On Friday week, in the House of Commons, Mr. Morley
introduced the new Registration Bill. Its chief provisions are (1), the redaction of the period of residence to three months ; (2), registers to be made up twice a year; (3), the abolition of disqualification if the rates remain unpaid on the qualifying premises; (4), all elections on one day, and that day Saturday; (5), the abolition of plural voting by enacting that a man may only vote once at a General Election, and by requiring him to answer, if asked by the presiding officer at the polling-booth, whether he has voted before. Mr. Morley, in defending the Bill, had great difficulty in explaining how it was that the Government when they were so keen on getting rid of electoral anomalies, did not tackle the biggest of all,—the over-representation of Ireland. His excuse was that to do so would mean redistribution, and that redistribu- tion was too big a subject to touch. We have shown elsewhere how very disingenuous is this way of meeting the Unionist demand. The over-representation of Ireland can be reduced without any great difficulty and without affecting Great Britain. And the Government and Mr. Morley are well aware of this fact, for they proposed to act upon it in their Home- rule Bill of last year. They proposed to reduce the over- representation of Ireland without redistribution in Great Britain, by merely reducing the total numbers of the House.
