NEWS OF THE WEEK.
A N unusually overcrowded House, even in these times of over- Li. crowded houses, waited impatiently for Mr. Disraeli's detailed plan of Reform on Monday night. Having at least twice as much to say as on the previous occasion, he was, of course, only half the • time about it. He mentioned first his four proposed fancy fran- chises for both boroughs and counties,—the education franchise, which every clergyman, Dissenting minister, University graduate, certificated schoolmaster, &c., is to have ; the fundholders' fran- chise, offered to everybody who has 501. in the funds ; the savings'- bank franchise, offered to every one who has had 301. for a whole year in the savings' bank ; and the direct-tax franchise, offered to every one who pays 20s. in direct taxation to the Government. These are proposed in addition to the occupying franchises in both boroughs and counties. Mr. Disraeli then explained that the " principle of plurality," which the Government had suggested, but did not think it desirable to press, was only intended to go thus far,—that any one possessed of more than one qualification for voting in any constituency might give two votes for that con- stituency, but in no case more than two. This suggestion, how- ever, he withdrew, and proposed a 61. rating franchise in the boroughs, and a 201. rating franchise in the counties. With relation to the distribution of seats, he proposed to disfranchise absolutely for corruption Yarmouth, Lancaster, Reigate, and Totnes, so gaining seven seats, and to take a single seat from every double-membered borough with a population of less than 7,000, b1 which he proposed to gain twenty-three seats more. Of these th-ty seats he gives fourteen to large unrepresented towns, chiefly in the North, but oddly enough including Torquay, as if con- sumption required a special representative; and fifteen seats he gives to new county divisions, three to Lancashire, two to Lincolnshire, two to Kent, two to Surrey, two to Middlesex, two to Stafford- shire, and two to Devon, and one to the London University.
