70 



BELGIUM. 



shaped his policy to conform to the opinions of 

 the same narrow class who now consider the 

 Clericals safer guides. The hulk of the Liberals 

 fell away from the party because the leaders 

 would not accept a programme embracing re- 

 forms that have long since been carried out in 

 other Continental countries, such as compulsory 

 education, personal liability to military service, 

 universal suffrage or a franchise based on in- 

 telligence and social reform. There is no lack 

 of progressive ideas in Belgium. The Constitu- 

 tion, save in its electoral provisions, is one of 

 the most liberal, and public opinion is as act- 

 ive as in any other country. The support of the 

 intelligent democracy is nevertheless of no value 

 to the Government, which depends for its exist- 

 ence on a peculiarly constituted electorate. The 

 parliamentary franchise is the narrowest in the 

 world. In a "population of over 0,000.000 there 

 are only 120,000 voters, and of these a large pro- 

 portion are entirely uneducated farmers, for the 

 right of suffrage is restricted to the adult males 

 who pay 42 francs '32 centimes a year in direct 

 taxes. Those who compose this oligarchy are 

 naturally opposed to state schools that would 

 increase'their taxes, to a military reorganization 

 that would compel their sons to serve, to social 

 reforms that would cost sacrifices on their part, 

 and most of all to a revision of the Constitution 

 that would extend to other classes the absolute 

 political power that they exercise through a free 

 Parliament, even though by denying the enlarge- 

 ment of the franchise they keep the country on 

 the verge of revolution. The Conservatives are 

 less unwilling to lower the cense, or even to grant 

 universal suffrage, than the Liberals showed 

 themselves to be, because they could control the 

 votes of the small proprietors and the land pro- 

 letariat and pauper class, whereas an extension 

 of the franchise would throw the control of the 

 Liberal party into the hands of the Radicals, 

 whose views are antagonistic to those of the pres- 

 ent leaders. The Clericals when they attained 

 the control in Parliament strengthened their 

 electoral position by widening the boundaries of 

 the city districts, and thus adding enough ag- 

 ricultural voters to counterbalance the Liberal 

 majorities among the townspeople. Although 

 these compound districts, in which the rural 

 population outnumbers the urban, now elect Con- 

 servative deputies as well as the country dis- 

 tricts, the Liberals still retained a majority in 

 many of the communal and some of the provin- 

 cial councils. This was owing to a franchise 

 based on capacity, which the Liberals introduced 

 when they were in office, giving votes in local 

 elections to members of the liberal professions, 

 public officials, superintendents of industrial es- 

 tablishments, and all who could pass an exam- 

 ination in the ordinary branches of knowledge. 

 An electoral bill passed in the session of 1890 is 

 designed to wipe out the Liberal majorities in 

 the local bodies. It abolishes the franchise based 

 on education and social position, thus disqualify- 

 ing a large class of intelligent voters, and gives 

 the right of voting to a larger class preponder- 

 antly ignorant by lowering the tax-paying quali- 

 fication from 20 to 12 f'rnn-s for the provincial, 

 and from 12 to 8 francs for the communal electors. 

 It further creates another and more questionable 

 class of voters by conferring the franchise on 



every man who owns a piece of ground with a 

 dwelling upon it. Owing to the excessive subdi- 

 vision of the soil, properties fulfilling these con- 

 ditions are very common among the most de- 

 graded classes. 



Finding their last foothold of power and in- 

 fluence slipping away, the Liberals, who have 

 vainly hoped to see a popular reaction against 

 the Clerical regime, and have found instead that 

 the exposure of gross scandals, abuses, and follies 

 does not shake them in their position, determined 

 to heal the schism in the party, and to make a 

 strong effort in the elections of 1890 to win at 

 least a dozen seats from the Conservatives in the 

 hope of regaining by means of the Brussels elec- 

 tion in 1892 their parliamentary majority. Other- 

 wise there was little hope of recovering their as- 

 cendency before the end of the century. The 

 elections of June 10 were for the renewal of one 

 half of each Chamber. The fusion with the part 

 of the Radicals who are content with demanding 

 an educational qualification for suffrage was of 

 no avail. Moderate opinions have lost ground, 

 while the advocates of universal suffrage have 

 grown in numbers, and the Social Democrats, 

 who m the late election for the Trades Council in 

 Brussels cast 3.500 votes to 500 given by their 

 opponents. The result of the parliamentary elec- 

 tion was disappointing to the Liberals. They 

 struggled to regain the seven seats in Ghent that 

 were lost by a small majority in 1886. This ma- 

 jority the Clericals increased fivefold, and the only 

 seat that the Liberals still held was won by a Con- 

 servative. Gains in Charleroi and Verviers com- 

 pensated for this loss. The Liberals, instead of 

 forty-three, now number forty-four in the Cham- 

 ber of Deputies, while the Clericals have an over- 

 whelming majority of ninety-four. The growing 

 strength and confidence of the Socialists were 

 made evident in this election by their placing 

 candidates in the field for the first time. 



The session of the Chambers that ended with 

 the prorogation of the Senate on May 21, 1890, 

 was singularly unproductive. The Government 

 failed to advance the scheme of labor legislation 

 it had promised, and consequently Janson offered 

 a bill to compel employers to insure workmen 

 against accidents, either by mutual association 

 or in insurance companies that furnish the neces- 

 sary security. This bill, which secures the widow 

 35 per cent, of the man's wages and 10 per cent, 

 for each child up to the age of fourteen, will be 

 discussed in the next session. The ministry car- 

 ried a bill altering the sugar duties to conform 

 more nearly to the not yet perfected internation- 

 al agreement. The principal changes are a reduc- 

 tion of three francs on the drawback and the tax- 

 ing of the saccharine yield at 1,700 instead of 

 1,650 grammes per hectolitre. One of the most 

 important legislative acts recently proposed to 

 the Parliament is the acceptance "of the Congo 

 State as a Belgian dependency. 



The Partition of Moresnet. The Vienna 

 treaty of May 31, 1815, formed out of Holland 

 and Belgium the kingdom of the Netherlands 

 and fixed the boundaries between it and Prus- 

 sia. The boundary commissioners were not able 

 to agree as to where the line should run through 

 a part of the Commune of Moresnet, between the 

 Diocese of Liege and the Duchy of Limburg. In 

 the boundary treaty of June 26, 1816, the terri- 



