The plan of election in the country districts is precisely similar, but the town-council is less numerous, and each village has its own resident paredhros. The election of the demarch and of the paredhroi is conducted as at Athens, and the royal governor of the province is compelled to visit each commune in turn, in order to preside at the election. The whole system rests on a popular basis. Every citizen possessing property, or enrolled in the list of citizens from paying taxes, enjoys a vote in the election of the magistrates of his demos. The royal authority only concurs in so far as is required to preserve order, and give an official certificate of the legality of the proceedings. We come now to another popular institution, which gives a great degree of political strength to the municipal organization of Greece, and protects its liberties in a manner unknown in most other countries. Each province possesses a provincial council, the members of which are elected by the citizens of the different demoi into which the province is divided--a demos containing 2000 inhabitants, sends one representative; a demos with 10,000 but exceeding 2000, sends two representatives; and a demos having more than 10,000 inhabitants, sends three. Here, however, the electors are required to pay fifty drachmas of direct taxes to the general government in order to be entitled to vote.[C] [Footnote C: Twenty-eight drachmas make a pound sterling.] It will be seen, on referring to the population of the Attic demoi, that the provincial council of Attica consists of twelve members, and these members are elected for six years. The restriction on the electors is not unpopular in Greece, as it is connected with an extended suffrage in the municipal elections. Upwards of 500 citizens voted in Athens at the last elections of provincial councillors. The provincial councils meet every year in the months of February or March, as that is the season when the landed proprietors in the country can most conveniently absent themselves from their farms. The council chooses its own president and secretary, but the royal governor of the province has the right to attend its meeting. The budget of each demos must be presented to the council and approved by it, and it has the power of rejecting any item of expenditure; but it can only recommend, not enforce, any additional expense. It is likewise the business of the provincial council to examine the grounds on which any demos solicits the power of imposing local taxes: it proposes also general improvements for the whole province, and has the power of assessing the taxes necessary for carrying them into effect. Roads, barracks for _gendarmes_, prisons, hospitals, and schools, are objects of its attention. Its acts must all be presented to the minister of the interior at the conclusion of the session, and they acquire validity only from the time the minister communicates the royal assent to the proceedings.