Note (Back) — Chapter XXV

When, in 1873, the right of electing deputies was withdrawn from the provincial diets it was conferred, without the establishment of a new electorate, upon those elements of the provincial populations which had been accustomed to take part in the election of the local diets. These were four in number: (1) the great landowners, comprising those who paid a certain land tax, varying in the several provinces from 50 to 250 florins ($20 to $100), and including women and corporations; (2) the cities, in which the franchise was extended to all males of twenty-four who paid a direct tax of ten gulden annually; (3) chambers of commerce and of industry; and (4) rural communes, in which the qualifications for voting were the same as in the cities. To each of these curiæ, or classes, the law of 1873 assigned a number of parliamentary representatives, to be elected thereafter in each province directly by the voters of the respective classes, rather than indirectly through the diets. The number of voters in each class and the relative importance of the individual voter varied enormously. In 1890, in the class of landowners there was one deputy to every 63 voters; in the chambers of commerce, one to every 27; in the cities, one to every 2,918; and in the rural districts, one to every 11,600.[666]