176 THE BRITISH APPROACH TO POLITICS

City returns two M.P.s and the Metropolitan Boroughs are
sub-divided so that there are 60 constituencies each returning
one Member. The other English Boroughs return 193 Members,
and the English County Divisions 230. Wales returns n Borough
and 24 County Members. The Scottish Burghs have 33 and
Scottish Counties 38. A Scottish Parliamentary Burgh is often
composed of several small towns scattered over a county, the
intervening countryside being the County Division; this plan
is not used outside Scotland except for the constituency of
Carnarvon Boroughs which returns Mr. Lloyd George. The
Province of Northern Ireland has four Borough and eight County
Members. Thus 603 Members come from constituencies formed
by dividing the country geographically. The remaining 12
are elected by people throughout the country who are graduates
of a University. Oxford and Cambridge return two each, London
one; the other English Universities combine to return one.
Scottish Universities form a combined three-member con-
stituency; the University of Wales, and The Queen's, Belfast,
have one each.

Although an effort was made in 1918 to ensure that
constituencies should be of approximately equal §ize, great
inequalities have since appeared; people have moved from areas
stricken by severe unemployment and from the crowded parts
of East London, while the population of Greater London, Just
outside the county boundary, has grown. So, while the average
number of voters in a constituency is about 50,000, the Romford
Division of Essex had at the 1935 Election 167,939 and S.W.
Bethnal Green 27,484. A redistribution of seats, by Act of
Parliament, is clearly overdue but, if it is to be done fairly,
cannot be hurried. A huge constituency now returning one
Labour Member might be cut into three parts, each containing
districts which are usually Labour and districts usually Con-
servative, but with a good chance of a Labour majority in all
three; the drawing of other lines on the map would produce one
safe Labour seat, one safe for the Conservatives, and one where