(the _Commission du Suffrage Universel_), appointed to
consider the various bills which had been submitted upon the subject,
reported a scheme of proportional representation whereby it was
believed certain disadvantages inherent in the "list system" of
Belgium might be obviated. Elections were to be by _scrutin de liste_
and the elector was to be allowed to cast as many votes as there were
places to be filled and to concentrate as many of these votes as he
might choose upon a single candidate.[485] In November, 1909, the
Chamber of Deputies passed a resolution favoring the establishment (p. 322)
of both _scrutin de liste_ and proportional representation, but no law
upon the subject was enacted, and at the elections of April-May, 1910,
the preponderating issue was unquestionably that of electoral reform.
According to a tabulation undertaken by the Ministry of the Interior,
of the 597 deputies chosen at this time 94 had not declared themselves
on electoral reform; 35 were in favor of no change from the existing
system; 32 were in favor of a slightly modified _scrutin
d'arrondissement_; 64 were partisans of the _scrutin de liste_ pure
and simple; 272 were on record in favor of the _scrutin de liste_
combined with proportional representation; and 88 were known to be in
favor of electoral reform, though not committed to any particular
programme. The majority favoring change of some kind was thus notably
large.

[Footnote 485: The text of the proposed measure, in
English translation, will be found in J. H.
Humphreys, Proportional Representation (London,
1911), 382-385.]

*350. The Briand Programme.*--June 30, 1910, the Briand ministry brought
forward a plan which was intended as an alternative to the proposals
of the Universal Suffrage Committee. The essential features of it
were: (1) a return to _scrutin de liste_, with the department as the
electoral area, save that a department entitled to more than fifteen
deputies should, for electoral purposes, be divided, and one entitled
to fewer than four should be united with another; (2) an allotment of
one deputy to every 70,000 inhabitants, or major fraction thereof; (3)
the division of the total number of electors on the register within a
department by the number of deputies to which the department should be
entitled, the quotient to supply the means by which to determine the
number of deputies returne