5 deputies, the chambers of commerce by 22, and the
remainder of the nation--some 24,000,000 people--by 246. Impelled
especially by fear of socialism, the Conservatives, the Poles, the
German Liberals, and other elements opposed the project, and there
never was any real chance of its adoption. By reason of its halfway
character the Socialists, in congress at Vienna in March, 1894,
condemned it as "an insult to the working classes." Even in Hungary
(which country, of course, the measure did not immediately concern)
there was apprehension, the ruling Magyars fearing that the adoption
of even a partial universal suffrage system in the affiliated state
would prompt a demand on the part of the numerically preponderant
Slavic populations of Hungary for the same sort, of thing.
Anticipating defeat, Taaffe resigned, in October, 1893, before the
measure came to a vote.

[Footnote 667: By a law of 1882 the direct-tax
qualification had been reduced to 5 florins.]

*520. The Electoral Law of 1896.*--Under the Windischgraetz and
Kielmansegg ministries which succeeded no progress was realized, but
the cabinet of the Polish Count Badeni, constituted October 4, 1895,
made electoral reform the principal item in its programme and
succeeded in carrying through a measure which, indeed, was but a
caricature of Taaffe's project, but which none the less marked a
distinct stage of progress toward the broad-based franchise for which
the radicals were clamoring. The Government's bill was laid before the
Reichsrath, February 16, 1896, and was adopted unchanged within the
space of two weeks. The general suffrage which the Socialists demanded
was established, for the election, however, not of the 353
representatives already composing the lower chamber, but merely of a
body of 72 new representatives to be added to the present membership.
In the choice of these 72 additional members every male citizen
twenty-four years of age who had resided in a given district as much
as six months prior to an election was to be entitled to participate;
but elections were to be direct only in those districts in which
indirect voting had been abolished by provincial legislation. Votes
were to be cast, as a rule, by ballot, though under some circumstances
orally. All pre-existing classes of voters were left unchanged, and to
them was simply added a fifth. The aggregate number of electors in the
Empire was raised to 5,333,000. Of