The second reading of the Service Franchise Bill was moved
in the Commons on Wednesday by Sir J. Blundell Maple. This Bill, which carries into effect the minority view taken by Lord Justice Rigby in the Court of Appeal in the " Clutterbuck v. Taylor" case, very properly refuses to dis- tinguish, for purposes of service franchise, between apart. ments with partitions going up to the ceiling and apartments with partitions which did not quite reach the ceiling, and consequently re-enfranchises a large number of policemen, shop assistants, warders, gardeners, stablemen, and others who voted from the time of the passing of the Representation of the People Act in 1884 till the decision in the Appeal Court ten years later. Sir Charles Dilke moved an amend- ment deprecating any addition to the existing complexity of the franchise system, and described the measure as a "frittering little Bill," but met with scant support, Mr. Logan, the Radical Member for Harborough division, sup. porting the second reading on the ground that it at any rate enfranchised somebody, a line of argument which demolished the objections of Sir Charles Dilke. After a sensible speech from the Solicitor-General the second reading was carried by 18S to 88, no valid objections having been advanced against a measure which restores the franchise to those who were dis- franchised by a mere technicality.
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