ne-third of the members retire triennially.
Male citizens who have attained the age of thirty, who are in full
control of their property, and who have not been disqualified by
judicial sentence, are eligible to membership, provided either that
they are among the heaviest payers of direct national taxes or that
they hold, or have held, one or more principal public offices
designated by law.[733]

[Footnote 732: The provincial quotas are as
follows: South Holland, 10; North Holland, 9; North
Brabant and Gelderland, 6 each; Friesland, 4;
Overyssel, Groningen, and Limberg, 3 each; Zealand,
Utrecht, and Drenthe, 2 each. Prior to the
constitutional revision of 1848 members of the
upper house were appointed by the king.]

[Footnote 733: Art. 90. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
II., 98.]

The lower chamber consists of one hundred members elected directly by
the voters of the kingdom for a term of four years. Under the original
constitution of 1815 members of the lower house were chosen by the
provincial estates. Direct election was introduced by the
constitutional revision of 1848. During several decades the franchise,
based upon taxpaying qualifications, was narrowly restricted. After
1870 the Liberals carried on a persistent campaign in behalf of a
broader electorate, and by a constitutional amendment of 1887 the
franchise was extended to all males twenty-three years of age and
over, who are householders paying a minimum house-duty, lodgers who
for a time have paid a minimum rent, or who are possessed of "signs of
fitness and social well-being." The provisions relating to
householders and lodgers alone increased the electorate at a stroke
from approximately 100,000 to 300,000. The precise meaning and
application of the phrase "fitness and social well-being" were left to
be defined by law, and through upwards of a decade political
controversy in Holland centered principally about this question. The
coalition Catholic-Conservative ministry of 1888-1891 refused flatly
to sanction the enactment of any sort of law upon the subject. In 1893
the Liberal Minister of the Interior, Tak van Poortvliet, brought
forward a project whereby it was proposed to put upon the qualifying
phrase an interpretation of well-nigh the broadest possible character.
A man was to be regar