Abstract
WHEN the Representation of the People Bill now before Parliament (see Nature, February 21, p. 259) came up for consideration on March 16 by the House of Commons in committee, Mr. O. Peake, member for Leeds, N-, moved an amendment which was one of a series designed, he said, in accordance with the words of the unanimous recommendation of the Speaker‘s Conference, to maintain university representation and methods of election, and to ensure that registration of university graduates should in future be automatic and free. Some of the grounds for the retention of the university vote were set out in the article referred to above, and the support they obtained, not only from university representatives but also from other members of various shades of political opinion, showed that a case could well be sustained. The Government‘s spokesmen, however, Mr. Herbert Morrison and Mr. Chuter Ede, confined themselves practically to two points, namely, that the Speaker‘s Conference recommendation, having been made during a previous Parliament, was not binding on the present Government, and that the principle of plural voting was fundamentally wrong and "not in accord with a properly conceived democracy". Mr. Ede referred to the measure as one designed to redress electoral anomalies resulting from the Act of 1918 ; he said he had never believed in university representation, which he described as the last of the fancy franchises. The amendment was negatived by 328 votes to 198, a majority of 130.
Article PDF
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
University Representation in the House of Commons. Nature 161, 468 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/161468c0
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/161468c0