The Express.
London, England, 1851-09-24 00:00:00

Cite erporoo.

TO CORRESPONDENTS.
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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 24.

Aitoso the many defects in our present electoral
ardent there are Hone perhaps that requires funda-
mental ()Lange mnre imperatively than those of our
county and borough registration.
Anciently them was, properly speaking, no such
thing as a freeholder or burgess r:aimina his fran-
chise. To have and to hold land as a free man by
the tenure that denoted personal independence, or to
Le by right of birth or apprentimakip free of the city
or borough when lie dwelt, WRY an object in itself
too highly prized to be suffered to remain a matter
ort any uncertainty. The privilege of voting for
a knight of the Aire, or a burgess " to go to the
parliament," was an incident of comparatively small
value—not the suledarice of a separate right. The
sheriff...lM bound to summon all the freeholders of

.....
his bt,i,iwiek to meet at noon on a given day, to
name some trusted and worthy knight who should
attend the king and barons at the next assembly of
the " ririalme. If any man came who had parted
with his freehold. or who was not lawfully entitled
thenonto, it mattered little, and was speedily for-
gotten. The intiusion was probably regarded rather
a:, a folly than a timed. Money was not to he made
of a man's vote in feudal days, and the evils which
sot uty laid then to contend against were not of the
deceptive or corrupting kind.
As the circle of citizenship expanded and industry
whether in town or country ceased to take out h-
cense to toil. the want of identity between the so-
cially independent and the politically enfranchised
community became more and more perceptible. The
roll of the guild no longer contained the best
names of the trade, and agricultural improve-
ments ceased to mark exclusively the " tenements
mid premises held on leases for lives.' The fran-
chise., especia:ly in towns, grew limited, and was
at length made the jealously monopolised perquisite
of a few families or an hereditary clique. Land
to a great extent during the eighteenth century
came to be let for terms of years, or at will. The
jobbing families in certain counties loved to keep up
their influence, and maintained on their estates ao
many hundred voters. But the free choice of the
risme:nu', had passed into a fable, and the struggle
fur pre-eminence was rarely determined by a small
preponderancy of suffrages at the poll. The general
rtgi,trt.tion fill into disuse, and was practically fur-

gotten.
Wlimi at length the nation first awoke to a sense
of its political disinheritance, and insisted that feudal
,ire, and antiquated forms of learning the arts
and wearies of dilft rent crafts should no longer

is 11:.1iiethe test of admission to citizenship, party
spirit ran high; the middle classes found bitter and
protracted resistance offered to their restoration to
their rightful place in the state; and it seemed not
only requisite to decree by statute that they should
be enfranchised in future, but to provide how each
individual sh• uld he enabled to assert and insist upon
the recognition of his newly-recovered privilege.
The system of registration, as we are now accus-
tomed to think and speak of it, dates from 1t432. It
was made part awl parcel of the Reform Bill of
Lord Ontoes administration. It was considered at

the time as a grout luipmeement, or, at all events, as
an indispensable provision of that great measure.
11 left to the discretion of corrupt local officials,
it was impassible to say how many might be left on
the list who ought to lie struck off, or how many
omitted who had not hitherto been there. The fmn-

chine was conferred de nom on large classes who had
not before been known in the tally room or at the
hustings; and by some means it was undoubtedly
essential that they should be armed with legal
powers to enforce the concession in every instance
contemplated by the legislature. Every man accord-
ingly was empowered to perve a formal notice of his
claim to be registered. Every other man was like-
wise, I mpowered to serve notice of objection to his
admission as not duly entitled. Special judges were
appointed to try these electoral suits. Once every
vear the list was to be overhauled. What could be
Letter contrived, or more likely to prove efficient ?
But results speedily arose from the working of this
new machinery that had not been foreseen. The
annual revision mars:nailed the entire community
into two hostile parti es. 'lO support and to resist
numerous claimso.he employment of est& of agents,
and sometimes c ounsel, was found to be necessary.
No man's notic had a chance, it was supposed,unless
licanclanlY we -4 professionally ready in court to sus-
tain it. Lil• orals and conservatives subscribed for
the reasons. role service, and were taken care of by
those "kr au they contributed to remunerate. Ilut
all who were not st a given mom. nt to be
dubbed partisans of one side or the other,
were pa .kely to be left off the registry, and in point of
fact ;ere so. Nor was this all. After some years of
inia•;ailingconflict, the minority- abandoned the
ale' iggle, and in dudgeon refused to take any further
la rt ire local polities. The consequence has noto-.
!' windy been that in many places, when in lapse of
time and by change of circumstances new questions
twos: uhkh divided men not according to the old
party distinctions—intelligent and respectable per-
sous is very considerable numbers found themselves
denuded of their privileges, and were compelled to
ace the candidate, they would gladly have
supported, beaten for want of a few score
votes. In a word, the system of registration
originated by Lord ALTRI/Rl', and enacted twenty
years ago, has hail the effect of arraying
society into parties, mid pledging men beforehand
upon all questions of importance, instead of endow-
ing them with rights in the first instance without
any preliminary condition founded on their assumed
opinions generally, and suffering them to think and
vote on each subject freely as it may arise. It has
also had the effect of 4/is-franchising practically some
of the most valuable, because the most moderate,
thoughtful, and independent persons of all ranks
and conditions, and thereby narrowing the range of
candidature and vulgarising public sentiment in its
tone.
It is plain that for these evils the remedy must be
sought in a wholly different method of registration.
A tanner or a householder ought to be placed upon
the county or the borough roll by operation of law,
and without either expense. trouble, or personal de-
num!. It is not because he is a tore, or whig, or a
radical, that he ought to be there, big because he is
a tax-paver. 'fhe state has no right to make it
difficult fur ono man and easy for another to
obtain the enjoyment of a right which it affects
to confer impartially. Thu state has a deep
interest in the effective exercise of the pri-
vileges it bestows—an abiding claim on the
active loyalty of all its enfranchised sons. 6elf-act-
ing registration, therefore, is one of the most desir-
able objects of the Now Reform Bill. In itself it
would tend very materially to enlarge the coustitu-
nicks, and as we have said, in the best
_possible way.
But let us not deceive ourselves. The principle
of self-registration was, after much debate, proles- I
sedlv incorporated into the Irish County Franchise
Bill of last year. From the halflearteclmanner in'
which that lame and limping measure was
carried, and the timid and time-serving way
in which it was defended in detail, the
boasted improvement in registration in Ireland. has
already turned out somethingvery like a failure. Every
hack of local faction, being himself an elector, may
still serve notice of objection without limit; and the'
result will be, if not corrected in the general measure
of next session, a return in a great degree to the old
and objectionable system. On this and other points,
however, connected with- the Irish part of the
question, we mast reserve our thoughts fur another
oceassen.

It is certainly a noble sight to behold a body of
men, who have pat t their s
own, is a life of
industry, come and lay down, several o[,