nders,
West Flanders, Hainaut, Liege, Limburg, Luxemburg,
and Namur.]

The arrondissement, or district (twenty-six in number), is important
chiefly as an electoral and judicial unit. Members of the lower house
of the national parliament are elected within the arrondissement under
the scheme of proportional representation which has been described;
and, as has been pointed out, each arrondissement is the seat of a
court of first instance.

*606. The Commune.*--In Belgium, as in France and other continental
countries, the vital organism of local government is the commune. The
total number of communes in the kingdom is 2,629. The principal agency
of government within each is a council. Members of this council are
elected for a term of eight years, under arrangements of a somewhat
complicated character determined by the population of the commune.
Voting is _viva voce_; plural votes (to a maximum of four) are
authorized; and seats, under certain conditions, are allocated in
accordance with the principle of proportional representation. A
somewhat singular fact is that the aggregate communal electorate of
the kingdom is perceptibly smaller than the provincial or the
national. The fact arises largely from the circumstance that the
communal voter is required to have been domiciled at least three years
in the commune, while residence of but a single year is required for
participation in provincial and parliamentary elections.[774]

[Footnote 774: In 1902, 1,146,482 communal electors
cast a total of 2,007,704 votes. In 1910-1911 there
were 1,440,141 provincial, and 1,300,514 communal,
voters.]

The administrative body of the commune consists of a burgomaster, or
mayor, appointed by the crown (in communes whose population exceeds
5,000 elected by the communal council) for a term of ten years, and a
college of _echevins_, or aldermen, elected by and from the communal
council. The burgomaster is head of the local police, and to him and
to the council fall the keeping of the register of births, marriages,
and deaths, the making and enforcing of local ordinances, and, in
general, the safeguarding of the welfare of the community. The more
important measures of the communal council become valid only after
they have received the approval of the provincial deputation, or even
of the ministry at Brussels; and there are speci