The Sun.
London, England, 1832-08-20 00:00:00

trafficked in, yet lawyers' opinions, although th e
lawyer be also the legislator, are saleable com-
modities ; and then he refers the inquirers to the
old law on the subject as to the qualifications of
scot and lot voters, than which law nothing can
he more perplexed and contradictory ; so that
the " unlearned" persons who seek for infor-
mation there will get into a labyrinth, and, if
they attempt to explore it without a golden
clue, will " find no end—in wandering mazes
lost." But, little as the Chancellor of the Ex-
chequer knew of the legal construction of his own
Bill—a Bill which we know more than onelaa ver
boasts of having assisted the Ministers to draw up
Sir John C. Hobhouse, the Radical repre-
sentative of Westminster, metamorphosed into a
most courtier-like Secretary-at-War, displayed
still greater ignorance ;—so little did he know
of the situation in which the Reform Bill has
placed his own constituents of Westminster,
that he thought it required them to pay up their
taxes as a preliminary condition to being regis-
tered. Certainly he will find no such provision
as to scot and lot voters in the " old law," and
it will be equally difficult to discover any such
in the new. This caused the Chancellor of the
Exchequer to express his surprise that one who
had been so long the representative of a scot
and lot borough should know so little of the
rights and qualifications of his own constituents !
We shall attempt, however, to relieve our readers
from the necessity of applying for his profes-
sional opinion to the Attorney-General upon
those points which he and the Chancellor left
exceedingly obscure. A notion has gone abroad
that all electors in boroughs and towns were to
qualify themselves for registration by paying rates
and taxes ; and there has also been much doubt
and disputation whether the rates and taxes are
to be paid up to the day of registration, or only
to the 6th of April. There is only one class of
electors, however, who are required to pay rates
and taxes previously to registration, and they
are the new constituency of 10/. householders.
In order to understand the matter clearly, it is
necessary to bear in mind that the constituency
in towns and boroughs now consists of the new
electors who occupy 10/. houses, and the old
constituency, consisting of burgesses, resident
freemen, liverymen, burgage-tenants, in some
instances freeholders, and scot and lot voters—
of which last class are the electors of Westmin-
ster, whose case, as far as regarded the parish of
St. George, Mr. Duncombe brought under the
notice of the House of Commons. Now all
the new constituency of 10/. householders must,
before the 20th of July, have paid their rates
and taxes up to the 6th of April, to entitle
them to be entered on the register, and without
being registered no elector whatever, whether
new or old, can be permitted to vote. Not so
with the scot and lot voters—they are only af-
fected by the new law so far as to make it ne-
cessary that they should be registered, but they
are not required to pay taxes as a condition pre-
cedent to registration. They must, of course,
have paid their rates up to the day of registra-
tion, if legally demanded, because the paying
rates is of the very essence of this franchise,
scot and lot voters being defined to be those who
vote in virtue of paying church and poor rate ;
and it has been the established usage that they
should be rated to the poor within six months of
the day of election, and have paid their rates
up to the day, if demanded. The Reform Act
does not alter that state of the law except as
to substituting the day of registration for the
day of election, so that scot and lot voters must
now have been rated within six months of the
day of registration, ar.d have paid their rates up
to that day, if demanded—but the payment or
non-payment of taxes has nothing to do with
the exercise of their elepive franchise. The
authors of the Bill have complicated the mea-
sure by making the payment of taxes a prelimi-
nary step to registration in the case of the 101.
householders. They have evinced in this as
much anxiety to make the Bill a sort of revenue
law as to extend the elective franchise. On
principle it is bad that the elective franchise
should be made to depend on the payment of
taxes. The reform of the representation ought
not to have been at all connected with the
machinery of fiscal exaction. This is the first
time that the elective franchise in boroughs
has been made subservient to the rapacity of
the Exchequer. We trust that in the next
Parliament the operation of the Act will be
simplified by the removal of this condition.
The Exchequer has already been armed by law
with, at least, sufficient powers to enforce the
payment of its demands. The books of
the tax-gatherer should never be made
the criterion to allow or withhold the exer-
cise of a great political right. It has
been doubted whether the taxes are to be de-
manded or not, so as to make the non-payment
disqualify. We are of opinion that, although
the Act speaks only of rates and taxes pay.
able before the 6th of April, the non-payment
will not disqualify unless they have been de-
manded. As no person is bound to go to the
Treasury with his taxes, but it is sufficient if he
pays them to the collector, they are not strictly
lit
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fraud ? for the tax-collector might always have
it in his power to disfranchise the voters opposed
to the Government candidate, simply by not de-
manding their taxes. If such an election trick
could be legally practised it would be sure to be
tried ;—but the thing is too preposterous to
bear a moment's investigation. Electors of the
10/. franchise should know that, besides the
payment of the rates and taxes assessed and pay-
able up to the 6th of April, it is essential to
their claim that they should have occupied their
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to the last day of July in such year within the bo-
roughs or places for which they claim to vote, or
within seven miles of the same. The premises,
the occupation of which give a title to be re-
gistered, may be different premises, occupied in
immediate succession during the 12 calendar
months, the same condition being observed with
respect to the payment of rates and taxes. Also,
every tenant so entitled to be registered may
claim to be rated to the poor-rates, whether his
r
landlord is or is not liable to be rated, and, upon
tendering the full amount of rate then due upon
the premises, the overseer is bound to put his
mine upon the rate ; and, in case the overseer
shall refuse to do so, the elector shall be deemed
to have been rated from the period at which the
rate shall have been made in respect of which he
claimed to be rated. This last provision, as we
understand the Act, applies only to tenants °c-
eapeieo- 10/. houses ; but, if the Act had been
properly
and lot voters also, respecting
whose qualification,
as to the payment of rates,
great discrepancy .is observable in the old law.
to drawnsco op, it would have been made to
,i t
For example, on one occasion the Committee