HC Deb 17 November 1926 vol 199 cc1858-9W
Captain A. EVANS

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will request His Majesty's representatives abroad to furnish particulars of any instance where compulsory voting at Parliamentary and local elections is in force or has been tried, and with what degree of success or otherwise?

Sir A. CHAMBERLAIN

I am reluctant to lay upon His Majesty's diplomatic representatives abroad the labour of collecting this information. My hon. and gallant Friend will recollect that in 1922 reports were placed in the Library of the House on the working of systems of compulsory voting in Belgium and the Netherlands, and I have no reason to think that experience elsewhere has furnished very different results.