DISFRANCHISEMENT AND RELIEF
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] Sia,—There is no doubt that the present disastrous state of affairs in the West Ham Union is very largely attributable to the action of the Coalition Government in allowing people in receipt of parish relief to vote at local government elections, byl Representation of the People Act, 1918. The actual clause reads : " . . . a person shall not be disqualified from' being registered as a parliamentary or local government elector by reason that he . . . . has received poor relief or other alms." It seems inconceivable that the Coalition Government, whose sole raison d' ftre was to carry the late War to a successful conclusion, should have had the audacity to take such a grave,: far-reaching and—as has proved in practice—calamitouit step. At the time this dastardly blow was aimed at national: thrift, industry, and the standard of British character generally,' the country was actually struggling for its very existence in France. It is now notoriously true; as a result of the abolition of the pauper disqualification referred to above, that in many; districts (e.g., West Ham) guardians are elected almost entirely] by the pauper vote to cater solely for the unemployed.—I am,:
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