CHAPTER VI

THE LOWER HOUSES
§1. Tue FrANCHISE

IN each Dominion and in the Australian States the Legislature
 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 Representatives
 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 Legislatures
 are legally styled Parliaments, the Provincial Legislatures
 are styled Legislatures.

(a) North America
In the Dominion of Canada the franchise for the Parliament
 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created in 1885 having been repealed by the Liberal party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.