ded as fulfilling the educational requirement if
he were able to write, and the social requirement if simply he were
not a recipient of public charity. By the adoption of this scheme the
number of electors would have been raised to something like 800,000,
and Holland would have attained a reasonable approximation of manhood
suffrage. The Moderate Liberals, the Conservatives, and most of the
Catholics opposed the proposition, and the elections of 1894 (p. 527)
proved the supporters of the van Poortvliet programme to be in the
minority. The total strength of the "Takkians" in the new chamber was
46, of whom 35 were Liberals; that of the "anti-Takkians" was 54, of
whom 24 were Catholics.

*580. The Electoral Law of 1896 and the Question of Electoral
Reform.*--In the newly constituted ministry it fell to Samuel van
Houten, leader of a radical group that had opposed the van Poortvliet
project, to prepare an alternative measure. In the notable electoral
law of 1896 the compromise proposals of van Houten were definitely
accepted, and they constitute the essential features of the electoral
system at the present day. Under this arrangement the members of the
lower chamber are elected in one hundred single-member districts by
male citizens of the age of twenty-five and over, who meet any one of
the following qualifications: (1) payment of a direct tax of at least
one florin; (2) payment of a minimum rental as householders or
lodgers; (3) proprietorship or rental of a vessel of at least
twenty-four tons; (4) the earning of a wage or salary varying from 275
to 550 florins a year; (5) investment of one hundred florins in
government bonds, or of fifty florins in a savings bank; and (6) the
passing of an examination required for entrance upon a public office
or upon a private employment. By the reform of 1896 the number of
voters in the realm was increased to 700,000.

In 1905 there was created a royal commission of seven members to which
was assigned the task of considering and reporting proposals relative
to proportional representation, the salaries of members, and other
questions of constitutional revision. The Government, however,
reserved to itself specifically the right to bring forward proposals
relating to the actual extension of the franchise. The report of this
commission, submitted late in 1907, recommended, among other things,
the introduction of proportional representation and (by a vote of six
out of seven) the e