ankly admitted that the Government was irrevocably
opposed to a suffrage system based on democratic principles.

The scheme was ridiculed by the liberal elements. In protest against
the nonchalance with which the door had been shut in their faces the
working classes in Berlin and elsewhere entered upon a fresh series of
demonstrations by reason of which the Government was embarrassed
through several weeks. In the Landtag the Conservative and Free
Conservative parties, comprising the Government majority, stood
solidly for the bill, in the conviction that if there must be change
at all those changes which the bill proposed would be less
objectionable than those which were being urged by the radicals. The
Centre wavered, while the National Liberals, the Poles, the Social
Democrats, and the Progressive People's Party stood firmly in
opposition. February 13 the bill was referred in the lower house to a
committee, by which it was reported so amended as to provide for the
secret ballot but not for direct elections. March 16, by a vote of 283
to 168, the measure in this amended form, was passed by the chamber,
all parties except the Conservatives and the Centre voting against it.
April 29 the bill was passed in the upper chamber, by a vote of 140 to
94, in the form in which originally it had been introduced. All (p. 263)
efforts on the part of the Government to bring the lower house to an
acceptance of the original measure proved fruitless, and the upshot
was that, May 27 following, the project was withdrawn from the
chambers. The overhauling of the antiquated electoral system in
Prussia, both national and municipal, remains a live issue, but
agreement upon a definite project of reform is apparently remote. The
problem is enormously complicated by the virile traditions of
aristocratic, landed privilege which permeate the inmost parts of the
Prussian political system. In respect to redistribution, too, a
fundamental obstacle lies in the consideration that such a step on the
part of Prussia would almost of necessity involve a similar one on the
part of the Empire. In both instances the insuperable objection, from
the point of view of the Government, arises from the vast acquisition
of political power which would accrue from such reform to the
socialists and other radical parties.[385]

[Footnote 385: P. Matter, La reforme electorale en
Prusse, in _Annales des Sciences Politiques_,