The Parliamentary Reformers' Manual (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1883 Excerpt: ...that an allocation of seats made under a different distribution of population has been maintained without any substantial alteration. Our present representative system belongs, so far as the allotment of members is concerned, to a past century not to the present. When the numerous boroughs of the southern portion of the kingdom were created, that district was the great centre of trade and manufactures. In those days Liverpool had no existence; Bristol was the great western port. The cotton manufacture had not been created; the woollen trade centred mainly in the west of England, not in Yorkshire; and the great iron and coal industries of Lancashire and North Yorkshire were awaiting development. In 1661 the population of the Metropolis was estimated at 460,000; in 1801 it was found to contain 864,035 inhabitants, and in 1881 it reaches 3,832,441, an increase of 343 per cent. In 1831 the population of the Metropolitan boroughs was 1,529,000; in 1871 it reached 3,020,871, .and in 1881, 3,452,350, an increase of 125 per cent. over 1831. Since 1801 the limits of the Metropolis have been widely extended, but when every allowance is made for this extension, the increase of population in the district now comprised within the boundaries of the ten metropolitan cities and boroughs has been more than 200 per cent. since 1801. In 1801, the population of Lancashire, Cheshire, .and Yorkshire was 1,723,374; in 1831 it was 3,042,560; in 1871 it reached 5,811,057; and in 1881, 6,975,031; being an increase-over 1831 of 129 per cent, and over 1801 of 304 per cent. The gross population of England and Wales for the four periods including 2,426 persons m 1871, and 8,010 in 1881, who do not appear, for some reason not explained, in the Parlia mentary Eeturn from which the populatio.