![handle is hein.journals/pclscceqry26 and id is 1 raw text is:
Volume XXVI ]
POLITICAL SCIENCE
QUARTERLY
BARRIERS AGAINST DEMOCRACY IN THE BRITISH
ELECTORAL SYSTEM
PLURAL voting, university representation, non-payment of
members of Parliament and the official expenses thrown
upon candidates for the House of Commons are the four
most obvious anomalies in the British electoral system. Each
of these anomalies has existed for at least three centuries.
Each grew out of the gradual but continuous warping of the
electoral system-originally quite democratic-that went on
between the fifteenth century and the Reform Act of 1832.
Each had its origin in the eager desire of either the Crown or
the landed aristocracy to control elections to the House of
Commons.
Since 1832 it has been repeatedly conceded that all these
four warpings of the original electoral system are anomalies;
and all would have been swept away years ago, had it not been
that they stood as barriers against a democratic House of Com-
mons and, as such, were vigorously defended by Whigs and
Conservatives in the House of Commons as well as in the
House of Lords. The Whigs easily dominated Liberal admin-
trations until after the split in the Liberal party arising out of
Gladstone's Home Rule Bill of 1886. Whig dominance of
Liberal cabinets was not of the past until the Campbell-Banner-
man administration was formed at the end of 1905. Then the
Whigs were not sufficiently strong or numerous to secure again
their control over the Liberal administration, because between
1886 and 1905 all the more powerful Whigs had gravitated to
I
March, rgir
[Number r](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/pclscceqry26&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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