house, and, without a word of comment or advocacy, moved for leave to bring in his bills. The discussion that ensued was brief and miscel laneous. Various questions were asked, several inquiries suggested, and some brief criticism offered upon the measure in it; outline. Among other mem bers, Messrs. Liddell, Ellice, and Geach defended the character of the freemen electors ; Col. Sibthorp announced his total lack of confidence in Ministerial honesty ; Mr. J. Phillimore objected, on constitu tional grounds, to the repeal of the statute of Anne; and Mr. H. Drummond declared that the measure tended to sever property from power, was another step in a course where there was neither halting nor turning point, and offered new incense to the party who were seeking to prostrate England before a democracy. Lord J. RUBBELL having spoken a few words of explanation and defence, leave was given to bring in the bills, against which, as had been already promised, no formal opposition was offered in the preliminary step. (The bills were brought up by the noble lord on Thursday night and read a first time. The second reading was fixed for March 13.) ELECTORAL REFORM. The bill promised by Sir FrrzaoY KELLY for regu• lating the practice at the elections of members to er . ve . in Parliament, to prevent bribery, corruption, intimidation, and undue influence at such elections, and to diminish their expense, was introduced by the lion. gentleman on Thursday. He then argued that experience had shown the increase of the constituent body to be no safeguard against corruption, and that the ballot would probably prove as little efficacious. The means to which he looked for suppressing this great evil were to be considered as regarded the candidates, the agents, and the electors. First, he proposed to appoint a public officer at every election —a person of character, knowledge, and probity—to whom all moneys intended for expenditure on ac count of election must be handed over by the can didate, by whom all claims for election expenses must be paid, with the view of preventing any money being appropriated through indirect channels for illegal or corrupt purposes, and who should have the whole management and control of the expenses of the election. The candidate would be required to swear that he had made no payments on account of his election to any other person. He proposed that this election officer should be a barrister, appointed by the judges, as the revising barristers were. If the source were stopped at once and for ever on the part of the candidate, bribery would soon die out of itself, and a few agents would be found to give their time and services at elections. The candidate was to declare to the election officer the names of th' agents employed by him, and no others were to be admissible. These agents also must take an oath before the election officer, in conformity with that taken by the candidate, with regard to all funds placed in their hands, whether proceeding from clubs, subscriptions, or other sources. Expenditure for processions, music, and the like, was to be pro hibited. The bill further contained a series of pro visions for enabling the electors to give their votes by means of voting papers, accompanied by safeguards against fabrication, mutilation, and fraud. This would get rid of all the tumult, agitation, and vio lence, often attended with danger to human life, heretofore prevailing ; so that the voter might, if necessary, give his vote at home. It would further save the vast sums now expended for the conveyance of voters, which at county elections often amounted to 4,0001. or 5,0001., and opened an unlimited door to corruption. The evil of intimidation and undue in fluence would in like manner be mitigated, if not altogether remedied, by the machinery he proposed. The giving of the vote should consist in the act of signing the voting paper, and the declaration therein contained, which was then to be delivered to some competent person for trans mission to the returning officer. For this purpose the magistrates of the county or town would sit at fixed places, for three or four days after the nomina tion, to receive and transmit the voting papers. By this plan, even in the most numerous consutuencies, the greater part of the votes would be given at an early period of the election, without pressure or inconvenience. He had proposed the measure with out reference to party considerations, and with the view of giving freedom and security to that part of our constitution on which the liberties of the people and the well-being of the empire depended. Col. SIBTFIORP expressed an invariable dislike to every proposition which aggravated the meanness already too prominent in the transaction of business at elections. The measure would besides prove utterly futile when it came to be worked. The Arroluiri. GENERAL, as the exponent of Minis- 149 terial intentions, announced that they would n o t oppose the intr oduction of the bill, whose object they deemed worthy of deliberate consideration. Mr. HUME found some fault with the working details of the measure. He hoped that the time would come when elections would not cost the can didates a farthing, and when expense would no longer place a barrier in the way of any class of representatives. _ _ After a few words from Mr. Baszimar, leave was given to bring in the bill. TESTAMENTARY REFORM. The state of the law regarding wills and testa ments was brought before the Peers by the Loan CHANCELLOR on Thursday, who, at the same time, laid on the table a bill for amending the code in this respect. He commenced by making a voluminous exposh of the evils which, in his opinion, were in herent in the existing system of jurisdiction in the ecclesiastical courts : " In the first place, there was no reason, except old custom, ratified by statute in the reign of King Edward 1., that the ecclesiastical courts should have jurisdiction over wills more than over any other kind of deeds ; hut, even supposing this objection in theory to have been over come, the practical inconver.ience of the present system, under which no less than RNIS different tribunals had juris diction over wills, rendered an alteration in the law abso lutely necessary. Again, in the present state of the law, when the cognisance of devises of real estate belonged to the temporal tribunals, and that of bequests of personalty appertained exclusively• to the ecclesiastical courts, a conflict of law might occur, and one half of a will might be declared valid in one court and invalid in another. Many attempts had been made to remedy this state of things, and reports had been made by various commissions on the subject. The latest, which had just delivered its report, recommended the abolition of the existing Prero gative Court, and the transfer of its jurisdiction to a new court of probate, which should be a temporal, sod not an ecclesiastical tribunal. With the recommendation for abolishing the Prerogative Court of Csuiteibury he en tirely agreed, but not with that for erecting a new court, as he thought the public interest would be best served by vesting the whole contentious jurisdiction of wills in the Court of Chancery. With the right of the proctors to deal with the common-form business, as it was called, which constituted ninety-nine hnndreths of the business of the Prerogative Court, he did not at present propose to interfere ; but the contentious business arising out of cases in which a will was disputed, and which did not, it ap peared, amount to more than sixty days' work in the year, he proposed to transfer to Chancery, and to throw open to its practitioners, for the simple reason that it seemed un necessary to erect a new court to do so little work." His plan, then, was to transfer the whole machinery of the Prerogative Court to Chancery, and to give the proctors the exclusive transaction of non-con tentious business for a limited time. He also pro posed to allow probate of wills in the country up to 1,5001., and to extend probates to real estate as well as to personalty. The noble lord then la►d the bill on the table. Lords BROUGHAM and CAMPBELL expressed their approval of the bill. Lord Sr. LEONARD'S also gave a qualified adhesion, but disapproved of the proposel for extending probate to real property. Leave was g►ven, and the bill read a first time. SUCCESSION TO REAL PROPERTY. Leave to bring in a bill to amend the laws of suc cession to real property in cases of intestacy was moved on Tuesday by Mr. L. KING. The hon. mem ber detailed many instances of anomaly and possibi lities of injustice existing under the present system, and indicated, as the principle which he wished to embody in his measure, a graduated distribution of property not bequeathed by will among all the chil dren of the deceased possessor. This principle he enforced by many arguments and illustrations tend ing to show the inexpediency of the law of primo geniture, whose origin he traced to the darkest ages of feudalily, and whose consequences, he declared, resulted in perpetuating an injurious and wasteful monopoly of land. The motion was supported by Mr. HADFIELD and Mr. BRIGHT. Lord J. RUSSELL having reserved his opinion of the measure until it reached a more advanced stage, leave was given to bring in the bill. THE EASTERN QUESTION. After several postponements, on account of Minis terial convenience, or to allow time for considering the voluminous report so lately presented on the sub ject, the Marquis of CLANRICARDE, on Tuesday night, fulfilled his intention of reviewing minutely the con duct of the Government in relation to the long-pend ing controversy between Russia and Turkey, and invited the Peers to discuss the question in all its bearings. The noble lord introduced the topic in the shape of a formal motion for an address to the Crown asking for more papers. He then commenced a searching analysis of those already before the house, declaring at the outset that his cause of quar rel with the Government was, not that they had de layed engaging in war, but that they had adopted measures which necessarily resulted in hostilities, and now, when hostilities were impending, showed a want of the vigour and determination indispensable