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Show SOCIALIST DENOUNCES EMMAS ILLUSORY Says Prussian Franchise Plan Is Devised So as to Be Useless. STOCKHOLM, May t The Prussian fram hi.se reform measure conceals a cunningly cun-ningly devised provision which will render ren-der the whole reform Illusory, even if It should bo adopted, according to Helnrbh Stroebel, a Socialist member of the Prussian Prus-sian diet. In an article In the independent Socialist So-cialist organ, the Ilpzlg Volks Zeltung, Herr Htroebel assails the government's bill as an attempt "to smuggle the plural I franchise in through the rear door and I thuH render the 'equal' franchise utterly worthless." Herr Stroebel quotes the following provision pro-vision from the act of May 30, 184$, regarding re-garding the formation of the election districts: dis-tricts: "The election districts Bhatl be erected on the basis of population, as shown by the latest census." The writer then cites the paragraph In the new bill regarding districting, which reads : "The erection of the election districts and the apportionment of delegates shall be determined by taking regard to the number of inhabitants and the territorial area, as well as to the historic and economic eco-nomic importance of the election districts." dis-tricts." Herr Stroebel points out the significance of the provision regarding the area of tho dlstrlctB and declares that other provisions pro-visions of the paragraph will permit tho?e who do the redisricting to consider "the number of swine and cattle and the historic his-toric Importance of the districts from t he viewpoint of true agrarian Prussians, and will make the existing inequalities of apportionment ap-portionment the normal condition." He Illustrates his article with a discussion of the existing districts, which had been altered In character by natural processed through the shifting of the population cityward during the last half century. Thus eleven of the largest Prussian cities, excluding Berlin, elect but forty delegates to the diet and will have but fifty-two under the new measure, whereas he declares de-clares they are entitled to ninety-two. Berlin, with 2,000,000 population, he shows, has twelve delegates, while West Prussia, with 1,750,000 population, has twenty-two delegates; Pomerania, with 1,750,000 population, has twenty-six delegates, dele-gates, and Bast Prussia, with 2,000,000 people, thirty-six. Bach Free Conservative Conserva-tive In the diet Is elected by 13,000 electors elec-tors and each Conservative by 15,000, he shows, hut each Progressive requires 28,-000 28,-000 and each Socialist 40,000. "The equal franchise," adds Herr Stroebel, "has been thrice promised in the most solemn manner by the king. Does the government think it can make the people believe the king's promise has been redeemed if a system of erecting election districts is retained which contains the grossest plural voting right that can he Imagined?" |