_Source of Lord John Russell’s new idea of the Savings’ Bank Deposit qualification._—“Our present system is defective and unjust in this—that it selects two kinds or forms of property only as conferring the franchise. Let us continue to maintain a property qualification; but let us not insist that the property, so favourably and honourably distinguished, must be invested in one special mode. If a man has accumulated by diligence or frugality £50 or £100, and spends it either in the purchase of a freehold, or in removing his residence from an £8 to a £10 house, his realised property confers upon him the distinction of a vote. But if he invests the same sum, earned by similar qualities, in the savings’ bank, or in railway shares or debentures, or in the purchase of a deferred annuity—which would probably be much wiser modes of disposing of it—it carries with it no such privilege. This seems neither equitable nor wise. It might easily be rectified, and such rectification would be at once one of the safest, simplest, justest, and most desirable extensions of the franchise that could be suggested. _Let the production before the registration courts of a savings’ bank book, showing a credit of £50_, of at least six months’ standing, or of a _bona fide_ certificate of shares to the same value in a valid railway, or of coupons to the same amount, be held to entitle a man to be inscribed upon the list of voters for that year.”—_Edinburgh Review_, Jan. 1852, p. 265. Adhering to our original intention of not discussing the merits of the different proposals of this and the other articles in the _Edinburgh Review_, we shall not comment upon the unblushing impudence of such a project as this, which would place the representation of the country principally in the hands of millionaires and railway directors. It _is_ unparalleledly impudent. But we notice it now simply as the germ of Lord John Russell’s £50 savings’ bank qualification. By the time this article appeared, Lord John Russell’s Bill was prepared; though no one expected that it would be carried. The Whig party were conscious that the hour of their doom was approaching, but they wished to bear with them into opposition a weapon which might be available for future warfare. Lord John’s ideas had not then penetrated beyond a lowering of the franchise and the admission to the register of parties who paid 40s. a-year of direct taxes. These were his deliberate impressions before the schoolmaster of the _Edinburgh Review_ appeared abroad.