Note (Back) — Chapter XX

In 1882, after prolonged consideration of the subject, the Government carried through Parliament a series of measures—co-ordinated in the royal decree of September 24—by which the property qualification was reduced from forty lire to nineteen lire eighty centesimi and the age limit was lowered to twenty-one years. The disqualification of illiteracy was retained, and a premium was placed upon literacy by the extension of the franchise, regardless of property, to all males over twenty-one who had received a primary school education. There were minor extensions in other directions. The net result of the law of 1882 was to raise the number of voters at a stroke from 627,838 to 2,049,461, about two-thirds of the new voters obtaining the franchise by reason of their ability to meet the educational qualification.[550] An incidental effect of the reform was to augment the political influence of the cities, because in them the proportion of illiterates was smaller than in the country districts. Small landed proprietors, though of a more conservative temperament, and not infrequently of a better economic status, than the urban artisans, were commonly unable to fulfill the scholarship qualification.