FIRST SCHEDULE.—PART I. (Hansard, 29 April 1872)

§ MR. GOLDNEY
rose to move a proviso, to the effect that no objection to a nomination paper on the ground of the inaccurate description therein of the Christian name of the candidate should be valid, unless made by or to the Returning Officer at the time of the delivery of the nomination paper.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
rose to move the insertion of another proviso, that nothing in the Act should— Render obligatory the use of a nomination paper supplied by the returning officer, so, however, that the paper be in the form prescribed by this Act.

§ MR. HUNT
said, he would move to add after "Act," the words "or to the like effect."

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he could not assent to the additional Amendment.

§ MR. ASSHETON CROSS
said, he must submit that if any nomination paper was open to objection that it should be taken at once, so that the objection could be removed at the time.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, it would be better to consider that point at another part of the Schedule.

§ MR. CAWLEY
said, the question was whether the objection was to be taken and decided at the time, or be reserved to be settled on an Election Petition.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, it was impossible to provide against the validity of an election being questioned. That was not the proper time to raise the question before the Committee.

§ MR. ASSHETON CROSS
said, the objection ought to be taken at the time of the delivery of the nomination paper, and not afterwards.

§ MR. ASSHETON CROSS
said, that in order to get a definite answer from the right hon. Gentleman, he would move to add to the clause the words "and no nomination paper shall be void for defect in point of form only."

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he could not accept the Amendment, but he would 1948 consider the words before the Report. It would be necessary to carefully consider them, to ascertain what would be their exact meaning.

§ MR. GOLDNEY
, in moving as an Amendment, in sub-section 8, line 13, after the word "officer," to insert "or deputy," said, that as only two hours were given for receiving the nomination papers, and as the Returning Officer might be called away during that time—to quell a riot, for example—it would be necessary to have a deputy to receive the nomination papers. If there was provision for the appointment of a deputy it might happen that from design, accident, illness, or some other cause, it would be quite impossible that any person could be returned under the Schedule.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he would look into the matter before the Report.

§ MR. HUNT
moved to insert in line 15, page 17, after the word "seconder," the words "and one agent."

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, the point was debated a great deal last Session. He could not help thinking that it would be sufficient for a candidate to have the assistance of his proposer and seconder. If the candidate was anxious to have his legal adviser present, the candidate would take care that the agent should be either his proposer or seconder.

§ MR. DISRAELI
said, the candidate ought to be attended by his agent as well as his mover and seconder. It was acting in an impolitic manner to limit the number, as proposed in the Schedule. Questions might constantly arise when the aid of a professional man might be required. Candidates liked to have influential persons with them—men who might influence public opinion, from their position and the estimation they were held in by their neighbours. It would be very unwise not to allow an agent to be present.

§ MR. CANDLISH
said, the Amendment could not by possibility be any serious detriment to the clause. Questions might arise requiring legal advice.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, upon consideration, he had no objection to the insertion of words which would permit a candidate to be attended not only by 1949 his proposer and seconder, but also by "one other person selected by the candidate."

§ MR. HUNT
rose to move that after "public notice" there should be inserted "by telegram sent through the post-office to each polling place." As the Bill provided that at the place of nomination there should not be a general gathering together of electors, it was most desirable that a county or a division of a county should learn as quickly as possible the names of the candidates and the day of polling. Under the present system of post-office telegrams it would be easy to communicate information on those subjects to all parts of a county.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he thought they might rely on the candidates telegraphing the information in question to their friends without delay.

§ MR. CANDLISH
said, it would be impracticable to give notice by telegram. It would be an inadequate mode of giving notice, and would lead to false telegrams being forwarded all over the country.

§ SIR DOMINIC CORRIGAN
asked, when the telegram reached its destination, who was to receive it? It would be necessary to provide to whom it should be addressed, and how it should be made public.

§ MR. HUNT
said, that at present he would not press his Amendment; but on the Report he would put it in the Notice Paper, and take the sense of the House on it.

§ MR. CAWLEY
said, he was most anxious, if they were to have a Ballot Bill, that it should be made as workable as possible. In order to do so, they should take care to remove what was well known to be one of the chief difficulties in working a ballot—namely, the inability of a great number of voters to read and write. The right hon. Gentleman who had charge of the Bill had suggested that the names of candidates should be printed in alphabetical order, and that they should be numbered; and he had urged that if a voter could not read or write, he could at all events 1950 count on his fingers. But a voter who could not read or write must depend on some one to tell him whether the numbers he should vote for were 1 and 3, or 2 and 3, or 3 and 4. Now, colours he thought, would more readily be distinguished than anything else, and without them many persons would be disfranchised, or run the risk of voting otherwise than they intended. He had provided in a subsequent part of the Bill against a candidate having a colour which did not belong to him. He would move the insertion after "order," of the words "and colours."

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he proposed to explain and defend the proposal of the Bill as to persons unable to read and write when the Committee arrived at Section 23. With regard to the proposal before the Committee, there was a large majority last year against the adoption of colours, the use of which it was surely undesirable to perpetuate. Many candidates would find themselves cheated out of the colours which they desired if they were assigned to the first claimant, and in the event of a competition for a particular colour, the Returning Officer would have a difficulty in deciding the question. Some candidates, moreover, presented themselves more on personal than on party grounds, and it would be hard that they should have to adopt party colours, or give offence to their party by refusing to accept them. There might, too, be several candidates of the same shade of politics.

§ SIR DOMINIC CORRIGAN
said, he trusted the Amendment would not be extended to Ireland. The Party Processions Act was about, on good grounds, to be repealed, and to adopt colours in election contests would act very injuriously.

§ SIR HENRY SELWIN-IBBETSON
said, as he understood the proposition of his hon. Friend (Mr. Cawley), it was simply to meet a practical difficulty affecting a certain class of voters, and had no reference to parties. In rural populations many who could not read or write were able to distinguish colours, and it was to prevent their making a mistake at the time of voting that the Amendment was proposed. He did not 1951 believe the result would be the attaching a particular creed to a particular colour, but rather the reverse, for the colours would be assigned by the Returning Officer, not by the candidates.

§ MR. BERESFORD HOPE
said, he was of opinion that had colours been used in the "test ballot" among hon. Members opposite last year, a larger percentage would have voted as they intended. Without such assistance the average householder, excited and naturally nervous, but unusually nervous on being shut up in a dark cell to exercise the franchise under a Bill bristling with penalties, would infallibly make a mistake.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, that the hon. Gentleman, entertaining such a horror of the Bill, had conjured up darkness as an additional terror. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE: Mental darkness.] He, however, believed that the Bill would remove a good deal of darkness both from electors and representatives. Colours would excite an inconvenient competition. [Mr. BERESFORD HOPE: Ballot for them.] It was a sufficient answer to the suggestion that an Irish candidate of Orange politics might, as the result of the ballot, be saddled with the green. A considerable number of persons, moreover, were colour blind. As to the mistakes alluded to by the hon. Member for Cambridge University, they occurred, as far as he could ascertain, under the Schedule of last year's Bill, and were entirely remedied by the present Schedule.

§ MR. R. N. FOWLER
said, he should support the Amendment, because it would help illiterate voters to avoid mistakes in the ballot box. It ought to have a trial, at least until the happy results anticipated by the right hon. Gentleman through this Bill were arrived at.

§ MR. LASLETT
said, without the use of colours not a few electors would certainly suffer disfranchisement under a Bill of that character.

§ MR. J. S. HARDY
said, he would give an instance of the difficulty alluded to by the hon. Member for Penryn (Mr. R. N. Fowler). It was, that at the late school board election for Westminster some persons made mistakes in the use of their ballot papers. The use of colours would lessen the chance of these mishaps and confusion.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he must repeat that he should reserve till the proper time his defence of the way in which the Government proposed to provide for illiterate voters. He understood that on some future occasion one or two hon. Gentlemen would move that the Returning Officer be instructed to mark the ballot paper for any person who was unable to read and write; but the question now under discussion was, whether colours were good in themselves, and he felt persuaded that they were not.

§ MR. CAWLEY
said, he could not think the right hon. Gentleman had met the difficulty, for he (Mr. Cawley) had yet to learn that simple black was not a colour; and the Bill proposed that all the names should be printed in black. Parties would long continue to distinguish themselves by means of colours, in spite of all the Acts of Parliament which might be passed; and there was, in his opinion, no reason why the candidates' names should not be printed in the colours adopted by their respective parties. This Amendment being desired by and in favour of a large body of electors, he should certainly press it to a division.

§ MR. M'LAREN
said, that colours for candidates were unknown in Scotland, and must express his belief, that if the plan proposed by the hon. Member for Salford were adopted it would tend to increase the perplexities of nervous voters.

§ MR. STEVENSON
said, that a great difficulty not yet touched upon by any hon. Member would arise from the limited number of colours available, and from the fact that every candidate's name ought to be printed in a different colour, as it would be necessary to distinguish between candidates belonging to the same party. The resources of a provincial printing office with regard to colour-printing would soon be exhausted, and he was perfectly certain that the adoption of the Amendment would cause great trouble and annoyance.

§ MR. R. N. FOWLER
said, the present Member for Bristol when contesting an election with him some years ago, not only adopted the blue colour which ordinarily denoted the Liberal party, but added yellow to it.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
remarked that the hon. Member for Bristol lost the election.

§ MR. CRAWFORD
hoped the hon. Member did not mix the blue and the yellow together and become green.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
moved the insertion, after Rule 9, of the following words:— If any candidate nominated daring the time appointed for the Election is withdrawn in pursuance of this Act, the returning officer shall give public notice of the name of such candidate and the names of the persons who subscribed the nomination paper of such candidate, as well as of the candidates who stood nominated or were elected.

MR. KAY-SHUTTLEWORTH
moved, in page 19, line 13, to insert the word "immediately," before the word "before." There was some doubt about the operation of the clause as it stood, which, he thought, could be effectually remedied by the proposed Amendment.

§ MR. E. POTTER
moved in page 19, line 19, to leave out from "the" to "box," inclusive, in order to insert the following:— Every elector who is not incapacitated by blindness or other physical cause, shall record his vote at an Election in a voting compartment constructed and arranged according to the ground plan thereof hereunder drawn (that is to say); Each elector shall be admitted alone by a constable into the passage i, leading to the voting compartment e, and after stating his number, name, and description to the presiding officer at the desk at k, in the presence of, and with voice audible to the clerks and agents to the candidates, the elector shall enter the voting compartment e alone, and the door thereof shall be fastened outside by a constable. The presiding officer shall then give to the elector in the voting compartment the ballot paper, by passing the same to him through a slit six inches long and one inch high, 1954 cut in the side of the voting compartment next adjoining to the ballot box, and after having marked such ballot paper, the elector shall fold the same so as to conceal such mark, and shall return such paper through the slit above mentioned to the presiding officer, who, after satisfying himself of the identity of the ballot paper, by looking at the official mark on the back thereof, shall immediately deposit such paper in the ballot box. The elector shall leave the voting compartment immediately after voting, and shall take his departure through the exit door at x, which, after he has passed through, shall be locked on the inside by the constable before any other elector is permitted to enter the voting compartment. GROUND PLAN—a, the Returning Officer; b, b, b, b, b, b, b, b, b, b, b, the clerks and agents; d, the ballot box; e, a marking compartment 6½ feet in height, 4 feet square, with glass above 6 feet; f, desk 3 feet high; g, the door; h, a small slit, 6 inches long and 1 inch in height, level with the top of the ballot box and table in compartment; i, i, entrance passage; k, desk of presiding officer; and "Exit x."

MR. SCOURFIELD
said, he thought they had now reached the pith and marrow of the Bill, because if, as was stated, the measure would produce great moral and political results by mechanical means, such proposals as that now made must be most important. The hon. Member for Carlisle had proposed a scheme of this kind, and might say— Si quid novisti rectius istis, Candidus imperti. With regard to the plan, he thought it somewhat remarkable that in the first line of the proposal, as well as in the last, the "constable" came in. That feature, indeed, pervaded every passage in the Bill. What would be the end of all those legal proceedings it might be impossible to say; but he anticipated that there must be a large increase in the number of prisons, for at every turn the elector would find himself delivered into the custody of a constable. Unless some mechanical means could be devised to secure perfect secrecy, the whole of the Bill would fall to the ground, and therefore the proposal ought to be debated during the whole evening.

§ MR. BRADY
said, he was of opinion that in Ireland, where there were sometimes 48 dragoons to one elector, a single constable would be regarded as a great improvement.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he hoped the hon. Member for Carlisle would be satisfied with having put upon the Paper a proposal from which the Returning Officers might gather suggestions, but the details of which, however ingenious, could not be embodied in an Act of Parliament. Another objection to the hon. Member's plan was, that when the voter's paper was taken from him, he would not be sure that it would go into the box.

§ MR. BERESFORD HOPE
said, he was of opinion that the hon. Member who had given the Committee a ground plan ought to be called upon to accompany it by elevations and sections. The ground plan certainly contained some peculiarities. There was "Entrance i," and eye in Germany and elsewhere was used to represent omniscience. Then there was "Exit x," and x was the "unknown quantity" which represented that the voter's personality had made its exit and been totally destroyed. His hon. Friend (Mr. Scourfield) had objected that the clause began and ended with the constable. But the constable also culminated in the middle, for the voter was to go into this dreary dungeon 6½ feet in height and 4 feet square, the door was to be fastened outside by a constable; a constable was to show him in, and another was to show him out. He (Mr. Beresford Hope) must say that the hon. Member for Carlisle was entitled to the credit of proposing the first practical scheme for insuring entire secrecy by mechanical means, and yet he was now snubbed out, and the first illustrated Motion he (Mr. Beresford Hope) had ever seen on their Votes was discountenanced.

§ MR. F. S. POWELL
wished to know whether it was in accordance with the rules of Parliament to insert a ground plan in a statute? He knew of no Act in which a ground plan had ever become a matter of enactment.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
moved, to insert in Rule 23, page 19, line 21, after "paper," the words— And fold it up so as to conceal his vote, and shall then put his ballot paper, so folded up, into the ballot-box.

§ MR. CRAWFORD
, in moving in Rule 24, line 1, to leave out "shall" and in same line, after "Act," insert— Or (if the poll be taken on Saturday) of any voter who declares that he is of the Jewish persuasion, and objects on religious grounds to vote in manner prescribed by this Act, shall said, the object of his Amendment was to secure for members of the Jewish religion every opportunity of recording their votes on a Saturday.

§ MR. BERESFORD HOPE
said, he had not the slightest idea of disfranchising such an eminent race of people as the Jews, but he wished the hon. Member for the City of London would give the Committee some explanation of the manner in which he intended to work this method of voting. Why was not the indulgence proposed to be shown to the religious scruples of a Jew not to be extended to a person physically incapacitated from voting? How would the scruples of a Jew be got over by his directing somebody to do that which he would not do himself?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
explained that the rule would apply equally to persons physically incapacitated and to Jews.

§ MR. CRAWFORD
said, he could assure the hon. Member for Cambridge University that, although the religious scruples of a Jew would be offended by his scratching out the name of a candidate on a Saturday, they would not interfere with his going to the poll and directing what names should be struck out.

§ MR. BERESFORD HOPE
said, in that case, he could not understand why, if members of that ancient religion should be allowed to vote orally, the same indulgence should not be extended to Christians.

§ MR. M. CHAMBERS
said, he understood that the Government were about to accept this proposal in favour of one particular class of Her Majesty's subjects, and he should like to know how they were going to deal with other religious classes who might have scruples against voting on other days. He knew many persons in high position who would never commence anything on a Friday, and how were they to be provided for? He would, therefore, propose that, in place of making this special exception in favour of the Jews, no election should be held on a Saturday. If the proposed concession were granted, it would have 1957 to be extended to persons who wanted to go out of town on the Saturday.

§ ALDERMAN SIR DAVID SALOMONS
said, that as he had just entered the House during the course of the discussion on the Amendment, he thought it would savour of cowardice or indifference if he did not express an opinion upon it. In his opinion it was of the greatest importance, because it affected the religious scruples of a large class of fellow-subjects who wished to give expression to their opinions at elections, and who were as distinguished for their loyalty as any class of the community. It was difficult to reason on religious scruples; but if the doctrines inculcated among the Jews led them to entertain conscientious objections to writing on the Saturday, he thought the Committee ought to grant the boon that was asked for.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he understood that the object of the clause was to meet the scruples of many persons of the Jewish persuasion, who considered that they were forbidden by their religious law from writing on the Saturday. They did not consider they were precluded from oral voting on the Saturday, or from going up with their voting papers; but it was their belief that they were forbidden to write. Although that was a scruple which some might scarcely appreciate, still it had been the rule of Parliament to consider conscientious objections when they did not interfere with a man fulfilling his duties as a citizen, particularly in relation to the body with which he was formerly connected, the Society of Friends.

§ MR. GORDON
said, that, if allowances of this sort were to be made for persons who had conscientious scruples, some allowance ought to be equally made for those who had conscientions objections to secret voting.

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
, in moving as an Amendment, in page 19, line 25, to omit the word "physical," said, that the Committee had shown a strong disposition to provide the greatest possible facilities for enabling the voter to express his opinion as freely as he could, but there were many hon. Members on both sides of the House who were of opinion that the Ballot, worked in the manner proposed by the Bill, would tend 1958 to the disfranchisement of great numbers of electors. It was a singular fact that so far as they had any experience of elections under the Ballot, they had resulted in a large number of the electoral body not recording their votes at all. In Prance, for instance, the abstention from voting had been peculiar and enormous, and even when questions of the greatest importance were before the people, a large proportion of the electors had failed to avail themselves of their right to vote. In this country, also, the metropolitan school board elections showed that only a small portion of the electoral body exercised their privilege, compared with the number of those who voted in other elections under the system of open voting. For instance, at the election for the Marylebone division in March last, the number of persons polled was only 3,996, although the number of ratepayers, allowing for duplicate assessments, might be set down at 58,000; and at the election for the Finsbury division, on the 3rd instant, out of about 60,000 ratepayers, only 8,408 persons polled. He thought that one reason for this abstention on the part of so many of the electors was a fear of handling the voting papers, and a certain feeling of want of capacity for filling them up properly, for every lawyer knew that forms which were so clearly expressed that it seemed almost impossible to make a mistake in filling them up, wore constantly filled up erroneously. It was, at all events, a fact that a considerable number of votes had been lost in this manner. In the Marylebone election, to which he had before referred, 4 per cent of the total number who voted—166 out of 3,996—lost their votes by not attending to the specific instructions that were given, and in one of the polling districts of St. Pancras as large a proportion as 10 per cent of those who voted filled up their voting papers so incorrectly that the votes were necessarily rejected. In Finsbury a similar result was recorded, and it might be said that among the less educated portions of a constituency at least 10 per cent of the votes would be lost in this manner. He had seen a Returning Officer on the subject, who told him that at some of the booths the proportions of invalidated papers reached only 1, 2, or 3 per cent; but then some 1959 discretion had been exercised by deputy Returning Officers, who had admitted papers not quite conformable to the instructions, but which still, in their judgment, indicated clearly what the intention of the voter was. But to the question—"How would you act in the case of a Parliamentary election?" the Returning Officer replied that, as heavy penalties would attach to any departure from the rules laid down, the strict letter of those rules must be adhered to, and hence it followed, as he said before, that the general invalidation of inaccurate voting papers would probably reach the high average of 10 per cent. If it was unavoidable that the Returning Officer and the deputy Returning Officer should exercise some such discretion in deciding what votes were good or bad, the objection entertained to the marking of papers by the Returning Officers was removed; and, moreover, they were to be sworn to secrecy, and to be subjected to heavy penalties if they made use of their powers for the advantage of any candidate. On the other hand, the consequence of refusing them such powers would be that a considerable number of timid or incapable electors would be virtually disfranchised for want of assistance. It should also be borne in mind that the preceding statistics he had quoted from the school board elections might have been more unfavourable still if it had not been that the voting at those elections was not carried on under strict secrecy. A right hon. Friend of his had told him that when he went up to vote at the school board election, a noble Duke in the next compartment called out to him—"I say, show me how to fill up the paper"—and he did so in the presence, and with the consent, of the presiding officer. But no such opportunities of assistance were to be allowed under this Bill. He believed, however, that it was only just and fair that not only those who were physically disabled, but others who felt themselves unable to fill up the voting paper properly, should be allowed to call upon the Returning Officer for assistance; and he hoped, therefore, that the Committee would accept the Amendment, for there could be no doubt that otherwise not only would a large number of voters be deterred from going to the poll, but a large additional number would suffer practical disfranchisement on account 1960 of their filling up the voting papers irregularly.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he was of opinion that, in its present form, the Amendment would be superfluous, and defeat the object the hon. Member had in view, because the words "incapacitated by blindness or other cause" might be interpreted to mean any sort of incapacity, sui generis; and if his hon. Friend wished to carry out all that he had described, it would be necessary to provide that the voting paper of an elector might be filled up for him "upon application to the Returning Officer." In regard to the example of the noble Duke at the school board election, that might be explained by the well-known fact that Dukes were of an unassuming nature, and were always glad to acquire information for the proper discharge of their duties; but he must point out that the falling-off in the number of votes registered at the school board elections was not due to the difficulties of the system under which the votes were registered, but to the diminution of the public interest in the question of education, because, at the first election, the numbers polled in the London districts were almost equal to those of a Parliamentary election, and even in the recent cases they were considerably in excess of the average number of votes polled at municipal contests. No doubt there were some arguments in favour of the Amendment; but he thought that they were outweighed by the fact that in order to make the proposal of his hon. Friend effective, it would be necessary that the Returning Officer should record the vote of any elector who wished him to do so, and that would place a power in the hands of that officer which he believed would be felt by the country to be objectionable. There could be no substantial check as to the manner in which the Returning Officer could mark the voting paper, and the result of leaving him such discretionary powers would be that the candidates and the constituency would feel that the election was too much in his hands. He would not deny that some votes might be lost in the first election under this Bill, and until the country had become accustomed to the 1961 new system; but it would be a sort of educational test in itself, and he believed that in a very short time the simple method provided in the Bill would be generally understood. His hon. Friend had stated that at school board elections the deputy Returning Officer had the power of accepting or rejecting improperly filled-up voting papers. No such power, however, was given by this Bill. Every paper was given to the Returning Officer, and it was for him and his assistant, upon adding up the votes in the presence of the agents of the candidates, to decide what votes should be struck out.

§ MR. STEPHEN CAVE
said, that he feared the right hon. Gentleman was too sanguine in supposing that the difficulties of the new system of voting would become familiar to the country after a single election. How many people wrote their names in wrong places on legal documents, notwithstanding explicit instructions? Only the other day he had received from Brighton information that at the last election of Guardians for that town, out of 7,389 votes recorded, 3,861 were valid, and 3,528 were rejected, because the voting papers had been improperly filled up. If householders were unable to fill up a paper properly in the quiet of their homes, how could they be expected to do so in a polling-box during the excitement of a Parliamentary contest?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
suggested that the reason must have been that the names of persons who were not candidates were on the lists.

§ MR. STEPHEN CAVE
The lists were the ordinary printed lists. The fact was, that people not accustomed to write in public were often flurried. He knew a case where a gentleman who had 80 votes for the Asylum for Idiots, having erroneously written the figures opposite the wrong candidate, threw away all his votes at that election. If this was the case with educated people, what would be the result among the mass of country, and even town voters? He was convinced that unless the Amendment was agreed to, a large number of voters would be disfranchised at the first election under the Bill.

§ MR. R. N. FOWLER
said, he would support the Amendment for the reason that under the Bill it was indispensable that great confidence should be placed 1962 in the Returning Officers, and he could see no objection to allowing them to assist the voters who required their assistance; otherwise they might have in that House, after the next election, 20 or 30 hon. Members not entitled to sit in it.

§ SIR DOMINIC CORRIGAN
said, he would remind the Committee that blindness did not always depend on physical causes. The omission of the word physical would leave the words "blindness or other causes." That would leave such a wide discretion to the Returning Officer that he would be cognizant of the vote of every man who applied to him for information. He, therefore, thought it would be better to omit the words "or other physical cause" altogether, and leave the words "if any person is incapacitated by blindness." If the words "other causes" were retained, the causes ought to be specified.

§ MR. GOLDNEY
said, the point at issue involved a balance of difficulties. Was it wise to authorize the Returning Officer, who was bound to secrecy, to mark the ballot papers of people who declared themselves incapacitated, or would they disfranchise 10 per cent of the constituency? It appeared that at a school board election in the poorer districts 10 per cent of the voters who attempted to vote were disqualified through having filled up their voting papers wrongly. They must not only consider this risk at Parliamentary elections, but remember that probably among the poorer voters, 30 or 40 per cent would be deterred from ever going to the poll owing to the difficulties of voting, and so that they might not appear ignorant persons, whose votes were thrown away through their ignorance.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, that not the Returning Officer, but the presiding officer, would have to fill up the voting papers. There would be large numbers of these presiding officers, and though no doubt they would be respectable men, he did not think it would be satisfactory to the country that not only the votes of a large number of voters should be known to the presiding officers, but that these officials should really vote for the electors.

MR. STAVELEY HILL
said, that at the school board election for Marylebone, when he went up to vote, a gentleman who lived in Eaton Square conferred with 1963 him as to the place in which he should write his name in the ballot paper. Why should not a voter be able to ask the presiding officer—"Where am I to write my name?" When a voter was inops consilii through nervousness or ignorance, the impediment to his voting was quite as great as though it were a physical impediment.

§ MR. C. DALRYMPLE
said, it was a serious thing that any measure should pass this House, which even for a time should disfranchise any number of voters, as he had always feared the measure under consideration would. It must have happened to the right hon. Gentleman, as it had to himself, to see many men make their mark, and he must have noticed how nervous they were in doing so simple a thing. He had to pay a large number of Militiamen every year, and it was quite remarkable to see how nervous many of them were in making their mark, even under the direction of an officer.

§ COLONEL BARTTELOT
said, that the right hon. Gentleman had stated that if this Amendment were adopted a large number of persons would avail themselves of the privilege which would then be conceded to them. But these were the very men who otherwise would not be able to vote at all, and he wished to ask hon. Gentlemen below the gangway whether they desired to disfranchise those persons?

§ MR. J. S. HARDY
, in supporting the Amendment, said, that since the Amendment of the hon. and learned Member for Oxford (Mr. Harcourt) had been carried, it would be in the power of the voter to show his ballot paper both before and after he had marked his vote. If that were so, there was no good reason why he should not be permitted to show the paper while marking his vote.

§ MR. M'CARTHY DOWNING
said, he should like to know whether the hon. Member for Westminster intended that the Returning Officer should fill up the voting papers of drunken persons?

§ MR. W. H. SMITH
said, he had no wish whatever to provide facilities for drunken men, but only for a class which, as all hon. Members connected with the legal profession knew, existed in a very large proportion in the constituencies of the country—people who could not fill up a paper without assistance, even though the directions were of the most precise description. He felt that there 1964 was an objection to putting this power in the hands of the Returning Officer; still we had to choose under the Bill between two evils, and if Parliament provided that such persons should vote by ballot, it ought to take care that proper facilities were given them. The Committee had already given the Jews facilities for voting on Saturdays, or whenever they thought fit to claim the right by the assistance of the Returning Officer; and they were bound to give the same facilities to all other persons who honestly declared that they could not vote otherwise.

§ MR. DENISON
said, that the subject of discussion immediately under the notice of the Committee was the retention of the word "physical," but the discussion had widened so as to relate to every kind of incapacity. He did not think that any portion of the Bill exceeded in importance that to which the Amendment related, for if the Bill passed into law in its present shape, and it was found in the end that a large portion of electors would be disfranchised, the feeling on their part would be one of disappointment, which would ripen into one of anger, to be followed by resentment. That resentment would fall first on the authors of the Bill, and afterwards on Parliament, which, while professing to give the broadest and most unrestricted franchise by mechanical means, would deprive 25 per cent of the electors of all possibility of voting. ["No, no!"] Hon. Gentlemen said "No," but he was afraid that highly intellectual men could not put themselves in the position of those whose minds were blank. In the voting paper there were no fewer than 12 separate places where crosses might be made, irrespectively of the lines; and if the lines were taken in there were 13 more. There were, therefore, 25 chances that a man would mark in the wrong place. Would it not be better and more rational, then, to allow the voters to call upon the presiding officer, assisted by the agents, to put a mark in the proper place, than to exclude them altogether from the possibility of voting?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, the hon. Member who had just sat down had suggested that the difficulty would be obviated by enabling the Returning Officer, checked by the agents, to mark the voting paper. But if that were allowed, 1965 the Bill would cease to be a Ballot Bill. It was quite true the Committee had not put a penalty on the voter for showing his ballot paper, but they had directed, by the 2nd clause, that he should not display it, and if the hon. Member's Amendment were carried, it would altogether nullify that decision.

§ MR. WHEELHOUSE
said, that he could understand the difficulty suggested by the question involved in the Amendment, so long as it was determined to carry out the Ballot by voting papers as distinguished from balls. It was perfectly clear that in the present state of education in England a very large percentage of the votes would be rejected merely because the voters would not know how to mark their papers properly. The course which the right hon. Gentleman supported would disfranchise a considerable number of his own constituents, and a still greater number of voters in the constituency which he (Mr. Wheelhouse) represented. He, however, objected to any disfranchisement, and contended that every man who had a vote, and had mental capacity to vote, should be allowed to do so. He (Mr. Wheelhouse) was lame, and in a crowd could not go up to the polling-booth, although no man living was more anxious to vote than he was. Why should he be disfranchised? Why should a man who was blind, or deaf and dumb, be disfranchised?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, the speech of the hon. Gentleman who had just sat down ought to have been delivered at an earlier period of the evening, when the Committee were discussing the clause which provided that any elector who was lame, blind, or otherwise physically disabled should obtain assistance in recording his vote.

§ MR. CAWLEY
said, he could not see why a man who was physically blind should have the privilege of voting, while a man who, through his incapacity to read and write, was equally blind in respect of the proper exercise of the franchise, should be prevented from voting.

§ MR. SALT
said, there was a great practical difficulty in the proper settlement of the question under notice, inasmuch as a very large number of voters were absolutely incapable from physical causes of filling up these voting papers. Take a constituency of 1966 2,000. At an election, probably only 1,500 of those electors would vote, the remainder being physically incapacitated from doing so. What would be the opinion of that constituency on such a result? They would at once say that something was radically wrong. And it would be impossible to persuade them that under such circumstances a wrong had not been done to them. He did not mean to say that his hon. Friend the Member for Westminster had met this difficulty, and he (Mr. Salt) did not know how it was to be met, but it undoubtedly deserved the most serious consideration of the Committee.

VISCOUNT GALWAY
said, he knew several instances at the last election of persons who through lameness or old age could not get out of their carriage at the polling-booth. Their votes were taken by a poll clerk who went to their carriage for that purpose. He (Viscount Galway) wished to know whether these parties were to be disfranchised under this Bill?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he was very much of opinion that the votes of the persons referred to by the noble Lord were void. The object of the rule under discussion was to give assistance in voting to those who were blind or otherwise physically incapacitated; and with regard to that object, he believed persons with physical infirmities would be immensely advantaged by the Bill, because elections would be more quietly conducted. Hon. Gentlemen opposite strangely exaggerated the number who they thought would be disfranchised, and, apparently, no argument of his would convince them to the contrary. Care, however, no doubt, would be taken by their friends that all these persons received preliminary instructions, so that the cases of mistake would be very few.

§ DR. BALL
said, he had, as assessor, taken the vote of a person unable to go up to the poll at his own house, and he had known this done by others; nor did he see any reason why the vote or the election should thereby be vitiated. Of course, a presiding officer would not leave the booth for such a purpose at a time when there was any great demand for the use of the booth. In excluding those votes, therefore, the Government appeared to value secrecy more than the expression of opinion. In large English constituencies the omission of a few 1967 votes might be immaterial; but in boroughs like Portarlington, where an election had twice been decided by a majority of one or two, the case was different.

MR. SCOURFIELD
said, it was but justice that after the concession made to members of the Jewish persuasion, in which he quite concurred, equal facilities should be given to other persons who asked for them.

§ MR. D. DALRYMPLE
said, he could see no necessity for the provision involved in the Amendment.

§ SIR LAWRENCE PALK
said, that the question before the Committee was, how were the physically infirm voters to get to the poll? Circumstances might arise in which there would be great excitement, when it would be extremely difficult for even the most stalwart to record their votes. At present it was quite competent to poll a lame man; but under the Bill anyone who assisted a voter in any way was liable to heavy penalties, to which nobody of prudence would expose himself.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, that special provision had already been made for assisting those physically disqualified, and he must protest against the extension of the provision to anybody who might wish to profit by it.

MR. GATHORNE HARDY
said, he had heard rather startling statements made during the evening, especially the dictum of the hon. Member for Dublin, that blindness was not a physical infirmity. [Sir DOMINIC CORRIGAN: No.] He did not wish to misinterpret the hon. Gentleman, but he certainly said it was absurd to speak of "other physical causes," because blindness was not always a physical cause. [Sir DOMINIC CORRIGAN: Yes.] The hon. Gentleman admitted having said that, which seemed to him much the same thing. With regard to the Amendment, however, it was well known that besides those unable to read or write, there were many who, describing themselves as "no scholars," did not like to rely on an imperfect knowledge of reading and writing. At present they could vote vivâ voce; but under the Bill they would be sent into a recess with a paper containing a number of printed names, of which they would know nothing. The alphabetical arrangement of the names would not assist them, and they might vote for 1968 the wrong man, which vote might decide the election. He had no desire to hinder gentlemen from voting who from religious scruples could not use a pencil on the Sabbath; but if in London, where there were hundreds of Jewish voters, the presiding officer were empowered to determine whether they were Jews or not, why should he not be likewise authorized to decide what other voters were incapable of voting? This ought not to be a party question, but merely a question as to whether persons who could now vote intelligibly should be in future prevented from doing so. He entreated the Committee to consider whether a man ought not to be allowed to ask the presiding officer to enable him to vote for the candidates whom he wished to be returned.

§ MR. JAMES
said, he agreed with the previous speaker that this ought not to be a party question; but if the proposal under consideration were adopted the presiding officer would in many cases have the power of returning any candidate he pleased. With regard to the members of the Hebrew community, they would see what the presiding officer was doing, and be able to check him if necessary; but in filling up the papers of electors who could not read or write, the presiding officer might decide the votes in accordance with his own political opinions, and, at all events, a portion of the constituency would be sure to suspect him of having done so, however impartially he might have discharged his duty. It was most undesirable to confer such an enormous power on every presiding officer.

§ MR. ASSHETON CROSS
said, the hon. and learned Gentleman who had just sat down had confused a principle with a matter of detail. The principle under discussion was, whether a person who was unable to read and write, or who thought he had not the power of voting properly, should have the right of voting and be protected by the law from voting wrongly. He could have understood the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster), if he had stated as a principle that a man who was unable to read and write should lose his vote, because it was absolutely necessary to presevere absolute secrecy; but that principle had already been infringed in the case of the Jews. Then, why should a distinction be made between a voter 1969 whom religious scruples prevented from filling up his paper, and one who from physical or other causes were unable to do so? The Australian Acts, he might mention, contained a provision similar to that now proposed. As to the matter of detail, he wished to offer a suggestion to the right hon. Gentleman. He felt quite sure that before an election, there would not be the slightest difficulty in getting the candidates to agree to appoint some person who should be sworn to secrecy and placed in the polling-booth, to fill up the papers of such voters as were unable to vote for themselves.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, the hon. and learned Gentleman was under a misapprehension, for the effect of the Amendment already made would be to allow the Jews to break the secrecy only so far as one person was concerned; whereas the proposal under discussion had virtually no limit. He further believed, with reference to the last suggestion of the hon. and learned Gentleman, it would be extremely difficult, and in many cases impossible to arrive at the result which he deemed so easy of attainment.

§ MR. COLLINS
said, he was sorry the right hon. Gentlemen had not acceded to the reasonable proposal now under discussion. He had always been favourable to wholesale enfranchisement, and therefore he opposed the provision of the Bill which was now under discussion on the ground that it would practically disfranchise at least a third of the electors in the kingdom. If it were proposed to enable Jews and blind persons to call in the aid of the Returning Officer to fill up their ballot papers, for the life of him he could not see why the privilege should be denied to voters generally, and particularly to those who belonged to the poorer classes.

§ MR. GORDON
said, the subject was one of importance, well worthy of discussion. The voters in the United Kingdom were estimated at 2,300,000, and it was not unreasonable to say that 10 per cent of them were unable to read or write, or did so so imperfectly as to have great difficulty in voting according to provisions of the Bill. The Committee were, therefore, considering how 230,000 electors should exercise the franchise. The hon. and learned Member for 1970 Taunton (Mr. James) objected to the proposal of the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith) on the ground that the Returning Officers could not be trusted to discharge the duty; but that objection disclosed one of the greatest vices of the Bill. If the Returning Officers could not be trusted so far, how could they be entrusted with the performance of the other important duties which the Bill proposed to put upon them? The hon. and learned Member for Taunton defended the proposal that Jews were to be entitled to call in the assistance of the Returning Officer, on the ground that they would be able to see that their votes were correctly recorded, but he seemed to forget that there were illiterate Jews as well as illiterate Christians. If the Committee were willing to accord this privilege to illiterate Jews, why should it not be extended to illiterate persons of another, or no religious body? A great deal had been made by the supporters of this measure of the practice in Australia, where the Ballot formed part of the electoral system; but it seemed to be forgotten that in that pattern colony any voter who was blind or unable to write might have the assistance of the Returning Officer when recording his vote. He trusted the Committee would adopt the proposal of the hon. Member for Westminster.

§ MR. DODSON
said, that an illiterate voter must be illiterate in an extraordinary degree if he were unable to find out how he was to vote. Moreover, it must be taken that the words "physical cause" meant paralysis, or some such real cause, and not drunkenness, which, though a physical cause, was but a passing one, and was one that should not be recognized. It was proposed to omit the word "physical," fearing that its retention would disfranchise voters who might be incapacitated from voting in the manner required by the Bill. It was justly urged on the other side, that by omitting that word they would open too wide a door, and place too much in the power of the Returning Officer. The discussion appeared to him to turn very much on the case of the illiterate voter, who mistrusted his competency to distinguish the place where he should mark his ballot paper. He would, therefore, venture to suggest that the Committee should retain the word "physical" on the right hon. Gentleman 1971 in charge of the Bill undertaking that he would consider, before bringing up the Report, whether or not he could introduce words in the section which might meet the difficulty.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, the effect of the Amendment confessedly would be that the presiding officer would have to fill up the voting paper for anybody who asked him to do so. That, as his hon. Friend (Mr. Dodson) said, was opening far too wide a door. An illiterate man must, indeed, be very illiterate if he could not fill up the ballot paper, especially with the instruction he would receive from agents and political friends before entering the polling-booth. As to the suggestion of his hon. Friend, he should be able to deal with it better when he understood to what class of persons his hon. Friend referred. In his opinion, the words "blindness or any other physical cause" met every reasonable case. The case of persons of deficient education was met by the form of the voting paper.

VISCOUNT GALWAY
asked whether old age was a physical cause entitling the voter to the help of the presiding officer; and, whether the presiding officer could take the vote of such a man if he were unable to enter the polling-booth?

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, the rule would meet the case of a voter who, from old age, was unable to write his name; but the case of a Returning Officer leaving the polling-booth and going into the street and taking the vote would not be met by the Bill. He believed it was now illegal for the Returning Officer to do such a thing; but if it was considered desirable that he should do so, provision must be made for it by a new rule.

§ MR. ASSHETON CROSS
said, there might be 12 candidates at the election for the City of London, and it would not be so easy for an illiterate voter to be sure that he had put his mark opposite the name of the right candidate. Could the right hon. Gentleman inform the Committee approximately what percentage of voters could not read and write? If so, the Committee would have a guarantee that the right hon. Gentleman had considered the subject to which he (Mr. Assheton Cross) had called attention last year.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he thought the hon. and learned Gentleman rather exigeant in expecting that upon a Ballot debate he would come provided with the most difficult statistics which could be asked for with regard to education. He was perfectly unable to answer the question how many adults could read and write; but then he certainly disputed the assumption that persons unable to read and write would be unable to vote. He knew many persons who could not read or write, yet he believed they would be able to give an intelligent vote under the Ballot.

§ MR. ASSHETON CROSS
said, it appeared to him that the Committee might understand that the right hon. Gentleman had not in the least considered the question.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he must appeal to the Committee whether this was a fair statement. He had often considered the question whether it was proper to provide for the case of those who could not read or write, and he had stated the reasons which led him to believe it was not proper to do so otherwise than by the form of the paper. What right, therefore, had the hon. and learned Gentleman to make that statement?

§ MR. P. WYKEHAM MARTIN
said, he would bring under the notice of the Committee the case of a voter who had recorded his vote for him when in his 100th year, and must complain that no provision was made in the Bill for taking the vote of such a man through the agency of the Returning Officer, instead of obliging him to go into a booth and recording it.

§ MR. GREENE
said, he looked upon the Bill for a long time as dying, but that evening he thought it must be regarded as absolutely dead. Let him suppose that Forster, Fordyce, and Funkum were candidates at an election for a borough, was it not extremely likely that mistakes would be made by many members of the working classes with respect to recording their votes for any of those candidates? It was perfectly certain that such mistakes must occur, and the Bill therefore, in his opinion, ought no longer to be called a Ballot Bill, but a happy-go-lucky Bill, because it was quite clear that the voting under it must be haphazard. The right hon. Gentleman was unable to inform the 1973 House how many voters could read and write; but hon. Members should not forget that these men were the same flesh and blood as themselves, and that the right hon. Gentleman was not dealing fairly with them. For his own part, he always thought that that wretched Ballot Bill could not pass, and he felt more and more confirmed in that opinion. Hon. Gentlemen on the other side of the House must be aware that they had never whipped so dead a horse as on the present occasion.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he wished merely to observe, in reply to the remarks of the hon. Gentleman, that there was not one of his constituents who, whether he could or could not read or write, did not know the difference between Forster and Funkum.

§ MR. CLAY
said, he thought the case of a voter 100 years old was so exceptional a case that it was not worth while to introduce into the Bill words to meet it. He had himself, on a former occasion, introduced a Bill conferring the franchise in what he deemed to be the right way; but he must say that if a voter were unable to use the very simple paper which would be put into his hand under the present Bill, he (Mr. Clay) was somewhat indifferent as to whether such a man recorded his vote or not. If his vote were of the slightest service, he might prepare himself to record it.

§ DR. BALL
said, he understood that the voter was to receive his voting paper from an official, and would then have to deposit it in a box; but unless something was done to explain it to him, he did not know how persons who did not speak English, as was the case in the Southern and Western parts of Ireland to a great extent, could make out who it was for whom they were about to vote. There were in Ireland a large number of men who did not speak English at all, and a still greater number who spoke it only imperfectly.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, that if the hon. and learned Member would examine the Bill, he would find that in the 32nd page provision was made that the directions as to the mode of voting should be printed in conspicuous characters, and placarded outside every polling station, and every compartment of the polling station. As to the case of Irishmen who did not understand English, such persons would probably 1974 have half-a-dozen interpreters to inform them of the exact meaning of the voting papers.

MR. HENLEY
said, it seemed almost as if there were a wish to disfranchise a great many of the humbler class of voters. Anyone who considered how many people signed their marriage register with a mark must know that there was a great number of men who could neither read nor write; and what possible harm could it do to anybody if such a man said—"I can't understand this paper; pray help me?" It would be the man's own wish—his own act. But the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) said such a man should not be helped. They very properly agreed to let in the Jews, because otherwise the Jews would be disfranchised. The blind man, too, was to be let in, because he could not vote under their new system, unless he was helped. On what principle, then, was the man who could not read to be shut out? They assumed that out of four or five names he would somehow or other be cunning enough to know the one for whom he wished to vote. Perhaps some persons who could not read might be cunning enough for that, but others might not be so; why, therefore, should they not be allowed to seek help?

§ MR. SYNAN
said, he was prepared to vote against the Amendment, because by striking out the word "physical" before "cause," they would give too wide a discretion to the presiding officer. He was certainly at a loss, however, to understand why a man who was unable to read was to be precluded from asking for any advice in the compartment where he was called upon to vote. The illiterate voter should be placed on the same level as the voter who was suffering under physical incapacity. He should either be allowed to obtain advice or should be excluded altogether.

§ MR. CAVENDISH BENTINCK
said, he differed entirely from the opinion of the hon. Member for East Sussex, that it was an easy task for any man to mark a ballot paper. There were many persons who when they appeared before the Returning Officer became so nervous that they were often unable even to pronounce the name of the candidate they intended to vote for, and gave the name of his opponent. It was also common for the voter not to give the name of his 1975 favourite candidate, but to state the colour for which he intended to vote. A very large proportion of the electors of this country, if this Bill passed, would be compelled to go through some species of rehearsal before they went to the poll. If the right hon. Gentleman (Mr. W. E. Forster) could depend on having an impartial Returning Officer to take the votes and preside at the polling station, why could not an impartial person be appointed, as had been suggested by the hon. and learned Member for Southwest Lancashire (Mr. Cross) to mark the papers of those electors who felt themselves incapable of marking them for themselves? He believed that in Australia the voter who could not read was not prevented from asking for assistance. He had always said that this was a Bill of disfranchisement, and he believed it was intended by the Treasury bench that it should be so. The right hon. Gentleman opposite, with his squeezable nature, had yielded to the suggestion that Jews should be allowed to have their ballot papers marked. Was a Jew of greater value than a Christian? The incapacity had been removed from the Jew; was the Committee going to incapacitate the Christian? He very strongly suspected that there was some great power at work behind the Treasury bench, and that those who sat on it were very much afraid of the next election for the City of London. Therefore they were doing their best to get all Houndsditch and the Minories on their side.

§ MR. ELLICE
said, if the words "or by inability to read or write" were inserted, his objection to the clause as it stood would be removed; but if that were not done he must support the Amendment. In many parts of the North of Scotland, there was a very numerous class who only knew Gaelic, and who would be utterly disfranchised unless some provision such as that to which he referred were made to meet their case.

§ MR. W. E. FORSTER
said, he could only repeat what he had said before, that samples of the voting papers would be placarded outside and inside the booths. He should be very much surprised if the voters who could only speak Gaelic, unless they were very different men from what they were generally represented to be, would not, by 1976 aid of the placarding, and by the information they would get from their friends, be able to fill up the paper properly.

§ MR. CHILDERS
said, that the rule was not the same in all the Australian Colonies. But in Victoria there were three classes of voters under the Electoral Act—the non-residential voter, the residential voter, and the voter in respect of rateable property. The non-residential voter and the residential voter could not vote unless they wrote their names in a book kept for the purpose; but the voter in respect of rateable property was not required to do that, and he might ask the Returning Officer to fill up his paper.

§ MR. COLLINS
said, the right hon. Gentleman had given a most conclusive reason for supporting the Amendment of the hon. Member for Westminster (Mr. W. H. Smith), because, for practical purposes, three-fourths of the Members of that House, being the representatives of boroughs, were returned by persons who voted in right of occupation; and Englishmen ought to have the same privileges as their fellow-subjects in Australia.

§ MR. GOLDNEY
said, that in the Paper with respect to the Ballot in Australia which was supplied to hon. Members, and which he held in his hand, the question was put what provision was made in the case of voters who could not read? It appeared that in Sydney, in Victoria, in Tasmania, and in Queensland—no answer had been received from South Australia—the Returning Officer was permitted to fill the paper in the case of those who could not read.

§ MR. J. S. HARDY
said, he hoped the Government would withdraw the Amendment, as he must contend that after the concession that had been made to Jews, some consideration ought to be extended to those who could not read and write.