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A rotten or pocket borough, more formally known as a nomination borough or proprietarial borough, was a parliamentary borough or constituency in England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom in existence prior to the Reform Act 1832 which had a very small electorate and could be used by a patron to gain undue and unrepresentative influence within the Unreformed House of Commons. The same terms were used for similar boroughs represented in the 18th century Parliament of Ireland. ==Background== A parliamentary borough was a town which possessed a royal charter granting it incorporation and giving it the right to send two of its elected burgesses as members of Parliament to the House of Commons. It was not unusual for such a borough to change its boundaries as the town developed or contracted over time, in accordance for example with the state of its trade and industry, so that eventually the boundaries of the parliamentary borough and the physical settlement were no longer the same. For centuries, constituencies electing members to the House of Commons did not change to reflect population shifts, and in some places the number of electors became so few that they could be bribed by a single wealthy patron. These were given by 19th-century proponents of reform the derogatory appellation "Rotten Boroughs" or "Pocket Boroughs", more formally "Nomination Boroughs", because their democratic processes were rotten and their parliamentary member was effectively nominated by the whim of the patron, thus "in his pocket"; the actual votes of the electors were a mere formality, all or a majority being willing to vote as the patron instructed them. As voting was by show of hands in a single polling station at a single time, none dared to vote contrary to the instructions of their patron or contrary to what had been contracted by way of bribes received. Frequently such a borough might only put forward one candidate in an uncontested election, being nominated by the mayor and corporation at the behest of the patron. Thus a Member of Parliament for one borough which had contracted over time due to decrease in local trade might represent only a few constituents, whilst at the same time a newly expanded borough or unincorporated settlement, which had experienced a rapid increase in population due to increased trade and industry, might be entirely unrepresented, or inadequately represented. For example, the town of Manchester, which expanded rapidly during the Industrial Revolution from a small settlement into a large city, prior to 1832 was merely part of the larger county constituency of Lancashire and did not elect its own MPs to represent its own particular and special interests. Each of these ancient boroughs elected two members to the House of Commons. By the time of the 1831 general election, out of 406 elected members, 152 were chosen by fewer than one hundred voters each, and 88 by fewer than fifty voters.〔W. Carpenter, ''The people's book; comprising their chartered rights and practical wrongs'', p. 406〕 By the early 19th century moves were made towards reform and this political movement was eventually successful, culminating in the Reform Act 1832, which disfranchised the rotten boroughs and redistributed representation in Parliament to new major population centres. The ''Ballot Act of 1872'' introduced the secret ballot, which greatly hindered patrons from controlling elections by preventing them from knowing how an elector had voted. At the same time, the practice of paying or entertaining voters ("treating") was outlawed, and election expenses fell dramatically. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rotten and pocket boroughs」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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