The Daily News. FRIDAY, APRIL 15. THE PRUSSIAN FRANCHISE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 364, 15 April 1910, Page 4

The Daily News. FRIDAY, APRIL 15. THE PRUSSIAN FRANCHISE.

It is little wonder that the socialists of j Berlin to the number of 150,000 braved | -the bitter wind and Bleet on Sunday and: paraded the streets of Berlin and made' demonstration hi the parks in favor of j direct secret suff r nge in Prussia. For the Prussian franchise is probably the most ungenerous franchise in Jfurope, and when we consider the high degree, of civilisation and enlightenment of the people to whom it ir accorded, we must confess that it is preposterous. The socalled reforms wh'ch the Chancellor (Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg) offers amount to very little indeed; they promise a certain re 8 rrangement of the three classes into which Prussian voters are divided, but i' would be absurd to say that they introduce any substantial change into the character of the fran chise. The three classes into which Prussian voters are divided are arranged according to tit* voters' tax-paying capacity. To speak roughly, three voters of the first or richest class have the same voting power as twelve voters of the third class. As a concrete example of how this system worts out, it may be said- that the seven Socialists who interrupted the- Minister-President dn the Diet with cat-calls represent more than a fifth part cf the total number of votes cast at the last election, whereas the Conservatives, who number more than a hundred a.id fifty in the Diet, polled less than a seventh of the total number. Other Itatures of the franchise are that the ballot is not secret, and that the votiajj is indirect. The Toters create an Electroal College, and this College chooses the members of the Diet. One of the most glaring defects of the law in its present form is that it rests on an obsolete distribution of seats. In the 'ast thirty years the population of towns which have more than two thousand inhabitants has increased by about ten million person*, while in the rural districts the population has remained stationary. Redistribution is therefore urgently required. What does Herr >on Bethmann-Holl-weg's Bill do? It abolishes the principle of indirect voting, but it retains the open vote and the principle of three classes, and it refuses redistribution. While one-sixth of the electorate can now outvote the rest, in future apparently one-quarter will' be able to do so. "The situation has more than a touch of humor, for the Imperial franchise on •which the Reichstag is elected is based oil the very principles condemned by the Chancellor in the Prussian Diet," says the London Morning Post. ■"A universal direct election by secret ballot may or may not be a useful institution, but it is extraordinarily hard to find arguments which are vaMd as applied to the German Empire, but unsound in the most important •of the constituent '.States. If, indeed, universal franchise leads to that . decay in Parliamentaryi manners which Dr. von Bethmann-Holi-j weg views with sach alarm, then its existence in the election to the Reichstag is deplorable. But if it has had no such effect in the Empire, then the experiment might l:e tried in Prussia without grave danger to the State." The Chancellor defended himself against the attacks of the Socialists by defining his position as only a refusal to believe in "the efficacy of universal suffrage and equal direct stcret voting for all countries and under all conditions." That is a conclusion which every educated man accents. Tt is the theory and practice of the British Empire. But while it is easy to draw a line between different races and different civilisations, it is not easy to irake ail equally convincing distinction between the citizen of the Empire and the . citizen of the Prussian State, since lie happens to be one vmd the same individual. This anomaly is too glaring to continue indefinitely, and the Prussian franchise must gradually be approximated to the Imperial. It has been pointed out that in Hamburg under ihe present franchise the keepers of immoral houses cast a heavier vote tha* the yniversity professors.