hall be one member for every 16,000 inhabitants. In point of fact,
the total membership of the Chamber is but 114, whereas at the ratio
indicated it should be upwards of 170. Deputies are elected by secret
ballot (since 1901), in single-member districts. The franchise is
extended to all male citizens of good reputation who have attained the
age of thirty years, except those who are in actual receipt of public
charity, those who have at one time been recipients of public charity
and have rendered no reimbursement therefor, those who are in private
service and have no independent household establishment, and those who
are not in control of their own property. The voter must have resided
a minimum of one year in the circle in which he proposes to vote.[795]
With the exception of non-householders in private service, of persons
under guardianship, and of recipients of public charity, all male
citizens who have completed their twenty-fifth year are qualified for
election. Curiously enough, it is thus possible for a citizen to
become a member of the Folkething before he is old enough to vote at a
national election. Members of both chambers receive, in addition to
travelling expenses, regular payment for their services at the (p. 564)
rate of ten kroner per day during the first six months of a session,
and six kroner for each day thereafter.

[Footnote 795: Art. 30. Dodd, Modern Constitutions,
I., 271.]

During recent years there has been no small amount of agitation in
behalf of a more democratic electoral system. In April, 1908, there
was enacted an important piece of legislation whereby the franchise in
municipal elections was conferred upon all resident taxpayers of the
age of twenty-five, men and women alike; and, beginning with the
elections of 1909, women have both voted and held office regularly
within the municipalities. By the legislation of 1908 the number of
persons qualified to vote at local elections was practically doubled.
Early in 1910 a measure was passed in the Folkething whereby the age
limit for voters in parliamentary elections was reduced from thirty to
twenty-five years and the suffrage was conferred upon women and upon
persons engaged in service. This measure did not become law, but in
the Folkething elected May 20 of the same year Premier Berntsen
introduced a new bill of essentially the same nature. The question of
proportional representation was deferred, th