privilege are domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents and occupying no premises on their own account, and persons whose change of abode periodically deprives them of a vote. [Footnote 123: On the process of registration see Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, I., 134-137, and M. Caudel, L'enregistrement des electeurs en Angleterre, in _Annales des Sciences Politiques_, Sept., 1906.] "The present condition of the franchise," asserts Lowell, "is, indeed, historical rather than rational. It is complicated, uncertain, expensive in the machinery required, and excludes a certain number of people whom there is no reason for excluding, while it admits many people who ought not to be admitted if any one is to be debarred."[124] During the past generation there has been demand from a variety (p. 088) of quarters that the conditions of the franchise, and, indeed, the electoral system as a whole, be overhauled, co-ordinated, and liberalized; and at the date of writing (1912) there is pending in Parliament a measure of fundamental importance looking in this direction. The electoral changes which have been most widely advocated, at least in recent years, are four in number: (1) a fresh apportionment of seats in the Commons in accordance with the distribution of population; (2) the extension of the franchise to classes of men at present debarred; (3) the abolition of the plural vote; and (4) the enfranchisement of women. [Footnote 124: Government of England, I., 213. On the franchise system see Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, I., Chap. 4 and Lowell, _op. cit._, I., Chap. 9.]