oom was left for its modification subsequently. As originally
planned, Disraeli's measure would have enlarged the electorate by not
more than 100,000; as amended and carried, it practically doubled the
voting population, raising it from 1,370,793 immediately prior to 1867
to 2,526,423 in 1871.[120] By the act of 1832 the middle classes had
been enfranchised; by that of 1867 political power was thrown in no
small degree into the hands of the masses. Only two large groups of
people remained now outside the pale of political influence, i.e., the
agricultural laborers and the miners.

[Footnote 119: It may be regarded, however, as
taking the place of the L50 rental franchise.]

[Footnote 120: It is to be observed that these
figures are for the United Kingdom as a whole,
embracing the results not merely of the act of 1867
applying to England and Wales but of the two acts
of 1868 introducing similar, though not identical,
changes in Scotland and Ireland.]

*89. The Representation of the People Act of 1884.*--That the
qualifications for voting in one class of constituencies should be
conspicuously more liberal than in another class was an anomaly, and
in a period when anomalies were at last being eliminated from the
English electoral system remedy could not be long delayed. February 5,
1884, the second Gladstone ministry redeemed a campaign pledge by
introducing a bill extending to the counties the same electoral
regulations that had been established in 1867 in the towns. The
measure passed the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords by reason of
the fact that it was not accompanied by a bill for the redistribution
of seats. By an agreement between the two houses a threatened deadlock
was averted, and the upshot was that before the end of the year the
Lords accepted the Government's bill, on the understanding that its
enactment was to be followed immediately by the introduction of a
redistribution measure. The Representation of the People Act of (p. 085)
1884 is in form disjointed and difficult to understand, but the effect
of it is easy to state. By it there was established a uniform
household franchise and a uniform lodger franchise in all counties and
boroughs of the United Kingdom. The occupation of any land or tenement
of a clear annual value of L10 was made a qualific