estimated population of any area and the figure required for any of the purposes of these instructions seem to them to justify such a departure.

'Provided also that it be an instruction to the Boundary Commissioners to have regard to electorate rather than population where it appears that the proportion of electorate to population is abnormal.

"Provided also that, in carrying out these instructions, the Commissioners shall act on the assumption that Proportional Representation is not adopted.

66

Provided also that the Commissioners shall have power, when re-grouping boroughs, to extend such grouping to boroughs in contiguous counties." (House of Commons, June 18th, 1917.)

COMMITTEE.

Franchise Questions..

1. MR. MACCALLUM SCOTT (L) moved (June 18th) to except Scotland from the new provisions as to local government franchise. Withdrawn, MR. MUNRO undertaking substantially to meet the point at a later stage.

2. MR. DICKINSON (L) moved (June 18th) to omit the words excluding a lodger from the local government vote, and SIR RYLAND ADKINS (L) proposed that the word "tenant" should not include a person who occupies a room as a lodger unless it is let to him in an unfurnished state. Agreed to. The combined effect of these two amendments is to preserve the bulk of the lodger's local government vote in London.

Woman Suffrage.

1. SIR F. BANBURY (U) moved (June 19th) to omit the two subsections enfranchising women. Lost by 385 to 55 (majority 330). No one expected anything on this occasion but a decisive victory for the principle of Women Suffrage; but few would have predicted so sweeping a majority. For the principle just fifty more than half the House of Commons (335) voted; the majority was exactly seven to one. In the debate there was ample evidence of the way in which former opponents of Women Suffrage have been led to reconsider their position as the result of the war and the problems to which it has given and still more will give rise. Mr. Asquith (who voted in the majority) is the most conspicuous example of this change of attitude; another case was disclosed in the course of the debate in the speech of Sir F. E. Smith, a keen anti-Suffragist in pre-war times. An attempt on the part of Mr. Arnold Ward to amend the Bill so as to provide for a referendum on Woman Suffrage was ruled out of order, as have all such amendments been in the case of previous Bills. An analysis of the division on Sir F. Banbury's amendment will be found at page 282. Here we may add that the only Front Benchers to vote against Woman Suffrage were:

Carson, Sir E. (U)

Chamberlain, J. Austen (U)

Hobhouse, Sir C. (L)
Talbot, Lord E. (U)

Amongst those who voted for Woman Suffrage were the Prime

Minister, Mr. Balfour, Mr. Bonar Law, Mr. Walter Long, Sir George Cave, Mr. Asquith, Mr. McKenna, Mr. Churchill, and Mr. Herbert Samuel. The decision on the matter was not in any way influenced by Government action, the tellers on either side being private members.*

2. MR. PETO (U) moved (June 20th) an amendment omitting the age-limit (applicable to women voters) of thirty years. Lost by 291 to 25 (majority, 266). The retention of the age-limit was defended as a compromise which it would be most unwise to attempt to alter. Mr. Dickinson, a keen supporter of Woman Suffrage, and a member of the Speaker's Conference, said :—

The great majority of women's organisations did not wish to go beyond the proposal, because they were anxious that the Bill should be carried through this House and, what was even more dangerous, the other House." (House of Commons, June 20th, 1917.)

SIR G. CAVE, on behalf of the Government, said that if the amendment were inserted, he could no longer be responsible for the conduct of the Bill.

3. MR. CHARLES ROBERTS (L) moved (June 20th) an amendment to confer the local government franchise on the wives of men entitled to be registered as local government electors. Discussed and withdrawn. By the Bill five million women who are given the Parliamentary vote are not at the same time given the local government vote. Sir G. Cave doubted if the amendment could be accepted, as being outside the purview of the Speaker's Conference, but there were many strong expressions of support in its favour, and Mr. Roberts withdrew the amendment in the hope that the matter would be reconsidered on Report stage.

4. CLAUSE 4 (Franchise-Women) as amended added (June 20th) to the Bill by 214 to 17 (majority, 197).

Soldiers' and Sailors' Votes.

1. SIR G. CAVE moved (June 20th and 25th) to amend Subsection 1 of Clause 5, to make the Bill read :

:

Any person who is of full age and not subject to any legal incapacity and who is serving on full pay as a member of any of the naval or military forces of the Crown, shall be entitled to be registered as a Parliamentary elector for any constituency for which he would have

The vicissitudes of Woman Suffrage can be seen from the following table of the fate of proposals to enfranchise women since 1910. The various Bills on the subject have differed in detail, but the common denominator of them all is that, if passed, the principle of Woman Suffrage would have been conceded and some women would have secured the Parliamentary vote:THE PRINCIPLE OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE.

had the necessary residence qualification but for such service: Provided that (a) any such person shall be entitled to be registered for any constituency in which he may for the time being be serving or in which he may have an actual residence qualification on making an application to the registration officer of that constituency and making a declaration in the prescribed form that he has taken reasonable steps to prevent his being registered under the foregoing provision for any other constituency; and (b) nothing in this provision shall prevent any such person being registered in respect of any qualification other than a residence .qualification."

Agreed to (with amendments) after discussion of amendments on it. (See below.)

2. CAPTAIN O'NEILL (U) moved (June 25th) as an amendment (to Sir G. Cave's amended sub-section) to enfranchise any person who, having served on active service in any war in which His Majesty is engaged, has attained the age of nineteen years." Discussed and negatived. There was an animated discussion on this, and whilst the obvious difficulties of the proposal were not overlooked, the House was clearly in favour of the principle of the amendment being accepted. Ultimately the Government undertook to deal with the matter on Report, Sir G. Cave saying:"The promise which I gave was to consider the question on the Report Stage, and when I say consider it I do not mean simply to think it over, but what I meant and what I believe the House understood me to mean was that we would consider the matter in the hope, if possible, of meeting the request that was made. I do want to do this which I believe to be a genuine demand."—(House of Commons, June 25th, 1917.)

3. MR. CAUTLEY (U) moved (June 25th) an amendment (to Sir G. Cave's amendment) to provide that every soldier and sailor on attaining the age of twenty-one should be placed on the register without regard to the qualifying period of six months' residence, and that he should be registered in the constituency in which he resided when he joined the Navy or Army. Discussed and negatived. Sir G. Cave said the plan which the Government proposed was that the Army authorities should be asked to make out a list of all soldiers with the addresses shown in their papers, to divide the list according to the counties in which the addresses were situated, and to forward these county lists to the appropriate registration officers. In regard to military officers, he believed that the register of addresses was kept up-to-date at the War Office. As to the men, if the address given by a soldier at the time of his enlistment was not that where his home was now, the registration officer, on ascertaining the correct address, would be authorised to send on the paper to the constituency in which the home was. Не had consulted the War Office and the Admiralty, and the proposal would apply to the members of both forces, and would be embodied in the first schedule of the Bill.

4. SIR F. BANBURY (U) moved (June 25th) an amendment (to : Sir G. Cave's amendment) giving a sailor or soldier the right to be

registered in any constituency in which he had been serving for a period of not less than a month. Agreed to.

Other Franchise Questions

1. MR. PERCY A. HARRIS (L) moved (June 26th) an amendment providing that a person shall not be entitled to vote in more than one division of a Parliamentary borough, divided into separate constituencies. Discussed and withdrawn. Mr. Harris's case for the amendment was that it was necessary because the Bill was framed for larger constituencies in order to introduce a system of Proportional Representation. With the dropping of Proportional Representation it became necessary to go back to the present law, which provided that in one borough a man could not vote in more than one constituency. Mr. Hayes Fisher said the amendment raised the whole question of the amount of plural voting which by general consent the Committee were willing to allow. Had Proportional Representation been adopted, the question whether plural voting should be allowed in divisions of the same Parliamentary borough would never have arisen. It was hardly fair to ask the Committee to come to a decision on the question until they had taken a final decision regarding Proportional Representation, which they would do on Clause 15.

2. SIR G. CAVE moved (June 26th) an amendment providing that a woman shall not vote at a General Election "for more than one constituency for which she is registered by virtue of her own or her husband's local government qualification, or for more than one constituency for which she is registered by virtue of any other qualification." Agreed to.

3. MR. WHITEHOUSE (L) moved (June 26th) to omit the subsection in clause 8, which disqualifies any person being registered as a voter who has been in receipt for thirty days or more in the qualifying period of Poor Law relief. Discussed and withdrawn. The House was, however, strongly in favour of getting rid of the Poor Relief disqualification for the Parliamentary vote, and ultimately MR. HAYES FISHER moved an amendment (which was carried) to make the Bill read:-" A person shall not be disqualified from being registered or from voting as a Parliamentary elector by reason that he or some person for whose maintenance he is responsible has received poor relief or other alms." A Government amendment will later on be moved providing that the disqualification is to continue in the cases of the inmates of prisons, lunatic asylums, or Poor Law institutions.

4. MR. R. M'NEILL (U) moved (June 26th) an amendment withholding the franchise from the conscientious objector. Lost by 141 to 71 (majority 70). There was a most interesting debate on this amendment, the most powerful and persuasive speaker against it being Lord Hugh Cecil, who protested with great eloquence against any attempt to punish citizens for opinions they sincerely hold, however mistaken their opinions may appear to the great bulk

of their fellow-citizens. Sir G. Cave, on behalf of the Government, asked the House to reject the amendment, and the advice was taken. Registration.

1. SIR F. BANBURY (U) moved (June 27th) to omit the provision authorising Orders in Council to be made altering the rules contained in the first schedule to the Bill for the purpose of carrying the measure into full effect or for carrying into effect any Act amending or affecting this Bill. Discussed and withdrawn. Sir F. Banbury expressed a strong objection to taking from the House of Commons the power to make regulations, and authorising the Government to alter as they pleased the rules which they had submitted to the House for approval. The amendment received considerable support, and SIR G. CAVE said that if the general view was that the rules should not be altered by Order in Council without Parliament having the power to object, he would look into the matter in the hope of meeting the objection on report.

2. MR. RAWLINSON (U) moved (June 27th) an amendment making franchise appeals hearable not by the County Court, but by a Revising Barrister. Lost by 197 to 18 (majority 179). A gallant but fruitless attempt to save the Revising Barrister from total

extinction.

3. MR. DICKINSON (L) moved (June 27th) to strike out the words restricting franchise appeals to points of law. Agreed to.

MEDICAL
RE-EXAMINATION.

A Select Committee of the House of Commons has been appointed to enquire into and report on (1) the instructions issued by the War Office with regard to the administration of the Military Service (Review of Exceptions) Act, 1917; and (2) the method, conduct, and general administration of medical examinations under the Military Service Acts.

The appointment of this Committee was the outcome of a debate raised in the House of Commons on June 21st, on a formal motion by Mr. Pringle for a reduction of the salary of the Secretary for War. Mr. Pringle's purpose was to call attention to what he called "the scandal of the medical re-examination of discharged and rejected men," and in his speech Mr. Pringle alleged that precautions promised when the measure was before Parliament had not been observed; that the re-examinations had been carried out in a harsh, cruel, unfair, and wasteful way; and that the recruiting authorities had shown no discretion or discrimination in calling

men up.

Mr. Macpherson, Under-Secretary for War, presented the case for the War Office. He recalled the purpose for which the Review of Exceptions Act was passed. In the early stages of the war many men were rejected for military service who under present conditions would be perfectly fit for service, and when the Act was passed the War Office anticipated that a million such cases would be reviewed,