The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-11-27 00:00:00

CORRESPONDENCE.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE LIVERPOOL STANDARD.
SIR,—It has been reported that the opinion of an eminent
barrister has been taken on the construction of the clause of en-
franchisement in the municipal reform act, and that the opinion
given confirmed the commonly received impression that a
dwelling-house, qualification is absolutely indispensable. Per-
haps you can inform me if such Opinion has reuily been obtain-
ed, and who was consulted? But as discussion of a question
in which all are so deeply interested may tend to correct the
ideas entertained thereon and elicit truth, I shall feel particu-
larly obliged by the publication of the following reasons, which
cause me to differ with the majority. The discussion may
possibly elicit the opinions of others equally interested and more
competent, and thus we may arrive at-the truth.

When the municipal reform act was introduced,- it was stated
that the qualification of a burgess would be assimilated to the
qualification required under 'the parliamentary reform act, a
plain and simple rating of £lO. Certain changes were intro-
, duced and reasons assigned for them, but leam much deceived
if ever an occupation, restricted to a particular description of
property, was proposed or contemplated, nor would such be ac-
cording to the stiirit of either the parliamentary or municipal
reform acts. object in a property qualification is to se-
cure, as far as possible, a class of voters whose standing in the
community would seem to promise a coherence of purpose and
a consequent systematic and equitable management—a very de-
sirable object. This the three years' rating will certainly
secure, and must appear to any reasonable mind a very sufficient
guarantee. Theretore, the pretended dwelling-house qualifica-
tion is altogether supererogatory.
Referring. to the municipal reform bill, we find the clause of
enfranchisement, sec. 9, reads thus :—" That every male per-
son of full age who, on the last day of August in any year, shall
have occupied any house, warehouse, counting-house, or shop,
within any borough during that year and the whole of the two
preceding years, and also during such peried shall have been an
inhabitant tiouseholder within the said borough, or within seven
miles of the said borough, shall, if duly enrolled in that year ac-
cording to the provisions hereinafter contained, be a burgess of
such borough." On this passage the whole question de-
pends, and on the meaning attached to the word householder
us this passage. In the interpretation of all parochial acts, the
tern, " householder" has been construed to mean any person
rated to the relief of the poor, whatever be the nature of the
property, and in the same sense it ought, in my opinion, to be
received in this act; which reading will make the meaning''
clear to he a person rated, and not only rated, but also residing
within certain limits. Without being much of a philologist, I
conceive the grammatical construction of the passage requires
this interpretation! inhabitant is a noun substantive, and does
not become an adjective to explain the term householders which
the common opinion requires. Inhabited-honse-holder I can
understand in this sense, but not inhabitant-householder, which,
as I believe, is the same as inhabitant only.
In the acts of parliament imposing the assessed taxes, the
term used is " inhabited-house-holder," and the tax called "in-
habited-house duty." Under this wording, it is clear that
dwelling-houses only were intended. Inhabitant householder
does not convey the same meaning, the tend inhabitant giving
the sense, householder being but a repetition of the qualifica-
tion before specified. The context requires this reading, for
what can be more absurd than, in terms, to confer a privilege
to all residing within the borough and yet limit the opera-
tion to those only who reside un4hout the borough, which,
if the common interpretation be correct, is the case. If a shop
to a resident within the borough would not convey a qualifica-
tion, why name it? If they are housekeepers they do not re-
quire it, and if they are not it is no qualification. It therefore
depends on the house, and on the hou,s only ; and shop, ware-
house, B.sc,, are merely unnecessary expletives, except to the
very few residing without the limits of the borough; and, if this
• be meant, the wording is both obscure and clumsy.
If the act had contemplated a dwelling-house qualification
only, dhe idea would have suggested a very different construe,
lion; it...would then have been thus:—" Every male person
of full age who, on the last day of August in any year, shall
have occupied any dwelling-house within any borough, during
that year and the whole of the each two preceding years; and
every occupier of any warehouse, countiesehonse, or shop, who
shall be an inhabited-house-holder within seven miles thereof."
This construction, growing out of the iutentioni would have set
the meaning beyond a doubt; and if such had been the inten-
tion, such, I am convinced, would have been the construction ;
it would have been impossible to have stumbled on the
present form. The 11th section seems to me to be confirmatory
of this reading, for therein " the occupier of any premises for
which the landlord shall have been rated may cleim to.he rated,
and to have his name inserted in the overseers' list, and tires
shall become qualified to be enrolled as a burgese;" nor is any
thing said as to a dwelling-house qualification, nor.is any re-
ference made to the 9th section. The forin given in the bill for
claimants to'be enrolled snakes no allusion to' the dwelling-
house qualification; nor in the notice of objections or list of
persons objected to is any qualification noticed bat that of three
years rating.
If what. I have here said will prompt este olle more compe-
tent to discuss this matter; I shall have gained tiev object.—
I am, sir, A IMXROESS.