er is composed of 508 members chosen by the voters of the realm
under the provisions of the electoral law of March 28, 1895. In no
country of western Europe is the privilege of the franchise more
restricted than in Italy; yet progress toward a broadly democratic
scheme of suffrage has been steady and apparently as rapid as
conditions have warranted. The history of the franchise since the
establishment of the present kingdom falls into three periods,
delimited by the electoral laws of 1882 and 1895. Prior to 1882 the
franchise was, in the main, that established by the electoral law of
December 17, 1860, modified by amendments of July, 1875, and May,
1877. It was restricted to property-holders who were able to read and
write, who had attained the age of twenty-five, and who paid an annual
tax of at least forty lire. Under this system less than two and a (p. 376)
half per cent of the population possessed the right to vote.

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.

[Footnote 550: Lowell, Governments and Parties, I.,
157.]

The law of 1882 provided for elections by general ticket, i.e., on the
principle of _scrutinio di lista_. An act of May 8, 1891, abolished
the general ticket and created a commission by which the country was
divided