In Wednesday's debate on the Registration Bill, Mr. Horace Davey
moved an amendment to the effect that the receipt of medical relief from the parish should not in itself constitute a disqualification for voting, and Sir Henry James opposed the amendment on the grounds,—first, that the amendment was not appropriate to a Registration Bill, and next, that it was a bad amendment on its merits, since it would tend to pauperise the people. There may have been some justice in the first objection ; but we regret to find the Attorney-General urging the second objection. We take it that the true ground for disqualifying a man from voting who receives parish relief is this,—that he does not pay the rates in any form, and that he
is not independent, but on the contrary, dependent on the Guardians. The receipt of occasional medical relief,—say for a man's wife in his absence, when engaged on work at a distance, —does not prove either that he is not a genuine ratepayer or that he is dependent on the Guardians ; and we think it ought to be left to the discretion of the Devising barristers,—who are quite eager enough to disqualify voters,—to determine in the particular case whether the receipt of occasional medical relief is really evidence of a man's dependence on others or not.
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