In 1898 also the municipal franchise, hitherto confined to ratepayers, was greatly widened; in 1900 the English system of compensation to workmen for accidents suffered in their trade was adopted with some changes, one of the chief being that contested claims are adjudicated upon cheaply and expeditiously by the same arbitration court that decides industrial disputes.
If any clerk have a complaint against his own bishop, he shall have his cause adjudicated upon by the synod of the province.
The 24th of June, 1904, was the date fixed on which control passed to the Board, and in the meantime a Court of Arbitration adjudicated the claims of the companies for compensation for the acquisition of their properties.
The monarchical principle no longer sufficed to ensure social discipline; the fear of lorfeiting the grant became the only powerful guarantee of obedience, and as this only applied to his personal vassals, Charlemagne gave up his claim to direct obedience from the test of the people, accepting the mediation of the counts, lords and bishops, who levied taxes, adjudicated and administered in virtue of the privileges of patronage, not of the right of the state.
Four years after making the settlement Sharp was adjudicated bankrupt when he had a wife and two adult children.
