Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1871. THE LODGER FRANCHISE BILL.

Hawke's Bay Times, Volume 18, Issue 1109, 1 September 1871, Page 2

Hawke's Bay Times. Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1871. THE LODGER FRANCHISE BILL.

Ax important measure lias been promised by the Government, and one which we think will not excite the antagonism of the opposition. It is a measure that has long been required to supply an obvious and marked deficiency in our electoral system —no less, in far-t, than the extension of the suf frage to lodgers. Why this important section of the community should have been hitherto excluded from the electoral body it would be hard indeed to say. Obviously, it includes a class of young men of more than average intellectual capacity, comprising clerks in banking establishments, and merchants and Government offices, besides numerous artisans and mechanics ; in fact, the great bulk of the unmarried males of the Colony are at present cut off from the electoral privilege simply because they have no household estab lishruent. No one will pretend that the persons comprising this section of the community are less capable of giving an intelligent expression of their political feeling, than, the remainder of the population, nor that they have any less right to such expression or interest in the political affairs of the Colony than others; yet the fact remains, that {heir rights and interests in. the matter have been hitherto ignored, and though doubtless there has been much irritation ItV > I • . . • .v ■ • • - ...... • I " •

and private complaint on the subject, they have, as a rule, submitted very patient!)' to the anomalous position in which a partial law has placed them. We incline to the belief that it was not the deliberate intention of the framers of the Electoral Act io exclude men of full age, sound mind, and average education, from the electoral lists, simply on the ground of their being " lodgers.' 1 The property qualification being placed so low in the instance pf the householder seems to indicate a desire on their part rather to extend the franchise as widely as possible, and it is certain many who are able to claim their privilege under this head are less qualified, intellectually, than many of the excluded. Jf it was, there fore, done with a view of keeping the electoral body at and above a certain status, it has proved a failure, and it is quite time such distinctions were swept away. There is one other reason which might have weighed with the legit-la tors referred to. This is, that the object of the franchise might act as an inducement to the intelligent of the lodger class to become owners of property and hends of families; but we submit that are objects which that class are already ardently desirous of obtaining, and which needs not the additional stimulant of the suffrageThis reason must, therefore, be denounced as a fallacy as great as any that has preceded it. A properly qualification, especially in this Colony, is an absurdity, and we trust that iis day is past. As yet we have no indication of the features of the Government scheme, further than that it will admit lodgers to the franchise, but we may reasonably conclude that another and more consistent standard of qualification will be substituted for that of property —such, for instance, as education would be. At present, an illiterate boor, unable to read or write, but occupying a dwelling-house, has the rights and privileges of a citizen, and is placed at a higher status than the educated gentleman in lodgings. It is surely not too much to ask that an elector should be able—unless from blindness or other physical defect—to sign his name to his claim to the rank of voter. This would make the standard an eclwcational one, but so low as to exclude only those who ought to be excluded. Practically we should have what is called "universal suffrage "—-universal that is so far as to include every man of the full age of 21 years, not convicted of crime, and who is able to read and write, —a suffrage which in all pro babjlity a very few months will prove to be the law in the mother country.