This condition of political inequality is the result of the maintenance of the old political divisions, despite the fact that in the last thirty years the whole complexion of the country has changed radically, due to the rapid increase of the city populations representing the industrial and commercial progress of a nation that is now the rival of both the United States and Great Britain. In more than one instance a town with over 300,000 inhabitants will be represented in the legislature in the same proportion as a country population of 30,000. Stettin, for example, with a population of 245,000, which is a seventh of the total population of Pomerania, has only 6 of the 89 provincial representatives. Further, the three-class system of voting in Prussia and in the German cities, is a unique arrangement for giving men the suffrage without either power or privilege. According to this system every male inhabitant of Prussia aged twenty-five is entitled to vote in the election of members of the lower house. The voters, however, are divided into three classes. This division is made by taking the total amount of the state taxes paid in each electoral district and dividing it into three equal amounts. The first third is paid by the highest tax-payers; the second third by the next highest tax-payers, and the last third by the rest. The first class consists of a comparatively few wealthy people; it may even happen that a single individual pays a third of the taxes in a given district. These three classes then elect the members of an electoral college, who then elect the member of the house. In Prussia it may be said roughly that 260,000 wealthy tax-payers elect one-third; 870,000 tax-payers elect one-third, and the other 6,500,000 voters elect one-third of the members of the electoral college, with the consequence that the 6,500,000 are not represented at all in the lower house of Prussia. In order to make this three-class system of voting quite clear, let us take the case of a city where the same principle may be seen at work on a smaller scale. In 1910, in the city of Berlin, there were: 931 voters of the first class paying 27,914,593 marks of the total tax. 32,131 voters of the second class paying 27,908,776 marks of the total tax. 357,345 voters of the third class paying 16,165,501 marks of the total tax. Roughly the voters in the first class each paid $7,500; those in the second class $218; those in the third class $11. The 931 voters elected one-third, 32,131 voters elected one-third, and 357,345 elected one-third of the town councillors. In this same year in Berlin there were: 521 persons with incomes between $25,000 and $62,500. 139 persons with incomes between $62,500 and $125,000. 22 persons with incomes between $125,000 and $187,500. 19 persons with incomes between $187,000 and $250,000.