mplicated requirements in
respect to the period of occupation of land and of residence, and
likewise in respect to the fulfillment of the formalities of
registration.[123] There are also various incidental disqualifications.
No peer, other than a peer of Ireland who is in possession of a seat
in the House of Commons, may vote; persons employed as election
agents, canvassers, clerks, or messengers may not vote, nor may the
returning officers of the constituencies, save when necessary to break
a tie between two candidates; and aliens, felons, and, under
stipulated conditions, persons in receipt of public charity, are
similarly debarred. In the aggregate, however, the existing franchises
approach measurably near manhood suffrage. It has been computed that
the ratio of electors to population is approximately one in six,
whereas, the normal proportion of males above the age of twenty-one,
making no allowance for paupers, criminals, and other persons commonly
disqualified by law, is somewhat less than one in four. The only
classes of adult males at present excluded regularly from the voting
privilege are domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents
and occupying no premises on their own account, and persons whose
change of abode periodically deprives them of a vote.

[Footnote 123: On the process of registration see
Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, I.,
134-137, and M. Caudel, L'enregistrement des
electeurs en Angleterre, in _Annales des Sciences
Politiques_, Sept., 1906.]

"The present condition of the franchise," asserts Lowell, "is, indeed,
historical rather than rational. It is complicated, uncertain,
expensive in the machinery required, and excludes a certain number of
people whom there is no reason for excluding, while it admits many
people who ought not to be admitted if any one is to be debarred."[124]
During the past generation there has been demand from a variety (p. 088)
of quarters that the conditions of the franchise, and, indeed, the
electoral system as a whole, be overhauled, co-ordinated, and
liberalized; and at the date of writing (1912) there is pending in
Parliament a measure of fundamental importance looking in this
direction. The electoral changes which have been most widely
advocated, at least in recent years, are four in number: (1) a fresh
apportionment of seats in the Commons in accor