THE LATEST ORGANIZATION OF POPULAR SUFFRAGE 



BY ALFRED NEKINCX 



[Alfred Nerincx, Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Louvain, Belgium, 

 since 1899. b. Brussells, Belgium, 1872. Ph.B. Namur College, Belgium; 

 LL.D. University of Louvain; Polit. and Soc. Sci. D. University of Louvain; 

 Hon. LL.D. Glasgow University; Laureate of the Institut de France. Author 

 of The Judiciary Organization of the United States.] 



EVEN a mere outline of the history of popular suffrage, as a study 

 of comparative law and political institutions, could hardly be com- 

 pressed into the short space of an hour. Moreover, the subject has 

 been treated so often and so adequately by students of political 

 science both in Europe and in America, that there is no necessity 

 for taking it up again as a whole. 



But there is one remarkable fact in that history, upon which I 

 should like to dwell somewhat to-day, because it affords a striking 

 contrast with the organization which I have undertaken to explain 

 briefly before this Congress. 



That fact is the general contradiction existing between the theory 

 and practice of popular suffrage in all the forms of representative 

 government where a very highly organized method of suffrage is 

 not yet enforced, that is, almost everywhere. 



Whether one considers the people who still retain the limited 

 suffrage, after the English type, or the countries where universal 

 suffrage obtains as in France and in the United States, it is re- 

 markable that, whereas the law of the land grants to every 

 individual voter the same political power in theory, yet, in fact, 

 absolute equality is hardly to be found anywhere, either between 

 citizens belonging to different constituencies, or between voters 

 belonging to the same classes. 



One country distributes parliamentary seats on the lines of ancient 

 historical traditions, without the least regard for area or population. 

 Another has followed political considerations absolutely irrespective 

 of the equality of citizens. In another still, political ethics have 

 allowed the parties or even the legislature to accomplish what con- 

 stitutions seemed to forbid. As a rule rural districts have been 

 better provided for than urban constituencies. The larger industrial 

 communities with suspiciously radical tendencies remain generally 

 deprived of part of the representation which, in theory at least, 

 they ought to have. Numbers of citizens, even the majority of them 

 in some parts of the United States, are being disfranchised by recent 



