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THE ELECTORAL STATISTICS.

     The Electoral Returns for Boroughs and Counties, which were laid upon the table of the House of Commons on Friday night by Mr. Gladstone, and upon which the Government Reform Bill has doubtless been founded, were published on Saturday in the shape of a large Blue-book. The statistics are copious and elaborate, and are interesting as an exposition of the present state of the franchise in England and Wales and important with respect to prospective changes in the distribution of Parliamentary representation. The Returns having reference to boroughs are made under eight heads, and completely exhaust all information which can usefully be brought to bear upon the subject :— 

     The first Return shows in respect of every borough the increase or decrease in the population between the years 1831 and 1866, the increase or decrease in the number of electors for the same period, and the number of electors who voted at the last general election.

     These Returns show that while the population of the boroughs in England and Wales in 1831 was 5,207,520, the estimated amount at present is 9,326,709.

     The number of registered electors in 1832-3 was 282,393, which number has now swollen to 514,026.

     From these figures it will be seen that the proportion of electors to population has been evenly maintained, but there has been a diminution in the number of electors qualified as freemen to the extent of 21,840,  and of scot and lot voters, potwallopers and others of 35,901. Indeed, the total extinction of such ancient qualifications as were reserved by the last Reform Act could not be very remote, as the entire number of such voters is now but 8,837.

     The number of electors who voted at the last general election was 289,793. 

     Such being the general result the detailed Returns show that in many cases the population of large towns has become much larger, while that of small towns has become much smaller. In some 20 electoral boroughs, with the city of London at their head, there has been since 1832 an aggregate diminution of population to the extent of 32,877. The majority of these declining constituencies are situated in the south and west of England. 

     Although the proportion of electors to population has been on the aggregate fairly maintained, there are many cases in which, while population has increased, the number of registered electors has diminished—a notable instance of which is Preston, which, with 56,781 more inhabitants, has now fewer electors by 3,703 than it possessed in 1832. The explanation, of course, is that the possessors of an ancient right peculiar to that borough, almost tantamount to household suffrage, are rapidly dying out. But, again, in many of the cases where population has diminished there has been an actual increase of electors, a fact which may be taken to prove an advance in the social condition of the people.

Return B 

     Return B will be much quoted in the coming debates, as it professes, while showing the number of electors on the register for each city and borough in England and Wales classed according to the several qualifications in respect of which they are entitled to vote, to distinguish also the number of such electors who come within the description of mechanics, artizans, and other persons supporting themselves by daily manual labour. A definition of the term “working classes,” as required by the government, was given to those engaged in the preparation of the returns, and it was explained that it was not intended that the return should be exclusively confined to journeymen who were employed by masters at daily or weekly wages, but that it should include men who worked daily at their own handicraft trade without a master, and even sometimes employing a journeyman or an apprentice, provided they derived their chief support from their own hand labour, and not from the labour of others, or the profits arising from the employment of capital, or the supply of materials. No artizan, mechanic, or labourer was to be excluded because he had a shop which was kept by his wife or other member of his family; but as a general rule, shopkeepers and their shop assistants were not to be inserted. Overlookers, superintendents, foremen, and others employed among or in connection with operatives, workmen, or other daily labourers were not to be included, unless actually employed in daily manual labour in the same manner in every respect as the men who were under them.

     The following figures are extracted from this important return. The first column shows the whole number of electors on the register, and the second the actual number of electors who come under the foregoing description of working men :—  (Only Hants cities & towns shown)

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