3. Qualifications of Candidates.
Of the close relation so long subsisting between the grounds of the elective fran chise and of eligibility, and which had sprung from their original identity, we find distinct traces in the similarity be tween the heads of disqualification in either case. Women, minors, aliens, and lunatics are of course excluded in the latter case as well as in the former. It would be needless to remark, that peers of parliament, that is, actual members of the House of Lords, are ineligible to the House of Commons, except in order to point out this distinction—that any Irish peer, not being among the twenty-eight sitting in the House of Lords for the time being as representatives of the Irish peer age, and being, therefore, though a peer of the realm, not a peer of parliament, is eligible to represent any constituency in the United Kingdom, although such is not the case with Scotch peers who are not representative peers. No person con cerned in the management of any duties or taxes created since 1692 (except com missioners of the treasury), nor any offi cer of the excise, customs, stamps, &e.. nor any person holding any office under the crown created since 1705, is eligible. In like manner, pensioners under the crown during pleasure, or for a term of years, are wholly excluded. Any mem ber, however, who accepts an office of profit under the crown existing prior to 1705, though he thereby vacates his seat, is capable of being re-elected. Coutrao tors with government are ineligible ; and it is enacted, that if any person so dis qualified shall sit in the Hose, he shall forfeit 500/. per day for so doing ; and that if any person having a contract of this nature admits a member of the house to share in it, he shall forfeit 500/. to the prosecutor. Again, by 3 Geo. IV. e. 55, no police justice of the metropolis can sit in parliament.
The judges of the superior courts of common law are disqualified. The three vice-chancellors also are excluded, though the master of the rolls is not. The clergy are also excluded. [Clamor.] Sheriffs of counties, and mayors and bailiffs of boroughs, as being themselves returning-officers in parliamentary elec tions, are ineligible fOr the several dis tricts respectively for which it is their duty to make returns.
The repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts in 1828, and the passing of the Ca tholic Emancipation Act in 1829, have worked one very important alteration in the constitution of the Commons' House, by removing nearly altogether the widely operating religious disqualifications which previously existed. The engagement " on
the true faith of a Christian," to abstain from all designs hostile to the church as by law established, which the latter act has substituted for the oath and de claration formerly required, excludes no man professing Christianity in however general terms, and seems indeed to have no effective operation but against indi viduals of the Jewish race and creed, to whose admission this bar is still opposed.
Such are the chief personal disqualifi cations, at common law and by statute, from sitting in the Commons' House of Parliament ; presenting, as already re marked, a general analogy to those ex isting against the voter.
We now come to the other branch of the subject, the qualifications by and residence ; and here, in the case of the English and Irish representation at least, the analogy no longer holds good. The qualification for an English, Welsh, or Irish member, was not altered by the Reform Acts, and was—for a county member a clear estate of freehold or copyhold of 600/. a year, and for a city or borough member, 3001. To repre sent a university uo property qualifica tion is requisite. In 1838 an act was passed (2 Viet. c. 48), which amends the laws relating to the qualifications of mem bers to serve in parliament : a knight of the shire must be entitled, for his own use and benefit, to real or personal pro perty, or both together, to the amount of 600/. ; and to be a citizen or .burgess, only one-half the qualification is re quired. The only personal exceptions from this condition are in favour of the eldest sons of peers, of bishops having seats in the House of Lords, and of persons legally qualified to be county members. The qualifying property may be situated in any part of England, Wales, Ireland, or Berwick-upon-Tweed. As regards the Scottish part of the repre sentation, it is worthy of especial remark, that the property qualifications enacted for England within a very few years after the union with Scotland, have never been extended to the latter portion of the kingdom ; and that consequently the con ditions of suffrage and of eligibility have remained there, according to the original constitution of the representative system in both countries, one and the same, ex cepting only the antiently essential con dition of residence, which has long been done away throughout the United King dom without any reservation or limita tion whatever ; and excepting also that the Scottish Reform Act of 1832 has ren dered unnecessary for county members the qualification of an elector formerly required.