CHAPTER VI 
THE LOWER HOUSES 
§1. Tue FrANCHISE 
IN each Dominion and in the Australian States the Legis- 
lature is bicameral, and in seven of the Canadian Provinces 
only one chamber exists. The Lower House is always a 
popular body elected on a low franchise. The Lower House 
is styled House of Commons in Canada; House of Representa- 
tives in the Commonwealth and New Zealand, in which 
Dominion the members of the Lower House are by law called 
M.P.’s; House of Assembly in South Australia, Tasmania, 
Newfoundland, Nova, Scotia, the Union of South Africa, and 
formerly in the Cape of Good Hope ; elsewhere it is known 
as the Legislative Assembly. The Upper House is called 
the Senate in the two federations and the Union, otherwise 
the Legislative Council. The Dominion and State Legisla- 
tures are legally styled Parliaments, the Provincial Legisla- 
tures are styled Legislatures. 
(a) North America 
In the Dominion of Canada the franchise for the Parlia- 
ment of the Dominion is regulated by the franchise in the 
Provinces, the general Dominions franchise which was 
created in 1885 having been repealed by the Liberal party 
in 1898, on the ground that the franchise of 1885 was based 
on party considerations and was an unfair interference 
with provincial rights. Under the existing law, chapter 6 
of the Revised Statutes, 1906, there are minor provisions 
allowing for the preparation of new voters’ lists in certain 
cases, 80 as to provide that no voters’ list shall be more than 
a year old. It is also provided by s. 11 as follows :— 
No person possessed of the qualifications generally required 
by the provincial law to entitle him to vote at a provincial 
election shall be disqualified from voting at a Dominion 
' 61 Viet. ec. 14.