Justice and Equality for All ? Proportional Representation in Belgium and France ( 1883-1921 ) 1

1 My thanks to the auditors and participants of the 2019 British Legal History Conference: Comparative Legal History (St Andrews, 10-13 July 2019) for their comments on an earlier draft, as well as to Yves Deroubaix and Matthias Boydens for proofreading. Abstract: Whereas 19 century Belgium is traditionally framed as heavily dependent on France, this image ought to be nuanced for its political system. During what Pierre Rosanvallon named the transnational ‘proportional moment’ (1899-1914), the introduction of Proportional Representation in parliamentary elections generated a French interest in Belgium as the ‘electoral laboratory of Europe’. Arguments raised in the French Chambre des Députés were similar to those used in Belgian Parliament. The present article addresses the structural differences between the electoral debate in both states. Whereas Belgian constitutional doctrine adapted smoothly to the introduction of proportionality (Oscar Orban/Paul Errera) and held a moderate position bordering on that of Hans Kelsen, French doctrine was divided between the Parisian Adhémar Esmein, who defended the majority system as the bedrock of republicanism, and provincial professors of constitutional law, who had corporatist ideas, or were in favour of judicial review (JosephBarthélémy, Léon Duguit).


Introduction
Suum cuique. A chacun sa part (ORBAN, 1911) 2 The current crisis of political representation in the West leads to calls for electoral reform. Often, the majority system is seen as the source of unease and voter dropout. Proportional representation would be more able to reconcile citizens with representative democracy, bringing society closer to politics, or allowing for a national consensus mirroring the diversity of linguistic or ethnic groups. 3 When it comes to implementing reforms in majority systems, however, the ardours are far more timid. Emmanuel Macron repeatedly hinted at the introduction of a 'dose de proportionnelle' for the election of the Assemblée Nationale. At the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958, the majority system was felt as a necessary guarantee against the disorders of the Fourth Republic, which was for the major part of its existence characterised by political fragmentation, reinforced by a proportional attribution of seats 4 .
Advantages and disadvantages of proportional representation 6 and majority voting are classics of political science. The present paper is concerned with the constitutional debate in France and Belgium at the turn of the century, when proportional voting was introduced for Belgian parliamentary elections (1899) and in France (1919). The 'D'Hondt system', designed by the Ghent professor of Civil Law Victor D'Hondt (1841-1901, became one of the most popular formulas for seat attribution in the world. 7 Although conceptions of justice in power relations between political parties dominate the debate, constitutional lawyers framed the discussion using the concept of national representation and constitutional government. This debate is also an occasion to nuance the overall image of Belgian dependence on France. 8 The major difference from the start is the French early adoption of universal suffrage for men. After the experiment of the Convention in 1792, universal suffrage returned for good with the Revolution of 1848. Belgium, by contrast, only abolished censitary suffrage in 1893 for parliamentary elections, and did not introduce the 'one man, one vote' principle before 1918, under the pressure of World War One. 9 From 1893 to 1918, parliamentary suffrage was 'plural'. 10 All male 6 Carré de Malberg rejects the very notion of proportional 'representation', and only considers proportional 'elections' to be theoretically conceivable, since -in his theory of national sovereignty -the collective corpus of voters is represented by parliament, not the individual voter. Hence, PR would constitute an 'atteinte ' and a 'deformation' to representative democracy. Carré De Malberg (1922), II,[468][469]474. On the other hand, Carré de Malberg recognised that the majority system created an aberration: if one of the competing parties would be guaranteed to govern alone, this would diminish the country's right to translate its appreciation of policy into the electoral result. ibid 473-474, note 3. 7 D'Hondt would have 'reinvented' the calculation method used by Thomas Jeferson to apportion seats in the House of Representatives, according to GASSNER (1993), 1,7. D' HONDT (1882). See also GOBLET D'ALVIELLA (1900). 8 HEIRBAUT and STORME (2006), 3. 9 VELAERS (2009); GILISSEN (1958). On the restrictions applicable to Universal Sufrage in France 1848-1849, see BLACHÈR (2013).
10 Similar systems existed in England up to 1894 for the elections of the boards of guardians of the poor, in Swedish local elections, in New South Wales (Australia) and in local government in Eastern Prussia. John Stuart Mill advocated a supplementary vote for electors with a degree. Orban (1911) I, 35;Errera (1916), 139-140.

Frederik Dhondt
inhabitants aged 25 or more 11 had one vote (which they were obliged to cast). 12 Beneficiaries of a university degree or appointed in a higher administrative function benefited from two extra votes and were thus 'triple voters'. 13 Those over 25 14 who either paid a rent tax of five francs 15 or owned their lodging had the right to an extra vote. 16 Married men of at least 35 or widowers with a legitimate descent could equally claim an extra vote. 17 In total, no individual could vote more than three times. Furthermore, in Belgium, the Catholic Party ruled with an absolute majority from 1884 to 1914, irrespective of the introduction of proportional voting. 18 The perceived vicissitudes of the D'Hondt system have recently been denounced for the election of MEP's in Britain. 19 11 This age had been lowered to 21 in 1870. Barthélémy (1912), 322. 12 This obligation still exists under Belgian law. See articles 207 to 210 of the Belgian Electoral Code of 12 April 1894, Moniteur Belge 15 April 1894. ORBAN (1911) I, 28. 13 ERRERA (1916, 145-146. For this condition, no distinctions were operated between public and private institutions of higher education, as a consequence of the freedom of education enshrined in article 17 of the 1831 constitution. A university degree was not necessarily required, as certiicates of attendance at a 'full course' of secondary education of the higher degree were accepted as well. The administrative oices mentioned were those of governor, diplomat, member of the Royal Academy, lawyer, notary, doctor, top class civil servant, director of a scientiic institution, teachers, priest… See PANTENS (1901), 44-49. 14 For the Belgian Senate, 30 (art. 53 Constitution). ERRERA (1916), 146. 15 This tax was calculated on the rent value of a lodging, on doors and windows and on furniture. Not the amount of tax in itself, but 'la présomption d'ordre social, attachée à la possession des bases mêmes de cet impôt' generated the right to the privilege of a supplementary vote. ibid 144. 16 Property owned by wives (or minor children) was counted together with that of their husbands. Ownership of an immovable worth over 2 000 Belgian Francs (generating a cadastral, government-estimated rent income of 48 francs) or of a government bond annually generating more than 100 Belgian Francs of rent (art. 47 (old) Constitution, paragraph 2, 2°). 17 ERRERA (1916), 143. Or, to be more precise, paying more than 5 Belgian Francs in the habitation tax (art. 47 (old), paragraph 2, 1° These criticisms are often ill-informed. 20 Another factor, district size, hampers the proportional character of seat attribution, especially when it comes to the last seats. We will come back to this point, which will highlight the essential innovation of the 1919 reform of seat attribution rules in Belgium. In contrast to Catholic and conservative Belgium, the French Third Republic was ruled by left-wing politicians as Jules Ferry (1832-1893) and Aristide Briand (1862Briand ( -1932, introducing reforms such the law of separation between Church and State in 1905. Yet, the majority system did not produce stable political configurations: from 1870 to 1914, France had no less than thirty-three successive governments. 21 In spite of these stark contrasts, Belgium and France have been inextricably linked in their legal culture. 22 This has lead prominent Belgian scholars to state that the country had become 'dominated by France' from the Napoleonic period on. 23 Belgian 19 th -century elites, including legal elites, spoke French. 24 French political news dominated the frontpage of the main journals, the Liberal Indépendance belge and the Catholic Journal de Bruxelles. 25 The major legal study on this topic has been written by a notorious figure of French legal academy: Joseph Barthélémy (1874Barthélémy ( -1945 26 VAN GOETHEM (1990). At university level, contacts existed with the United Kingdom, Germany and Austria. Especially German academics had been highly inluential at the universities of Ghent, Brussels, Louvain and Liège. See DHONDT (2012). 25 VANDER VORST ZEEGERS (1965). 26 BARTHÉLÉMY (1912); MARTINEZ (1998), 28 ;SAULNIER (2004). 'un modèle d'exactitude, de clairvoyance, d'impartialité', according to VAUTHIER (1912), 564 the combination of proportional representation and plural voting. 27 Barthélémy's interest in this specific Belgian combination, however, cannot be seen separate from the major difference highlighted above: Belgium did not have universal suffrage, on which the French Third Republic's parliamentary system was founded.

Electoral Reform Before the Great War
In this section, electoral reform before the Great War will be discussed.

Belgium 1883: capacity suffrage for local elections, or a failed attempt to contain the rise of universal suffrage
In 1883, the liberal government headed by Walthère Frère-Orban proposed to Parliament to enlarge municipal suffrage. Local and provincial suffrage was governed by the law, and not by the Constitution, which made it the ideal locus of experiments. 28 Earlier (Law of 12 June 1871), Catholic governments had attempted to transform their party's domination of social life into political power by expanding census requirements in local elections. Under Frère-Orban's reform, a system based on local taxation would be linked to the obtention of a degree of lower education. 29 This system had been claimed for twenty years by 27 See equally Carré de Malberg's remark that plural voting would not necessary violate the principle of equal treatment between citizens. According to this famous defender of national sovereignty, voting rights ought to be exercised in the national, collective interest, and were not strictly individual, since he considered individual citizens not to have part in the exercise of sovereignty. CARRÉ DE MALBERG (1922), II, 471-472. 28 BARTHÉLÉMY (1912, 12. In the same sense, Joseph Lebeau in the National Congress: 'l'éducation du peuple sera faite par les élections municipales et provinciales '. ibid 42. 29 In the Constituent Assembly (National Congress) of 1830-1831, capacity was seen as a 'privilege', violating political equality among Belgian citizens, all (theoretically) capable of attaining the censitary threshold. BARTHÉLÉMY (1912), 25. The Liberal government sought reassurance in restricting the enlargement of the electoral corps to those who had graduated from an oicial, state institution. A supplementary check of degrees obtained in Catholic institutions, by an independent committee, was judged mandatory by the Liberal majority, but abandoned in the end as a violation of the principle of freedom of education. The Liberals reacted to an earlier reform (1871) whereby the Catholic majority local Liberal sections, as a 'barrière infranchissable' against universal suffrage. 30 Catholics loathed it as a Chinese system of mandarinate. 31 This liberal reform had been an attempt to tie the extension of suffrage to an elevation of the general level of education. The link between rational, positivist education in state schools and the promotion of liberalism would then have permitted the Liberal Party to gain control of local government. Unfortunately for the initiators, as with most electoral modifications, this short-term goal was not achieved. In 1884, the Catholic Party won an absolute majority in Parliament, and began an uncontested period of thirty years in power.

Belgium 1893: plural voting under a majority system
Je suis grand partisan de l'égalité de tous devant la loi. Je ne conçois pas l'égalité de tous pour faire la loi. (AUGUSTE BEERNAERT) 32 L'alliance des catholiques avec le peuple contre la bourgeoisie voltairienne. (JOSEPH BARTHELEMY) 33 A major step was taken ten years later. Massive strikes, incurring riots, police repression and deaths, forced Belgian Parliament to modify the 1831 constitution to extend parliamentary suffrage in 1893. 34

Frederik Dhondt
Peace Prize winner. 35 Article 47 of the constitution foresaw that all male inhabitants above the age of twenty-five would have a single vote. Family fathers obtained a supplementary vote under certain conditions 36 , just as modest owners 37 . Finally, holders of a higher education degree benefitted from two supplementary votes. 38 In total, no elector could have more than three votes.
As a consequence, the Belgian Workers' Party (founded in 1885) became the second-largest political group in the Chamber of Representatives at the 1894 parliamentary elections. 39 The Liberal Party crashed down to third place. This was an unexpected consequence of the majority system. Belgium, since 1831, had a plurinominal majority system. From 1877 on, lists of candidates competed for all available seats in a constituency. 40 Hence, the Liberals were eliminated by joint lists of Socialists and dissident progressive Liberals in traditional strongholds, such as Liège. After 1894, Liberal and Socialist Parties became allies in proposing the introduction of proportional representation. In case of a run-off between Catholics and Socialists, Liberal voters were obliged to side with one of these blocs, which led to the erosion of their party. 41

35
Léopold II and Auguste Beernaert (1920). 36 Being at least 35 years of age, being married (or, in case of widowhood, having produced legitimate ofspring) and, inally, acquitting a personal contribution of at least ive francs.
For details, see ORBAN (1911) I, 40. 37 Owning an immovable property of 2 000 francs, or receive a rent on movable property of at least 100 francs per year. See ibid I, 41. 38 ibid I, 44. Holders of a degree of higher education, either public (the State universities of Ghent and Liège) or private (the Catholic university in Leuven, or the Free University in Brussels), as well as electors assimilated to degree holders: students having completed a full secondary education, or having been admitted to university, as well as those exercising certain public positions, to be enumerated by the Electoral Law. The latter category allowed members of the Royal Academy, secondary school inspectors, catholic priests… to participate. Auguste Beernaert's compromise was despised by the most conservative group within the Catholic Party, namely the Fédération des Associations et Cercles Catholiques. Beernaert had to resign after ten years as Cabinet Leader (1884-1894), 46 and was succeeded by the conservative Jules de Burlet (1844-1897). The latter introduced a stringent reform of Frère-Orban's system of municipal capacity voting. Plural suffrage was extended to the municipal election, albeit with the possibility to add a fourth vote, increasing the gap between labourers (one vote) and wealthy landowners (four votes). The age threshold was raised to 30 years, excluding many potential left-wing voters. An additional requirement of three years of residence within the same municipality prevented the highly mobile group of labourers from fully participating.

Frederik Dhondt
Finally, in boroughs counting over 20 000 inhabitants, supplementary seats were allotted to representatives of employers and workers. 47 Ultramontanist ideas of corporatism could reinforce this anti-socialist buffer. 48 Naturally, the Belgian Workers' Party decried this loi des quatre infamies ('Law of the four disgraces').
Most importantly for the present paper, the majority system was amended for local purposes. If a single list conquered the majority of all votes expressed, it would obtain all seats in the local council. However, if it failed to (which was the case in most larger towns), proportional representation (the D'Hondt system) 49 would be used in the second round. The Catholics hereby hoped to retain absolute power (without opposition) on the countryside, and divide their Socialist and Liberal opponents in the major cities. 50 This first and biased introduction of PR at the local level nevertheless helped to institutionalise the method in Belgium. 51

Belgium 1899: proportional representation for parliamentary elections
Était-il même prudent, de la part des catholiques, de conserver un mode de scrutin qui lui assurait sans doute des majorités écrasantes, 47 ORBAN (1911) I, 69. This 'representation' of interests was even defended by Liberals in Belgium (Emile De Laveleye, Charles Buls), but ran counter to the main objection that interests in society could not be ixed anymore as they were under the Old Regime's system of guilds and corporations. The main objective of a system of interest representation is to ofer a counterweight to the atomised and individual conception of citizenship and electoral participation. Its proponents hope that major electoral swings would be eliminated, giving rise to stable societal and political relations. Orban personally feared the irrevocable introduction of the class struggle in Parliament. See ibid I, 55-57. 48 A socialist breakthrough at the local level was associated with the spectre of the Parisian Commune. In Belgium and France alike, socialist 'municipalisme' was a breakthrough strategy. HOUTTE (2014) De Burlet's conservative law generated the risk that Catholics could be eliminated altogether from city councils, when Socialists and Liberals would constitute a single list and obtain the majority. This happened in Antwerp and Brussels in 1911. 53 Yet, the majority system endangered the stability of the parliamentary system as a whole. Violent street protests, and even an invasion of Parliament, forced the Catholic Party's hand. Under pressure of an ad hoc-coalition of Socialists, Liberals and its own Christian Democrat wing, with the support of King Leopold II, the Catholic majority introduced proportional representation in 1899. 54 Seats would be shared out in proportion to every political party's share of the vote. However, careful not to squander its domination in the countryside, the Catholic Party stuck to a system of relatively small constituencies, where only 2 to 3 seats were available. 55 In rural 52 LACHAPELLE (1911) 152. 53 WILS (2017), 158. Errera notes that the 1895 lois des quatre infamies introduced PR for the irst time in Belgium and contributed to the institutionalisation of the practice. 54 Former Cabinet Leader Beernaert rose to the defence of PR in parliament. See Het Laatste Nieuws, 6 April 1898. An often-cited ratio for the introduction of PR is that 'on ajourne à jour indéterminé la dictature de la classe ouvrière pour la révolution sociale' (BARTHÉLÉMY (1912), 618). Proportional representation renders a Socialist absolute majority less likely. Hence the ideological opposition of Walloon far-left socialist MPs as Alfred Defuisseaux (1843Defuisseaux ( -1901, who saw 'l'Infâme Proporz' as a treason of the socialist ideal of class warfare, and hoped to suppress it, once Universal Sufrage would have been in place. A second frequently mentioned motive is the wish to guarantee the representation of minorities in both the Dutch-and French-speaking provinces. Barthélémy linked this to a statement by Simeon Stern, president of the New York PR association, arguing that PR could have avoided the American Civil War. ibid 628 note 1. Proportional representation should not be confused with systems of guaranteed representation of minorities, which allow the elector to choose only a fraction of the seats available through a majoritarian system, reserving some seats to the minority party. This system was used in Spain, Brazil, Portugal and (incidentally) Britain and Italy. ORBAN (1911) Proportional representation was introduced to soften the opposition between conservative Flanders, dominated by Catholics, and the increasingly more Socialist boroughs in the Walloon steel basin, a region which had developed significantly due to the Industrial Revolution. 58 Paul Errera (1860Errera ( -1922 59 notes in his Traité de droit public belge that the advent of the Socialist parliamentary group in 1894 was feared to bring about the disappearance of parliamentarism itself, just as it would undo the traditional bipartisan system of Catholics and Liberals. 60 The perspective of facing solely the Socialists as opposition exposed the November 2015), the Belgian Constitutional Court found that districts returning less than 4 MPs were unconstitutional. See BOUHON, JOUSTEN & VROLIX (2018) 5. 56 This reinforced the efect of the Jeferson/D'Hondt system, which tends to beneit major parties. GASSNER (1993), 8. It is often thought that the Catholic Party would have come under the ever greater inluence of Christian Democrat (labour union) and Flemish Nationalist politicians. Recent work tends to nuance this, emphasising the enduring impact of conservatives: VAN VELTHOVEN (2014). 57 Luykx (1978), 208. 58 On 22 December 1899, at the proposal's inal debate in the Belgian Senate, Catholic Senator and legal scholar Edouard Descamps  hoped that the representation (and expression) of ideas would be untangled from their previous sectarian link with societal groups, linguistic classiications, the opposition between city, industrial centres and countryside. Libon & Nandrin (2016), 83-84. According to historian Lode Wils, proportional representation allowed the anti-Catholic Walloon movement to stop the low of linguistic measures in Belgium until 1914. Wils (2019, 154, 158. Lachapelle, on the other hand, notes socialist resistance in Hainaut against the idea of PR, since this implied sharing part of the cake with other political parties. The General Council of the Belgian Workers' Party, however, rejected this objection. Lachapelle (1911), 161, 167. 59 Professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles since 1896 (rector from 1908 to 1911), mayor of Uccle (1912)(1913)(1914)(1915)(1916)(1917)(1918)(1919)(1920)(1921), member of the Royal Academy of Belgium (1919) and of the Israelite Consistory of Belgium. Velu (1994). 60 Errera (1916), 153. dangers of the majority system. If the elector is forced to choose between two alternatives, the system logically leads to a victory of the other pole.
Paul Errera explains proportional representation as a 'Third Way' of representation, allowing to avoid the disadvantages of uninominal majority (which lead to the 'triomphe des médiocrités sur les hommes de grande valeur') 61 and plurinominal majority systems (leading the elector to vote for candidates which he has not chosen himself) 62 .
Proportional representation allowed the coexistence of multiple parties, which softened the impact of lists. Errera points to the feeble majority at parliamentary elections in the district of Brussels in 1893. 18 seats at a stroke could shift due to a couple of hundred or even dozens votes. 63 On the conceptual level, Errera explained proportional representation as a more adjusted and specific concept of the electoral function. 64 First, Errera agreed that the majority rule -within Parliament -was indispensable. The minority had to acquiesce when a majority of representatives agree on voting a law. However, there was no fatality for the elector himself to see his choice evaporate when it did not conform to not that of the majority of the votes cast. In other words, a distinction between 'droit de décision', a corollary of the parliamentary function, and 'droit de représentation'. The latter is designed to help citizens exercise their part of national sovereignty, not to favour a specific government.  Errera (1916), 154. 65 Lachapelle (1911), 49.

Frederik Dhondt
Of course, Errera pursued, direct democracy, or legislation through referenda, could provide an alternative to the problem of representation: citizens would become legislators themselves. This would render the triumph of the 'yes' acceptable to those who opted for 'no'. 66 Yet, within the representative system, the question of the weight accorded to an elector's choice would be one for 'mathematicians, not politicians' to resolve. 67 66 See the intervention of the Communist Deputy Henri Baranton (1895Baranton ( -1976 in the Chambre des Députés in 1927, who vowed to break the 'strike of the capitalists' (or speculation against left-wing policies) by having recourse to permanent referenda, rather than the 'systèmes grossiers, burlesques, primitifs' wherein men were given full powers to legislate during several years. J. O. D.P. CdD, 7 July 1927, col. 2389. The same criticism of representative democracy, albeit only in combination with the majority system, was given by the radical socialist Camille Pelletan    (1922), II, 474). Finally, this brought Pelletan to condemn the Belgian system of political parties. Pelletan feared Jaures's insistence on l'esprit d'association would lead to situations whereby party insiders would dress a list, and thus 'enregimenter, endoctriner, régenter le sufrage universel!' (Ibid., col. 2052). Yet, one could also object, in Orban's words that 'committees and party headquarters' are still 'better than the almighty, plotting local clans in small constituencies'. Orban (1911) I, 49. On the latter aspect, see Marty, 2016. 67 Orban (1911Errera (1916)  Let's now turn to France. Activism for proportional representation generated leaflets, pamphlets and treatises in both Belgium and its neighbour country. The Ligue pour la représentation proportionnelle held meetings in Paris as well as in Brussels. 74 Its advocates presented proportional representation as an advance of humanity in general. 75 This idea was not utopian, since, at a mere five hour train ride from Paris, a more advanced and civilised system of seat distribution was already in operation. Personal exchanges with leading Belgian politicians 73 Quoted in Barthélémy (1912), 621. 74 The Belgian Ligue was founded in 1881, twenty-six years after the creation of a similar league in Geneva (Lachapelle (1911) (Sacriste, 2012, 357, 366 andRichard, 2017, 15 Legal historian and constitutional lawyer Adhémar Esmein (1848Esmein ( -1923 criticised proportional representation and favoured the 'simple' 76 E.g. the founder of the French Ligue pour la RP, the journalist Yves Guyot's report on his visit to Brussels in November 1901, including meetings with Paul Janson (progressive liberal), Paul Hymans (traditional liberal) and Eugène Goblet d'Alviella in Le Siècle. 77 'Le Gambetta belge' Barthélémy (1912), 171. 78 Thomson in the Chambre des Députés, June 1911. J.O. D.P. CdD 2 June 1911, col. 2493.Esmein 1903. 79 Vauthier (1912 565. On Vauthier (professor at the ULB since 1890, Rector 1903-1905, Member of the Royal Academy in 1907, Senator in 1921, Home Secretary in 1927, Minister for Science and the Arts 1927-1931, see Dekkers (1965). 80 In the 1912 elections, the opposition fell 100 000 votes short of beating the Catholic Party. Since this party dominated the Flemish provinces, Socialist and Liberal Frenchspeaking politicians felt as if they would never see the day on which Flemish domination would end. Supressing plural vote was thus -logically -high on the agenda for the opposition, and resented as great an injustice as the majority system. Vauthier (1912) 566-567. Many observers judged the D'Hondt system reinforced the position of the Catholic party. The unity of the party would be assured thanks to the (slight) advantage given to the highest scoring list. Conversely, if Socialists and Liberals were condemned to form a 'cartel' against the predominance of the Catholic Party, more moderate Liberal voters would desert them. Lachapelle (1911) 111. For an excellent, simple and straightforward explanation of the diference between the D'Hondt system and the residuary meansystem, see Ibid,[113][114][115][116][117] Vauthier (1912), 567. Frederik Dhondt and clear majority system. 82 The root of Esmein's criticism resided in his equation of the right of representation to a collective right, of which the Nation was the bearer, and not the individual. Raymond Carré de Malberg (1861-1935 followed Esmein in stating that proportional elections were nothing but a purported disguise of a denaturation of the French representative system. Proportional elections were based on ideas of proportional representation, a necessary step in a descent towards direct government. Proportional representation would have created 'semirepresentative' government, where the monopoly of MPs to represent the nations was encroached on by individual voters. 83 Errera (cf. supra) applied the distinction between the majority rule for the decisional function of MPs and proportional representation for their election. Carré de Malberg vehemently rejected this idea. From the moment of their election on, MPs should not worry about the 'diverse and heterogenous elements composing the electoral corps', but should see themselves as the 'exclusive organ of the nation by which it can express a will'. 84 The representatives of the nation did not have to worry to ensure a representation of all opinions or interests within the assembly, 'à aucun moment, pas même à l'époque des élections '. 85 Yet, the same political criticism as in Belgium existed in La Grande Nation. 86  Yet, specific French circumstances explain Thomson's point of view: in his speech, he refers to the intrusion of a multitude of political parties, among which some might even be suspected to be unconstitutional. In other words, Thomson refers to the Legitimists, who favoured the restauration of monarchy in France. 89 An 'imposing republican majority' was a necessity. Otherwise, no reform whatsoever would have been possible.
Léon Duguit (1859Duguit ( -1928 was more favourably inclined towards proportional representation, and did not envisage the opposition between representation and proportional elections. 90 In his Manuel de droit constitutionnel, he inventoried the frequent criticism of the French majority system. First, the arbitrary consequences following from the combination of a majority in parliament and the majority principle in the designation of MPs. The controversial law on the separation of Church and State had been voted by representatives in the Chambre des Députés assembling in total 2,6 out of 10 million French voters. 91 Condorcet (1743-1794), 92 Victor Considérant (1808-1893, 93 John Stuart Mill (1806-1873 and Jean Jaurès , all three famous names, advocated replacing the inequitable majority system. Yet, Duguit thought the question was asked in the wrong way. Not proportionality between 89 Ibid. Arguments in favour of proportional representation did not only emerge from the voters' interest to be liberated from the yoke of local potentates, but also from deputies' own freedom. 95 In 1927, the Communist Jean Garchery (1872-1957) called upon his colleagues to liberate themselves from the 'servitude' of their local constituency, in order to exercise their parliamentary voting right in dignity, with morality, preferring the battle of ideas to the battle of persons. 96 'Malheur à qui voudra se réfugier dans l'arrondissement': small constituencies were the political graveyard of big ideas. 97 A second argument on MP's freedom was the 'ignoble second tour'. In the second round, French politicians were obliged to cater to the needs of other voters than those who supported them in the first round, leading to the sacrifice of 'ceux du premier tour qui pensent comme lui, mais dont il est sûr '. 98 The most eloquent advocate of proportional representation was Jean Jaurès . In 1910, the French legislative elections were won by the Radical-Republican-Socialist Party and the Socialist Republican Party, of which many members favoured PR. Jaurès (SFIO) challenged the idea that a majority of Frenchmen could be constituted by the addition of local majorities. 99 According to Jaurès, the equal right of all citizens to control and direct human activity was the founding principle of sovereignty. The majority can only decide if is built on fundamentally equal individuals. Jaurès noted the marginal position of proportional 94 Duguit (1907) representation only three to four decades earlier, and its remarkable rise in countries with an intense political activity. He attributed this rise to the 'esprit d'association', or the necessity to integrate individuals within social structures such as trade unions. 100 This movement was essential! Without the esprit d'association, universal suffrage risked destroying itself through fragmentation in parliament. 101 Proportional representation ought thus to generate political parties, or in Rosanvallon's words 'appréhender le pluralisme social sous les espèces du pluralisme des partis '. 102 Jaurès recalled that the growth of the French state had been a consequence of administrative centralisation. Local resistance had been broken during the French revolution. If the legislative branch of government allowed itself to be splintered in hundreds of small fiefs, the executive would wield excessive power. 103 Proportional representation would arouse voters' attention: finally they would be free to vote for an idea, rather than for a local face. Furthermore, without regular reform, Jaurès warned, systems of freedom ('les régimes de liberté') would inevitably come to their end. Even if there would probably not be a majority for the socialisation of all individual property, he was persuaded that one could be found for a minimum programme of social reform. 104 100 Le Beguec (1986), 73. The Confédération Générale du Travail (CGT), until recently France's most prominent labour union, was founded in 1895, precisely in this era. Houtte (2014), 200. The CGT campaigned on the speciic reforms Jaurès pleaded for, such as the eight hour-working day. 101 Lachapelle (1911), 53-66. See in a similar vein, Belgian arguments pro PR and against the 'esprit de clocher ': De Smaele (1999). 102 Rosanvallon (2010) 164; See Orban's defence of political parties: 'don't believe political parties would be a weakness and an illness of the modern state. They are both the condition and proof of a strong political life.' Orban further relies on Bluntschli to state that 'parties are constituted and blossom in a healthy nation, whereas factions are the sign of a sick society. ' Orban (1911), I, 59;Kelsen (1925), 351. Kelsen, however, warned for suicient democratic safeguards within political parties, in order to avoid the 'dictatorship' of party leaders. 103 Jaurès, June 1911. J.O. D.P. CdD 2 June 1911, col. 2498 Detailed by Jaurès further on in his speech: 1° an income tax, 2° working men's pensions 3° social insurance 4° weekly mandatory rest for all workers 5° restrictions on home labour. Jaurès thought these proposals infuriated many petty lobbies, capable of rigging Individual strife between local potentates should not divide political forces with a higher calling. 105 When reacting to these arguments, equally put forward by Barthélémy 106 , Vauthier was not convinced of the impact PR had had on party organisation, nor on the focus on an elevated debating climate dominated by high ideas. To his interpretation, Belgium was locked in a linguistic crisis, which PR could not have prevented. 107 PR was adopted in 1912 by the Chambre des Députés, but defeated in the French Sénat in 1913. The radicals of Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929) and Emile Combes (1835-1921 swung against the text adopted by the Chambre des Députés and dropped their support. 108

After the Great War: the end of the "Belgian Laboratory"
In this section, the end of the "Belgian Laboratory" will be discussed after the Great War.

Belgium 1918-1921: the advent of 'pure' PR for parliamentary election, and the defeat of the 'loi des quatre infamies'
Belgium introduced Universal Suffrage under pressure. Contra constitutionem, the elections of November 1918 were organised without the double and triple voting system of 1893. Politically and morally, the government felt it impossible to discriminate against the one vote-electors who had risked or given their lives in the Great War, especially with elections in small constituencies (arrondissements, as opposed to the département, the scale at which proponents of proportional representation in France saw the appropriate scale for fair elections). J. O. D.P. CdD 2 June 1911, col. 2498 Jaurès believed that alcohol abuse in the West of France was due to the systematic lobbying of the local industry, and thought they would not be able to control parliament any more under proportional representation. J. O. D.P. CdD 2 June 1911, col. 2498. 106 Vauthier (1912, 565; Barthélémy (1912), 715. 107 See equally Wils (2017), 158-183. 108 HouTte (2014Lachapelle, (1913). For the broader movement underpinning PR advocacy, see Marty (2013). the spectre of the Bolshevist Revolution in Russia in the background. 109 Two million voters participated in the elections, without any distinction according to wealth or education. Consequently, the Catholic Party lost its absolute majority, opening the era of coalition government, where proportional representation represented justice between political parties. The Catholics came down to 73 seats out of 186 (a loss of 26 seats). The Socialists gained 30 seats and obtained 70 MPs in the Chamber of Representatives. The Liberal Party lost slightly, but maintained its representation. For the first time, five Flemish Nationalists were elected. 110 The introduction of the one man, one vote-principle was not the only innovation in electoral law. First, the loi des quatre infamies was necessarily sacrificed to the exigencies of the Belgian Workers' Party. Second, the iniquitous small constituencies on the countryside had to become true territories of democracy. 111 Municipal elections were held according to pure universal suffrage, including suffrage for women. 112 The major reform of parliamentary elections consisted in allowing for the regrouping of surplus votes at provincial level. Seats were distributed first in constituencies. Yet, if it was not possible to attribute seats directly, the remaining seats were allotted to the parties with the highest number of remaining votes at a higher level. In total, the repartition of seats was conformable to what would have been the outcome if the election had taken place at the provincial level. Consequently, votes for Socialist, Liberal, Communist or Flemish Nationalist candidates in rural areas were not lost anymore, but counted together with those expressed in the provincial capital. Whereas 109 Velaers (2009), 464-468. The new electoral law lowered the minimum age to 21, thus including soldiers aged between 21 and 25. 110 Luykx (1978), 291. 111 Provinces of Luxembourg, West Flanders, Limburg, Namur. E.g. at the parliamentary elections of 1900 in Limburg, the Liberal party's share of the vote (1/6 of all votes) ought to have been suicient to gain one seat out of the six seats available in the province.
However, the Catholic party managed to conquer all seats in both districts, which required a third of the votes as minimum threshold. 112 Female sufrage was opposed by the Socialist and Liberal parties, by fear of Catholic domination. Velaers (2009) 512, 566-568. the one man one vote-principle had killed off the Catholic absolute majority, the new system of apparentement, inspired by the Liberal MP Victor Van de Walle (1849-1927, 113 assured an equitable distribution of seats between rural and urban areas. 114 Hence, the 'effets détestables' of the D'Hondt system in small constituencies could be resolved. 115

France 1919: a conditional PR experiment
France introduced proportional representation for the election of the Chambre des Députés with the law of 12 July 1919. 116 This text was a compromise, out of fear of too much fragmentation in the representative landscape. Candidates obtaining the absolute majority of votes were automatically elected. Proportional representation only became applicable for those seats where no individual candidate had obtained an absolute majority. 117 Furthermore, under certain conditions, the largest party 113 VAN DE WALLE (1910). Kelsen warned against small territorial constituencies, leading to a deprivation of seats for smaller parties, even under a formal PR system: ' Tatsächlich  In the 1925 edition of his Allgemeine Staatslehre, the Austrian constitutional lawyer Hans Kelsen ironically remarked that the shift away from Carré de Malberg's idea of the nation as a collective sovereign had not always been evident ('selbstverständlich'). Kelsen recognised Carré de Malberg's reasoning was correct: proportional representation implied that not the Gesamtwählerschaft (all voters), but Teilkörper (parts of the electorate) became the bearers of the right to elect (droit d'élire). It was thus highly probable that proportional representation would increase the degree of Unmittelbarkeit (direct link) between individual voters and government. 120 Thanks to proportional representation, the definition of these subgroups was not a matter of 'unnatural' territorial criteria, but of an affiliation between persons agreeing on the same political ideas (alle Personen der gleichen politischen Überzeugung). 121 Carré de Malberg focused excessively on an extreme case ('ideeller Grenzfall'), whereby the representative system as such would be destroyed. Kelsen fully adhered to Errera's distinction between the operation of the majority rule for decisions made in parliament, on the one hand, and every citizen's right to be represented, on the other hand. Proportional representation was a consequence of the 'individualistische Prinzip der Freiheit'. All minorities in society, by their mere existence, exert an influence on political decisions. The narrower a political majority becomes, the more it will be inclined to build its decisions on compromise. As a consequence, proportional representation ensures the majority will not abuse of its power, to let 'die Wille der Mehrheit schrankenlos 118 The number of preference votes expressed could result in the attribution of remaining seats to candidates on the largest list. Esmein and Nézard (1921) über den der Minderheiten herrschen'. 122 Minorities could not prevent the majority from acting according to its wishes, but proportional representation offered them the possibility to come 'unwesentlich näher' (almost unimaginably close) to a culture of compromise and pacification.

France 1925-1927: the triumph of majoritarian orthodoxy
After the return to the majority system, Léon Duguit, who had defended 'PR' before World War One, showed himself very critical of proportional representation. In his course on public law professed at the University of Cairo in 1926, he doubted whether the concept would be compatible with national sovereignty at all, and stated that Belgium had 'no majority left whatsoever'. 123 This a reference to the severe financial tensions during the 1925-1926 government of Socialists and Catholics, which was brought down by speculation. 124 However, one could also use the opposite argument, as Jaurès did during the 1912 debate, at the apex of the 'mouvement proportionnaliste' of 1906-1913: the majority system in France had not assured stable majorities. 125 Duguit's rejection in 1926 is rather surprising. Three years earlier, the 1923 edition of his Traité de droit constitutionnel, echoed Carré de Malberg's preference for the term proportional 'election'. However, Duguit added that proportional 'representation' in itself was an ill-conceived term, since a proportional distribution of seats did not necessarily entail a new theory of representation or of national sovereignty. One could infer that Duguit did not consider PR incompatible with the republican idea of national sovereignty. 126 One year after Duguit's Cairo lectures, the Chambre des Députés opted to scrap proportional representation with the law of 21 July 1927, with y a very thin majority (295 against 265). 127 The return to the majority system was defended in an ulterior debate by Thomson. He stated in the Chambre des Députés that the majority system had been conformable to the 'génie même de notre regime politique et parlementaire' 128 , ever since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1848. 129 Yet, the association of proportional representation and justice did not disappear with the wiping out of the system in 1925, as its multiple resurrections indicate. 130 The republican Blaisot (1881Blaisot ( -1945 argued that the 'justice électorale' was still an ideal cherished by the majority of his compatriots. 131

Conclusion
From 1883 to 1921, the Belgian electoral system underwent systemic changes, designed to adapt representative institutions to the advent of universal suffrage and end the disenfranchisement of at least the male half of the adult population. An elitist well-off group of at most 100 000 electors could no longer embody the collective national will. The parallel development of arguments on proportional representation in France, within the broader international 'élan proportionnaliste' of the later 19 th century, 132 is striking. Parisian defenders of the republican regime staunchly opposed the introduction of this reform up to the Great War, whereas Belgian conservatives bowed fourteen year earlier, admitting PR, however without introducing the one man one voteprinciple, and without corrections in district size. 127 Erhard & Passard (2019), 14-17. 128 J.O. D.P. CdD 5 July 1927, col. 2288 This refers back to the Third Republic's interpretation of Universal Sufrage after the fall of the Second Empire, see on this subject Prelot (2013). 130 Le Beguec (1986), passim. 131 J.O. D.P. CdD 2 June 1911, col. 2298. 132 Rosanvallon (2010), 156.

Frederik Dhondt
Proportional representation was defended across borders by activists and legal scholars using the tautological moral slogan of 'justice and equality'. Yet, 'equality' in electoral affairs did not necessarily imply the one man-one vote principle (in the Belgian case), nor a right of mimetic representation (in the French case). Proponents and opponents of PR could conceive of alternative definitions of justifiable differences in treatment. For Carré de Malberg, equality in voting was restricted to 'l'aptitude au vote', and not applicable to the consequences of a vote cast, 'ceux-ci peuvant demeurer négatifs pour les électeurs qui forment la minorité '. 133 Before the Great War, caught between conservative Germany, where the 1871 constitution still consecrated monarchical sovereignty 134 and progressive, secular France, where left-wing and republican governments were feared as a factor of political instability in Europe, Belgium steered a middle course with experiments in its electoral 'laboratory'. Yet, due to the transnational constitutional and democratic reverberations of the Great War, the characteristic of 'justice' 135 attached to PR would truly emerge, to transform the country profoundly.
In the long run, proportional representation had massive consequences for the operation of the Belgian political system. The country's culture of pacification gradually required the representation of all minorities, across the linguistic divide. Tensions between regions and linguistic communities are resolved in federalism (1970), tensions between employers and employees gave rise to a complex system of corporatist social negotiations (1919), tensions between Catholics and non-Catholics resulted in important pacts on schools (1959) and cultural life (1973). 136 The increasing devolution of competences (1970,1980,1988,1993,2001,2012) has entrenched PR-pacification mechanisms 133 Carré de Malberg (1922), II, 481. 134 In 1923, Duguit stated that the patrimonial idea of the state had ended in 1919. Yet, he still distinguished the German conception of a state based on Herrschaft and corporation (Jellinek), from the French idea of the nation as carrier of state sovereignty, exercised through representatives. Duguit (1923), 460. 135 I borrow these expressions from political scientist Vedel (1978), 246. 136 Witte, Meynen and Luyten (2017). within each constituent entity of the Belgian state. In that sense, the introduction of PR in 1899 was the most fundamental reform of the Belgian political system, the consequences of which reached further than its initiators could have imagined.