MUNICIPAL FRANCHISE (COMPANIES) BILL. (Hansard, 3 March 1905)

§ *SIR ALBERT ROLLIT (Islington, S.)
in moving the Second Reading of this Bill, said he introduced it officially at the instance of the Municipal Corporations' Association, as its President, and of the London Chamber of Commerce, by which it had been drawn, and that it was intended to remedy an injustice in regard to the local franchise. At present the municipal franchise was based upon the occupancy and rating of a building either joint or several irrespective of value, and there had been in recent years a very great change in the conduct of businesses. Businesses were now largely passing from the hands of individuals to the hands of mercantile and trading companies, but those companies could not exercise the municipal franchise and had no voice in the management of local affairs, although they often carried on the largest businesses, had the greatest risk and responsibility, and contributed greatly to local taxation. That was an indefensible position, and these large trading corporations ought to have some voice in local affairs in order that they might protect their own interests and advance the interests of the community. If an individual occupied property he had one vote, and if a private firm occupied property each of the members had a vote, irrespective of the value of the property, provided that he was rated. The proposal of the Bill was simply that where there was taxation there should be representation, and that a trading company in these circumstance should have one vote to be exercised by a responsible officer. 378 The absolute exclusion of mercantile and trading companies from the local affairs of the district in which they traded and had considerable interests was injurious to the community, and on that ground that portion of the Bill was recommended by its promoters to the House. The only other point to which he would draw attention was the extension of the radius in which a person must reside to qualify as a councillor. Under the Municipal Corporations Act of 1882 the councillor was compelled to reside within fifteen miles of the district which he served, but new means of locomotion had revolutionised the radius of residence, and it was now suggested that the limit should be extended. He begged to move that the Bill be read a second time.

§ MR. DALZIEL (Kirkcaldy Burghs)
was sorry he could not allow the Bill to pass without some discussion. No doubt it was a very simple measure. Its object was to give corporations in a local district a right to vote, which they did not possess at the present time. It did appear at the first glance as if some hardship existed in that respect, but he need not remind the House that in their individual capacity shareholders were able to bring local pressure to bear on the local governing authorities. The first objection he had to the Bill was that it proposed to enfranchise property as against the individual. The whole tendency of modern political thought was to give power to the individual rather than to the corporation, because the component parts of the corporation 379 already exercised such power in an individual capacity. In that respect this Bill was, then, a retrograde measure, and he could not give it his support. He would like to point out what possibilities it opened up for all kinds of manœuvring with regard to elections. If it were passed he would undertake to carry any election in any part of the country providing he cared to spend enough money on it. He would immediately form a corporation. He had only to pay £10. In one particular district he might register 500 corporations, and by that means secure enough power to control the whole municipal machinery. This proposal amounted practically to handing over the power of local control to persons with the largest wealth, and under these circumstances he begged to move that the Bill be read a second time that day six months.

§ *MR. HERBERT SAMUEL (Yorkshire, W.R., Cleveland)
said the general idea of the Bill was one to which he did not offer any profound objection, but the measure did contain some very objectionable features. It would give a vote to corporations in respect of any premises they might have in their possession, and consequently under its provisions the Aerated Bread Company, with its fifty or sixty shops in a single district, would be entitled to as many votes and have them under its own control.

§ *SIR ALBERT ROLLIT
May I point out that as in the case of the individual only one vote could be recorded. At any rate that is my intention, and if the Bill does not secure that I will consent to any alteration in that direction.

§ *MR. HERBERT SAMUEL
said the Bill clearly did not provide that, but if 380 the modification were accepted it would of course remove his objection to the Bill as far as that point was concerned. He agreed with the last speaker that the tendency should be to give the voting power to individuals and personalities rather than to corporations which could not exercise to the full the higher functions and duties of citizenship. It should not be the property which voted, it should be the man. It should not be the railway company, or the telephone company, who chose the men to carry on the business of the community, it should be the inhabitants of the district in whom the power should be vested.

§ MR. COURTENAY WARNER (Staffordshire, Lichfield),
looked on the Bill as quite an innovation, and thought it was a rather late hour in the day to spring it upon the House. The point to be considered was not merely the effect the measure would have upon municipal elections. There was a great principle at stake—were corporations qualified to vote? The voting was by ballot; how could a corporation vote by ballot?

§ *SIR ALBERT ROLLIT
An officer is to be appointed under the seal of the company to record the vote.

§ MR. COURTENAY WARNER
said an officer was to be appointed to record the vote, but what security had they that he would vote as directed by the corporation. It was contrary to all ideas of 381 voting that anybody should give somebody else the power of voting for them. That was a principle quite new to law, and he objected to its being passed in this way. As a rule corporations were, or ought to be, represented by their individual members. In towns where large corporations were situated many people interested in them also resided, and were able to exercise enormous influence, and he did not think there was the least necessity for anybody to be anxious lest these rich corporations should be short of influence or power at election times. The tendency to-day was for those great aggregations of wealth to get too much power, and there was no need to give them more. The Bill introduced a now and injurious principle in our electoral system, and on that ground he should vote against it.

§ *MR. SLACK (Hertfordshire, St. Albans)
thought the grievance of the hon. Member in charge of the Bill was imaginary rather than real. Every member of corporations such as the measure referred to already had a vote, and therefore could not claim to be unrepresented. Now he resided in a borough (Holborn) where a large proportion of the councillors lived outside the borough area. But they were all tradesmen carrying on business within the area, and they represented on the council their business interests rather than the interests of those who actually lived and slept in the constituency. They, he submitted, had a very considerable grievance, because such men did not know what the real requirements of the inhabitants were as regards health and sanitation. This Bill was a piece of retrograde legislation. The legislation of this country 382 for the last seventy years had been in an opposite direction to that embodied in the Bill; it had been in the direction of reducing the property qualification, of minimising the influence of property as opposed to personal representation of individual citizens. This Bill would enormously increase the qualification of property, and would give undue influence to brewery, railway, and bread companies. He strongly objected to this plurality of voting, and he also looked on the proposal of the Bill as entirely contrary to the spirit of the ballot, for unless the nominee of the corporation could vote openly there would be no guarantee as to his voting as directed, and if he voted as a nominee the value of the ballot would be impaired. So a system would arise which from many points of view would work mischief throughout the United Kingdom.

§ MR. JOHN BURNS (Battersea)
was surprised that so far-seeing a politician as the hon. Member for South Islington should have brought in a measure of that kind at an hour when it was impossible to subject it to that searching examination which such an innovation demanded. He objected to the Bill very strongly, and was astonished that so advanced a municipal reformer should have lent his weight to it. He could conceive that the Bill, if passed into law, would lead to gerrymandering all over the country and would produce great injustice to the community. He would take but one illustration. When the London County Council wanted to take over forty-eight miles of tramways on the other side of London parties were so evenly divided that the municipalisation of the lines was lost by one vote only. In fact many important questions were 383 determined by a narrow majority, and if they were to give the Aerated Bread Company, Salmon and Gluckstein, the British Tea-Table Company, the Licensed Victuallers' Company (which had tied houses in nearly every constituency), and similar companies this voting power they would simply be handing over the municipal destinies of some of the London boroughs into the hands of impersonal wealth, which, in deciding public questions, would not consider the public weal in the first place. If there was to be an alteration in the franchise it ought to be effected by a public Bill, and in circumstances when the question could be satisfactorily gone into by representative men on both sides of the House. In America they saw the danger arising from great trusts; they saw how they dominated the life of a community. They did not wish that state of affairs extended to this country. Already wealth, in the matter of representation, had a commanding and dominating influence in our elections; the constitution of the House itself afforded proof of it.

§ *SIR ALBERT ROLLIT
said he would be quite satisfied to defer to the feeling of the House on the Bill and would withdraw the Motion for the Second Reading.

§ MR. JOHN BURNS
said he thought that when the hon. Member was seized with the iniquity of his proposal he would adopt that course.