lectors had been
multiplied almost exactly by ten. The total number of voters was now
1,370,000; the number of votes cast was 2,111,000. Contrary to general
expectation, the election gave the Catholics an overwhelming majority
in the lower chamber. They obtained 105 seats, the Socialists 29, and
the Liberals only 18. The elections of 1896 and 1898 gave the (p. 543)
Catholics a still more pronounced preponderance. At the beginning
of 1899 the parties of the opposition could muster in the lower house
only forty votes and in the upper only thirty-one. The Liberal party
was threatened with extinction. Its popular strength, however, was
still considerable, and from both Liberals and Socialists there arose
an insistent demand for the adoption of a scheme whereby the various
parties should be accorded seats in the law-making bodies in
proportion to their popular vote.

The idea of proportional representation was not at this time in
Belgium a new one. It had been formulated and defended in the lower
chamber as early as 1866. Since 1881 there had been maintained a
national reform organization whose purpose was in part to propagate
it; and it is worthy of note that at the time of the revision of 1893
the ministry, led by the premier Beernaert, had advocated its
adoption.[763] In 1895 the principle was introduced in a statute
relating to communal elections. Following a prolonged contest, which
involved the retirement of two premiers, a bill extending the plan to
parliamentary elections was pressed upon the somewhat divided Catholic
forces and, December 29, 1899, was enacted into law. Under the
provisions of this measure deputies and the popularly elected senators
continue to be chosen within the arrondissement by _scrutin de liste_.
Within each arrondissement the seats to be filled are distributed
among the parties in proportion to the party strength as revealed at
the polls, the allotment taking place in accordance with the list
system formulated by Victor d'Hondt, of the University of Ghent. The
number of deputies elected in an arrondissement varies from three to
twenty-one. When an elector appears at the polls he presents his
official "summons" to vote and receives from the presiding officer
one, two, or three ballot papers according to the number of votes to
which he is entitled. He takes these papers to a private compartment,
marks them, places them in the ballot-box, and has returned to him his
letter of summons stampe