he highest tax-payers; the second third by the
next highest tax-payers, and the last third by the rest. The first
class consists of a comparatively few wealthy people; it may even
happen that a single individual pays a third of the taxes in a given
district. These three classes then elect the members of an electoral
college, who then elect the member of the house. In Prussia it may be
said roughly that 260,000 wealthy tax-payers elect one-third; 870,000
tax-payers elect one-third, and the other 6,500,000 voters elect one-third
of the members of the electoral college, with the consequence
that the 6,500,000 are not represented at all in the lower house of
Prussia. In order to make this three-class system of voting quite
clear, let us take the case of a city where the same principle may be
seen at work on a smaller scale. In 1910, in the city of Berlin, there
were:

931 voters of the first class paying 27,914,593
marks of the total tax.

32,131 voters of the second class paying
27,908,776 marks of the total tax.

357,345 voters of the third class paying
16,165,501 marks of the total tax.

Roughly the voters in the first class each paid $7,500; those in the
second class $218; those in the third class $11. The 931 voters
elected one-third, 32,131 voters elected one-third, and 357,345
elected one-third of the town councillors. In this same year in Berlin
there were:

521 persons with incomes between $25,000 and $62,500.

139 persons with incomes between $62,500 and $125,000.

22 persons with incomes between $125,000 and $187,500.

19 persons with incomes between $187,000 and $250,000.

19 persons with incomes of $250,000 or more.
Or 720 persons in Berlin in 1912 with incomes
of over $25,000 a year, and they are
practically the governors of the city.

As a result of these divisions according to taxes paid, of the 144
town councillors elected, only 38 were Social-Democrats, though Berlin
is overwhelmingly Social-Democratic, and consequently the affairs of
this city of more than 2,000,000 inhabitants are in the hands of
33,062 persons who elect two-thirds of the town councillors.

In the city of Duesseldorf there were, excluding the suburbs, 62,443
voters at the election for town councillors in 1910. The first class
was composed of 797 voters paying from 1,940 to 264,252 marks of
taxes; 6,645 voters paying from 222 to 1,939 marks; and 55,001 voters
paying 221 marks or less. These 7,442 voters of the first and se