At last Mr. Gladstone was allowed to make his statement.
He spoke of the household franchise as sanctioned by both sides of the House, and of the many rural districts which are nomin- ally called boroughs as proving that the rural householder is as safe and shrewd a voter as the urban householder. All the Three Kingdoms were to be included in this measure, and all of them, with the most trivial exceptions, as regarded local customs of registration, &c., on the same terms. This was to be an enfranchising, not a disfranchising BilL As we understand Mr. Gladstone's statement, even the existing faggot-voters are not to be disfranchised, though stringent provisions are to be taken against the creation of faggot-votes for the future. All the existing borough franchises are to be maintained, and some of them even enlarged,—i.e., the household franchise, the £10 yearly-value franchise (which is to be extended to land without buildings, whereas now it only includes buildings) and the lodger franchise ; and a new borough franchise, called for want of a better phrase a service franchise, is to be added,—in other words, the tenant of a building which he occupies as a part of the con- ditions of his service, from an astronomer royal in his observ- atory down to a gardener in his gardener's cottage, is to be enfranchised; even though he pays no rent for the house which he occupies. In the county constituencies there are to be the same four franchises,—a household franchise, a lodger franchise, a £10 clear annual-value franchise, and a service franchise, and the old property franchises are to stand untouched. Only no new franchises are to be created out of rent-charges and other incorporeal hereditaments, nor out of subdivided heredita- ments of any kind, unless they are really inherited by descent, succession, marriage-settlement, or will, i.e., unless they are not " manufactured " for electoral purposes.
