THE NEW REFORM BILL.
17th December 1853.
Sin—With allusion to the articles which have lately appeared in the Times and Morning Chronicle, as well as in your own columns, relative to the " New Refoim Bill," as it is termed, and to an alteration and extension of the suffrage, might not an enlarged and desirable constituency be obtained by the following simple plan ? viz.
To extend the county franchise to holdings of 201. per annum, leaving the borough franchise as it now exists.
Secondly, to extend the franchise to all persons, whether residing in counties or towns, paying income-tax, and to those paying assessed taxes of the annual value of Si. and upwards; to all graduates of Universities ; to barristers-at-law ; to licentiates in medicine ; to all commissioned half-pay officers of the Army and Navy ; and to all retired public, civil, and Colonial servants, including those of the Honourable East India Company's civil and military services, whose retirement should be of the amount of 901. per an- num and upwards. And in remedy of an evil now greatly complained of, it is suggested that all freemen of cities and boroughs should, as such, be disfranchised. One word on the property-qualification of Members. At present it is worse than an evasion, and had it not far better be done away with altogether ?
From ONE Of YOUR CONSTANT SUBSCRIBERS.
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