424 COMPARATIVE LAW 



The problem, then, was to find a penalty for it which should not 

 be excessive, because that would have killed the reform on the 

 spot, but which would be efficient in its moderation and simple 

 of application. Failure to vote was made by statute a petty offense, 

 liable before the magistrates to small punishments ranking from 

 a reprimand up to a fine of five dollars for the first three offenses; at 

 the fourth time within a space of fifteen years, the magistrate im- 

 poses the same penalties with a suspension of electoral rights for the 

 next ten years; and the suspended voter suffers, moreover, a kind of 

 political capitis deminutio and is deprived during the same period of 

 the jus honorum ; that is, he can no more receive official titles, pro- 

 motions, distinctions, or nominations of any kind whatsoever. The 

 merest knowledge of human nature will satisfy the student about the 

 efficiency of such a sanction. 



As a fact, the result looked for by the Belgian legislature has been 

 fully reached : we have to-day no more than five per cent, of absentee 

 voters in a total of 1,500,000 voters, disposing of about 2,300,000 

 votes. And after deducting from the small proportion of five per cent, 

 of absentee voters the deceased voters on the register and those 

 who afford a valid excuse for staying away, such as illness or absence 

 from the country, recent statistics show that the willful and guilty 

 abstainers really amount to about three per thousand of the total 

 voting force. 



Compulsory voting, as it works in Belgium, is really the keystone 

 of the newest electoral organization. To its efficiency is mainly due 

 the efficiency of plural suffrage and of proportional representation. 

 Good in themselves as are those two reforms, they cannot but re- 

 main merely theoretical achievements so long as you cannot bring 

 to the polls the bulk of the best citizens, those precisely without 

 whose opinion no political verdict can fairly be pronounced a com- 

 pletely sincere and truly representative demonstration of public 

 opinion. 



I do not touch here upon such various and important questions 

 as the registration of voters, the nomination of candidates, the 

 organization of parties; neither do I mention the guarantee of free- 

 dom and secrecy of the ballot, because a study of those questions 

 which, by the way, are less novel would have required a great 

 deal of minute analysis and of technical detail. My object is only 

 to draw the attention of this Universal Congress to three new 

 theories quite recently applied in practical politics. But I must say 

 that even those reforms imply the existence of an already advanced 

 political organization, of strongly constituted parties, of a high 

 standard of political ethics, and of a strenuous public demand that 

 elections shall be (or become) a free, sincere, and loyal consultation, 

 equally exempted from individual or machine corruption, and from 



