On Tuesday, at the afternoon sitting, Sir Richard Cross moved
an addition to Clause 2 which was intended to provide for the suspension of the operative effect of the Franchise Bill till after the Redistribution Bill had been carried, but he was defeated by a majority of 114 (263 to 149). Mr. S. Leighton then moved a very insidious amendment, the effect of which would be to give freeholders in boroughs a right to vote for the borough in respect of that freehold, and independent of residence —a proviSion that would multiply enormously non-residential faggot votes—on the poor plea that as the possession of a free- hold in the county confers such votes for the county, the posses- sion of a freehold in a Parliamentary borough should confer such a vote for the borough. Sir Henry James refused the consent of the Government to the amendment, explaining how it would work. The county freehold qualification is of very old date, and under the new and more stringent conditions it will have a very small effect. It seems to have been thought by the Government hardly worth, while to take - it away, for the sake of mere logical completeness, at a great expense of friction and vexation, in an 'enfranchising Bill; but to extend this principle so as to give the right to vote in Parlia- mentary boroughs for every tenement owned by a non-resident in such a borough, would bring back the fatal faggot vote with a vengeance. The amendment did not come to a division in Tuesday's debate, and the result of yesterday's debate on it was not known at the time we went to press.
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