required for election at
the first ballot, though not at the second, an absolute majority; it
stipulated that a rearrangement of constituencies, in accordance with
population, should be made every nine years by the king. It gave no
place to the principle of proportional representation which had
appeared in the proposals of the Conservative ministries of 1904 and
1905; and while favorable mention was made of female suffrage, the
authors of the measure avowed the opinion that the injection of (p. 595)
that issue at the present moment would endanger the entire reform
programme. Amidst renewed public demonstrations the usual flood of
counter-projects, several stipulating female suffrage, made its
appearance. The upper chamber, dominated by the Conservatives, held
out for proportional representation, and, May 14, it negatived the
Staaff proposal by a vote of 125 to 18. The day following the bill was
passed in the lower chamber by a majority of 134 to 94, and a little
later proportional representation was rejected by 130 votes to 98.

*659. A Compromise Bill Adopted, 1907.*--Upon the Conservative
Government of Lindman which succeeded devolved the task of framing a
measure upon which the two chambers could unite. A new bill made its
appearance February 2, 1907. Its essential provisions were (1) that
the members of the lower chamber should be elected by manhood suffrage
(with the limitations specified in the Liberal programme of 1906) and
proportional representation; (2) that the number of electoral
districts should be fixed at fifty-six, each to return from three to
seven members; (3) that members of the upper chamber should be elected
by the provincial Landsthings and the municipal councils for six years
instead of nine as hitherto, and by proportional representation; and
(4) that the municipal suffrage, which forms the basis of the
elections to the Landsthing, should be democratized in such a manner
that, whereas previously a wealthy elector might cast a maximum of 100
votes in the towns and 5,000 in the rural districts,[829] henceforth
the maximum of votes which might be cast by any one elector should be
forty. By the Liberals and Social Democrats this measure was denounced
as inadequate, although on all sides it was admitted that the changes
introduced by it were so sweeping as to amount to a positive revision
of the constitution. The spokesmen of the Liberal Union reintroduced
the Staaff bill of 1906, and the Social D