Freehold lands or tenements of 40s. yearly value, § 18, are still sufficient to give a vote in the four following cases: 1. If it be an estate of inheritance. 2. If not an estate of inheritance, but only an estate for life or lives, if the elector was seised previously to the 7th of June, 1832 (the day on which the act received the royal assent;, and continues so seised at the time of registration and of voting. 3. If acquired subsequently to that day, if the elector be in actual and bond fide occupation at the time of registration and of voting. 4. Or if acquired subsequently to that day, if it came to the elector by marriage, marriage settlement, devise, or promotion to any benefice or any office.
Of freehold or copyhold estates six months' possession, and of leasehold es tates twelve months', is required, previ ously to the last day of July in the year of registration, except they come by de scent, succession, marriage, marriage set tlement, devise, or promotion to any bene fice or office.
Now, also, it has become material to consider how the lands or tenements are locally situated, §§ 24, 25: for if they are freehold within a city or borough, and in the freeholder's own occupation, so as to confer a right to vote for such city or borough—or if copyhold or leasehold, and occupied by him or any one else so as to give the right of voting for such city or borough to him or to any other person— they cease to qualify for a county vote.
However, by the 18th section of the act, an express reservation is made of all existing rights of suffrage possessed by county freeholders, provided they are duly registered according to the provi sions of the act itself.
SCOTLAND.—Under George II. enact ments were made which rendered the proving of the old forty-shilling votes yet more difficult, so that many more of them disappeared, and at the close of the lust century very few remained. Although the Scottish act of 1681 enacted that the right of voting should be in persons pub licly infeoffed in property or superiority of lands of 40s. old extent, or of 4001. Scots valued thus making a dis tinction, it shoald seem, between property and superiority, yet it was constantly in terpreted to mean that superiors, that is, tenants-in-chief, or persons holding im mediately of the crown, were alone en titled to vote. Thus proprietors of estates of whatever value, holding from a subject, were excluded from the franchise. It is computed that in several counties nearly one-half the lands were held in this man ner, and in the whole kingdom one-fifth of the lands were so held. The class of landholders thus excluded comprised not only the middling and smaller gentry, and the industrious yeomen and farmers who had inherited or acquired some portion of landed property, but also some men of estates worth from 500/. to 20001.
per annum ; while many persons, who had not the smallest actual interest in the land, possessed and exercised the elective franchise. When a person of great landed property wished to multiply the votes at his command, his course was to surrender his charter to the crown, to appoint a number of his confidential friends, to whom the crown parcelled out his estates in lots of 400/. Scots valued rent, and then to take charters from those friends for the real property, thus leaving them apparently the immediate tenants of the crown, and consequently all en titled to vote. This operation being open as well to peers as to great commoners, they availed themselves of it accordingly, thus depreciating or extinguishing the franchises of the smaller proprietors. This legal fraud began in the last cen tury, and was chiefly practised subse quently to the accession of George III. Among the various modes by which it was performed, the most common were by life-rent charters, by charters on wad set or mortgage, and by charters in fee. The parliamentary representation of the Scottish counties therefore had, accord ing to the expression of a learned lord, " complely slid from its basis." The total number of county voters, as com pared with the number of persons directly interested in the property of the soil, was extremely small, and of these the num ber of real votes scarcely exceeded that of the fictitious ones.
The new basis of county suffrage ap pears, by the Reform Act for Scotland, to be assimilated, as closely as the difference between the modes of possessing and oc cupying lands, &c. in the two countries will permit, to the system established for England and Wales. While the old class of rights to the suffrage are preserved to the individuals in actual possession of them before March 1, 1831, provision is made against their perpetuation ; while the body of electors newly admitted con sists of owners to the value of 101. a year, —of leaseholders for 57 years or for life, whose clear yearly interest is not less than 10/.—of leaseholders for 19 years, where such yearly interest is worth not less than 50l.,—of yearly tenants whose rent is not less than 50/. per annum,—and of all tenants whatsoever who have paid for their interest in their holding an amount not less than 300/. The same difference is made as in the English act, between the freeholder and the mere occupier, as to the six months' proprietorship required in the former case and the twelve months' occupancy in the latter; and the like ex ceptions from this condition as to the length of possession in favour of cases wherein either ownership or lease comes to a person by inheritance, marriage, marriage settlement, " mortis calls& dis position," or appointment to any place or office.