Note (Back) — Chapter XXIX

602. The Demand for Further Reform.—A project upon which the Socialists and Liberals in the last election, as upon several former occasions, have found it possible to unite is the abolition of the plural vote. Almost immediately after the adoption of the amendment of 1893 the Socialists declared their purpose to wage war unremittingly upon this feature of the new system. In its stead they demanded that there be substituted the rule of un homme, un vote, "one man, one vote," with the age limit reduced to twenty-one years. Following the triumph of the Catholics in 1900, the agitation of the Socialists was redoubled, and in it the Liberals very generally joined. Between the two groups there arose seemingly irreconcilable differences of method, the Liberals being unable to approve the obstructionism and other violent means employed by their allies. In time, however, the Socialist methods became more moderate, and the realization on the part of both elements that only by fighting together might they hope to win induced a fuller and more durable co-operation between the two. For the time being the Socialists have subordinated to the establishment of universal and equal suffrage all other features of their political and industrial programme.[768] Upon the desirability of maintaining proportional representation all parties are agreed, and it is probably but a question of time until the principle will be applied fully, as it is not to-day, in the elections of the provinces and communes.