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ART. IX.-REGISTRATION OF VOTERS.

A Bill for the Registration of Parliamentary Electors. 8th February, 1839. 2 Vict.

It is an old saying, and as common as the accidence, that "some persons never gain wisdom by experience." Among this class of mortals is to be ranked, we fear, the learned gentleman to whom her Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor General have from year to year entrusted the "enfantillage" of their successive Bills for the amendment of the Registration of Parliamentary Electors. Dry-nurse to the lego-political offspring of the law-officers of the Crown, is an enviable position undoubtedly for an aspiring mind, and we do not wonder at the tenacity with which he retains his place; but it is matter of surprise, after the melancholy manner in which all their elder born have, as year succeeded year, and session followed session, been swept into oblivion, to see them still, with unfailing confidence, entrust the destinies of this, their youngest, to the care of one to whose ignorance or carelessness the untimely fate of all its brethren may not unfairly be attributed. But so it is, the same hand which from time to time has attempted to foist upon the public the measure professing to amend the registration, and which attempt has, as regularly as the session came round, been foiled by the firmness and vigilance of at least one branch of the legislature, has again produced a Bill with that fair-sounding but most deceptive pretension, and this Bill is again introduced into the House of Commons under the auspices of her Majesty's Attorney and Solicitor General.

It is now a twelvemonth since we drew the attention of our readers to the measure then before the House of Commons having the amendment of the Parliamentary Registration for its object, and upon that occasion we felt it our duty to expose in strong terms its utter worthlessness and inefficiency as an amendment upon the existing system; we at the time confidently predicted its fate, and although it feebly struggled through the first stage of its existence, (a temporary respite, for which it was indebted, not to the strength of its own constitution, but to the emasculated, if we may so term it,

state of the body through which it was passing), the light scarcely dawned upon its existence in the second stage before it was consigned to the fate of its brethren. We do not think we assume too much credit when we state that many of the reasons put forth by ourselves against its being allowed to pass, insured for it that rejection in the Upper House which its worse than uselessness so richly merited. And yet, as though collision with the other branch of the legislature, or the dread of it, were a favorite mode with the statesmen of the present day of pressing through obnoxious measures, here we have the very same Bill, in effect, almost totidem verbis, paraded forth under the auspices of the law officers of the Crown, and submitted to the legislature as their panacea for all the ills touching the important question of Registration, introduced by the vociferous clamourers for "The Bill, the whole Bill and nothing but the Bill." As we said of its predecessor, so now we say of this, (garnished as it is with the additions which the former received in committee last year,) that considered as a practical measure, a more slovenly, ill-digested, inconsistent and unsatisfactory one, was never introduced to the notice of the legislature. One would have thought that its framer, having had the defects and inconsistencies in the Bill of last year, which struck every eye but his own, brought to his notice, would have had the wisdom to avoid the introduction of them into the present measure, but no! like the negro mothers, each of whom persists in considering her own piccaninny the whitest, the learned drynurse seems determined to consider his charge exempt from the errors which fall to the lot of ordinary productions, as created at once perfect in all its parts, and predestined to receive the royal assent in the same shape in which it was first presented by its learned godfathers. Less than this, it seems, will not suit them, for, let but the Lords attempt to add a clause or correct a bungle, and the Commons sensitively cry "privilege, this concerns ourselves and the register of our constituents; the Bill we sent up to you was as perfect as mortal hands could make it, if you won't consent to it as a whole, we will not take it mutilated at your hands."

We must not however be unjust; there is one attempt at improvement in the present measure which is not to be found

in the Bill of last year even as amended by the committee, and for which, while we admit that the gratitude of the public is due, we must certainly take credit to ourselves, since it professes to remedy the crowning absurdity in that Bill to which we then called attention-we allude to the omission of any machinery for the production of the lists to be revised by the barrister. The lists of voters to be revised by the barrister, as provided by the Bill of 1838, consisted, as our readers may remember, of two component parts, viz. the list of claimants, and the register for the time being relating to each parish. These were deemed to be "the list of voters for such parish." A barrister was to be sent down to revise "the lists of voters," and the only provision made in the Bill of 1838 for laying before him the lists of voters was a direction to the overseer to produce the list of claimants; not one word about the production of the register relating to each parish, where by far the major part of the electors of the parish would be found; only the list of claimants, the original notices of claim, and the list of persons objected to, were by that Bill to be laid before him, and how, when, or in what manner he was to get a sight of by far the larger part of that whole which was deemed to be "the list of voters," and which he was come down expressly to revise, we declared ourselves utterly unable to divine. To this blunder, error, or inadvertence, call it which you will, we directed the attention of the public, and we know it did not pass unnoticed in the House, but no! the measure, as we said before, was declared to be "perfect, the barrister will find a mode of revising the lists; and, if not, if any difficulty should arise on that point, they are a very large and convenient body of persons on whom to throw all the blame of the ill-working of the Bill; no faults are to be found in any measure which we bring forward for the amendment of the register, or if faults are found, we will not see them." Such, or something similar was, we presume, the reason which induced the supporters of the Bill of 1838 wilfully to shut their eyes to a plan which, had all its provisions been otherwise most perfect and appropriate, would have rendered it either wholly inoperative or have given rise to interminable questions and disputes. A better spirit, therefore, we may hope, has come over their labours

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when we find them attempting to remedy so gross a blunder, and by that very attempt acknowledging their former error. But how have they attempted to remedy it? Why, in a way worthy of the hand which could have committed the original mistake. By the Bill now before us (section 8) the list of claimants to be made out in each year by the overseers, and the copy of the register1 for the time being, relating to each parish, is to be deemed "the list of voters." Now, then, to get this "list of voters" before the revising barrister. It appears so simple that it would be next to impossible to imagine a difficulty, but if there is any mode of getting out of the straight road, the framer of these bills is sure to hit upon it. In the first place then, by sect. 11 the overseers are to deliver to the high constable, for the purpose of being transmitted to the clerk of the peace, a copy of the list of claimants made out by them, and a copy of the register relating to their parish, and a copy of the list of persons objected to. If it were not for the introduction of the word copy, as respects the list of claimants, an ordinary understanding would suppose that the lists of voters were by this provision intended to get into the hands of the clerk of the peace, to be by him, as is now the case, produced to the revising barrister. But not so; "the list of voters," we have seen, is to consist of the list of claimants (not the copy), and the copy of the register, so that one part at least of the list of voters remains in the hands of the Overseers. The overseers are to attend the court, and are to produce-what? not the list of claimants and the copy of the register, which by sect. 11 is declared to be "the list of voters," and which the barrister is to revise, but, "Credat Judæus," " a copy of the list of claimants, and the part of the register of voters then in force relating to their parish,” neither the one nor the other being any part of" the list of voters ;" nor indeed do we at present see how the overseer could have possession of any part of the register of voters then in force for his parish, which, as every one except the framer of this Bill knows, is or ought to be, at the time of the barrister's

1 This is some improvement at least, for the Bill of last year (before it went into committee) had provided that the list of claimants and the register for the time being should be the list of voters. It being evident from that very provision (as indeed we took occasion to observe), that the framer of the measure did not possess the slightest knowledge of the "whereabouts" of the Register.

holding his Court, in the custody of the sheriff of the county. "But," we think we hear some one say, "there is surely a provision for the production of these lists before the barrister by the Clerk of the Peace." Not so, the Clerk of the Peace is only to produce the original notices of claim and notices of objection; there is, to be, sure a provision for furnishing the barrister with something meant to be the lists, for a totally different object than that of revising them; and even that, as we shall show, is expressed in so bungling a manner as to be almost incomprehensible; but as for "the list of voters," which he is come to revise, he will have as much difficulty in finding them in this Bill as in the Bill of last year.

One or two more instances of the precious bungling to be found in this Bill and we have done with this part of it; they are blunders which lie indeed upon the surface and can scarcely escape the notice of the most superficial committee-man in the House, and must therefore, we should think, be remedied; but they will serve to show the careless manner in which measures of such importance as the present are prepared. It is not to be expected that professional men, with so many varied and important duties to perform as the Attorney and Solicitor General, should find time themselves to prepare or even to superintend these government Bills; but surely, surely, where so much professional talent and accuracy are to be found, it is not asking too much to require that some judgment should be exercised in selecting the individual to whom the duty is to be intrusted; we much fear that the mischief is to be traced to the political trammels in which the anomalous state of parties at the present moment binds every official personage; when a government exists but on the sufferance of a dozen individuals, that government as a party out-numbered by above one-third by the opposition, not only is every vote in the House of importance, but every opinion out of the House has its weight, and individuals must be employed and complimented to secure their political affections. But we are forgetting all this while the blunders alluded to as exemplifying the accuracy of the party who has had the drawing of this Bill. Take the following as an example. The overseers are to have copies of

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