The suggestion which Mr. Churchill put forward a few days
ago (in the Evening Standard) that one of the defects of our democratic franchise should be remedied by the allocation of a second vote to house- holders—that as a first step, with further schemes for the " weighting " of the franchise to follow—is well worth discussing seriously. But it hardly looks really feasible. The cry of privilege for property would be raised, and it would be easy to provide contrasts by the thousand between intelligent electors with one vote and blatantly unintelligent ones with two. The question of " weighting " has often been discussed in connexion with voting by States in the League of Nations Assembly, but no criterion—population, wealth, standard of culture, Military strength—could command any general accept- ance. It would be much the same with any proposal to revive plural voting here on a considerable scale. We are paying the penalty for revising the franchise under the shadow of a war, for the case for adult suffrage at the age of 25 was simply swept away by the unanswer- able argument that if men were fit to be killed at 19 they could not be held unfit to vote till 25. And what was given to men had to be given to women, too.
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