CHAPTER V. The Socialist Party of France

THE SOCIALIST PARTY OF FRANCE

The Commune abruptly put an end to Socialism in France. The caldron boiled over and put out the fire. Thiers, in his last official message as president, claimed that Socialism, living and thriving in Germany, was absolutely dead in France. It was, however, to be revived in a newer and more vital form.

The exiled communards, in England and elsewhere, came in contact with Marxianism, and in 1880, when a general amnesty was declared, they brought to Paris a new and virile propaganda. The leader of the new Marxian movement was Jules Guesde, a tireless zealot, burning with the fire that kindles enthusiasm.

The "affaire Boulanger" absorbed attention at this time, and Guesde, in his newspapers, La Revolution Francaise and Egalite, supported the Republic. But he was also insisting upon "Le minimum d'etat et la maximum de liberte" (a minimum of government and a maximum of liberty). This may be taken as the political maxim of the Socialists at that time, although it leads them into the embarrassing anomaly of using their own slave as their master.

Meantime a political labor party had arisen. In Paris, in 1878, a workingman became a candidate for the municipal council, and he headed his program with the words "Parti Ouvrier"--Labor Party. This is the first time the words were used with a political significance. It was a small beginning, his votes were few, and the newspaper that espoused the workingman's cause, Le Proletaire, was constantly on the verge of bankruptcy for want of proletarian support. In other cities the political labor movement began, and in 1879 a labor conference was held in Marseilles.

The two movements, labor and Socialist, drew together in 1880 at a general conference of workingmen at Havre. Here there were three groups which found it impossible to coalesce: the Anarchists, under Blanqui, formed the "Parti Socialiste Revolutionnaire"--the Revolutionary Socialist Party; the co-operativists, calling themselves the Republican Socialist Alliance, included the opportunist element of the Socialists; and the Guesdists, who were in the majority, organized the "Parti Ouvrier Francais"--the French Labor Party--and adopted a Marxian program.

The Guesdists entered the campaign with characteristic zeal. They polled only 15,000 votes in Paris and 25,000 in the Departments for their municipal tickets, and 50,000 in the entire country for their legislative ticket.

From the first the Socialists in France have been rent by petty factions. We will hastily review these constantly shifting groups before proceeding to the larger inquiry.

In 1882 the Guesdists split, and Brousse formed the "Federation des Travailleurs Socialistes de France"--the Federation of Socialist Workingmen of France. In 1885 Malon formed a group for the study of the social problems, "Societe d'Economie Sociale"--Society of Social Economics--which rapidly developed into the important group of Independent Socialists--"Parti Socialiste Independent." The labor movement was stimulated by the act of 1884, and in 1886 the "Federation des Syndicats"--Federation of Labor Unions--was organized at Lyons, and in 1887 the Paris Labor Exchange--"Bourse du Travail"--was opened.

In 1882 Allemane seceded from the Broussists to found a faction of his own, the Revolutionary Socialist Labor Party of France--"Parti Ouvrier Socialiste Revolutionnaire Francais." In 1893 the first confederation of the labor exchanges (bourses) was held, and the first conspicuous victory at the polls achieved.

In 1899 an effort was made to unify the warring factions, and a committee representing every shade of Socialistic faith was appointed. It was called the General Committee--"Comite General Socialiste." Within the year the Guesdists withdrew on account of the rigorous quelling of the strike riots by the government at Chalons-sur-Saone. In 1901 the Blanquists withdrew and, coalescing with the Guesdists, formed the Socialist Party of France--"Parti Socialiste de France." This movement was soon followed by the uniting of the Jauresites and the Independents, who called themselves the French Socialist Party--"Parti Socialiste Francais."

After the expulsion of Millerand, the two parties united in 1905 at Rouen. This unity was achieved at the suggestion of the International Congress held at Amsterdam, 1904. The "United Party" is officially known as the French Section of the International Workingmen's Association--"Section Francaise de l'Internationale Ouvriere."

The United Party, after its years of ridiculous factionalism, is the most compact and disciplined group in the Chamber of Deputies, and this in spite of the fact that the Guesdists and Jauresites have not forgotten their ancient differences. The French people are not amenable to discipline and party rigor as are the Germans and the Anglo-Saxons. At the last election (1910) the United Party elected 76 deputies in a chamber of 590 members.

There are to-day two other groups that are more or less Socialistic but are not in "the Party." The Independent Socialists, numbering thirty-four members in the Chamber, are men who, either because of their intellectualism or because of their political ambitions, have a repugnance to hard and fast organization. This group includes a number of college professors and journalists; also Briand, Viviani, and Millerand, former ministers. They are not committed to any definite political program, take a leading part in all social reform measures, and are accused by the "united ones" of using the name Socialist merely as a bait for votes.

The other group is the Socialist-Radical Party, numbering about 250 members in the Chamber. In most countries their radicalism would be called Socialism. But in France they are only the connecting link between Socialists and liberal Republicans.

The "social questions" were slow in entering parliament. In 1876 a Bonapartist deputy, known for his charities, interpolated the government, asking what inquiries were being made toward securing the moral and material betterment of "the greatest number," and amidst the cheers of his followers the Prime Minister replied that the government's duty was comprehended in securing to the country "liberty, security, and education." This was the old idea of the functions of government. The new social movement had not yet gathered momentum.

With the development of the workingman's political party, interest and sympathy for his problems suddenly increased. In 1880 the Republicans adopted a resolution in favor of freedom of association. At this time labor unions were illegal. In 1881 the government removed the restrictions that had been placed on the press. In the following year it extended the primary schools into every commune, and Gambetta did everything in his power to promulgate what he termed "an alliance of the proletariat and the bourgeois." Social science, he said, was the solvent of social ills. The Socialists, however, believed that politics, not "social science," was the solvent.

It was not until 1884, while Waldeck-Rousseau was Minister of the Interior, that labor was given the legal right to organize. Immediately unions--called syndicats by the French--sprang up everywhere. Article 3 of the act declared that these unions had for their exclusive object "the study and the promulgation of their interests, economic, industrial, commercial, and agricultural." They were not given the liberal legal powers that English and American unions have.

The social movement now invaded French politics in full battle array. A government commission was intrusted with the study of the co-operative movement. In 1885 several deputies, calling themselves Socialists, began to interpellate the ministry on the labor questions. The government brought in two proposals, one pertaining to communal and industrial organizations, the other to the arbitration of industrial disputes. Both were tabled.

In 1887 a man appeared in the Chamber ready to debate the social questions with the keenest and the ablest. This was Jean Jaures, a professor of philosophy, whose profound knowledge and superb oratory immediately commanded attention. He was joined by another new deputy, M. Millerand, scarcely less proficient in debate, and even more extreme in his convictions. Both were considered members of the radical party. But they soon formed the nucleus of a new group, the Independent Socialists, that grew rapidly in influence and power.

The social question was forced on the public from yet another direction. The Anarchists, who had been expelled from the Havre conference, remained passive until the organization of trade unions. They then began to promulgate the doctrine of the general strike. The unionists began not only to compel their employers to accede to their demands, but to coerce workingmen to join the unions. It was during this agitation that the government established an elaborate system of labor exchanges--"Bourse du Travail."

From the labor unions the doctrine of the general strike was insinuated into Socialist circles. In 1890 it was proposed as a practical measure for enforcing the demand for an eight-hour day among the miners. In 1892 the Departmental Congress of Workingmen at Tours passed a resolution favoring the general strike, and it was discussed a few days later in a general convention of the unions, at the suggestion of Aristide Briand, a Socialist who was destined to play an important role in the development of the theory and practice of general strikes.

The government could no longer dodge the social question. Millerand announced his conversion to Socialism and became the leader of a small parliamentary coterie who pressed the issue daily. In a signed statement to the unions they said: "The Republic has given the ballot into your hand, now give the Republic your instructions." The parliamentary entente of the liberal Socialists with the Radical Left dates from this time. The campaign spread with surprising fervor. Labor unions and parliamentary Socialists joined their forces. In 1893 they elected forty Socialists to the Chamber of Deputies. Among them were Jaures, who now espoused the cause of the Socialist opportunists; Millerand, conspicuous as leader of the independent group; Guesde, the vehement Marxian; and Vaillant, a communard and Socialist of the older type.

Now began the actual parliamentary Socialism in France. Jaures, in introducing the group--they were scarcely a party--to the Chamber, affirmed their allegiance to the Republic and their devotion to the cause of humanity. The misery of the people had awakened, he said, after right of association had been granted. Labor had, through strikes, gained certain minor improvements. It was now prepared to conquer public authority. But so much of their time was spent in quarreling with each other, and debating whether they should vote with the Radicals, that very little substantial work was accomplished by the Socialists.

Finally, encouraged by their unusual success in the municipal elections of 1896, the leaders of the various factions met at Saint-Mande to celebrate their victory. They were tiring of their quarrels and were ready to unite. At least they agreed that each group could name its own candidate for the first ballot; on the second ballot they should all support the Socialist who polled the most votes on the first ballot.

But who is a Socialist? Here for the first time a political definition was attempted. Millerand, a Parisian lawyer who, we have seen, made his political debut with Jaures, as a member of the Radical Left, attempted the answer. It was made in the presence of Guesde, Vaillant, and Jaures, and many local leaders from various parts of France. So, for the moment and for the occasion of rejoicing, there was a united Socialism. And it gave assent, with varying enthusiasm, to the general definition and program outlined by Millerand. He defined the ground to be covered as follows:

"Is not the Socialistic idea completely summed up in the earnest desire to secure for every being in the bosom of society the unimpaired development of his personality? That implies two necessary conditions of which one is a factor of the other: first, individual appropriation of things necessary for the security and development of the individual, i.e., property; secondly, liberty, which is only a sounding and hollow word if it is not based on and safeguarded by property."

He then accepted in toto the Marxian theory that capitalistic society bears within itself the enginery of its own doom. "Men do not and will not set up collectivism; it is setting itself up daily; it is, if I may be allowed the phrase, being secreted by the capitalistic regime. Here I seem to have my finger on the characteristic feature of the Socialist program. In my view, whoever does not admit the necessary and progressive replacement of capitalistic property by social property is not a Socialist."

Millerand was not satisfied with merely including banking, railroads, and mining in the list of "socialized" property. He believed that as industries become "ripe" they should be taken over by the state, and cites sugar refining as an example of a monopoly that is "incontestably ripe." Millerand also laid great stress on municipal activities, and hastened to guarantee to the small property owner his modest possessions. All this taking over by the state was to be done gradually. "No Socialist ever dreamed of transforming the capitalistic regime instantaneously by magic wand." The method of this gradual absorption by the state must be constitutional. "We appeal only to universal suffrage. To realize the immediate reforms capable of relieving the lot of the working class, and thus fitting it to win its own freedom, and to begin, as conditioned by the nature of things, the socialization of the means of production, it is necessary and sufficient for the Socialist party to endeavor to capture the government through universal suffrage."

This mild formulary, which places the "socialized society" far into the dim future, was accepted as long as it was rhetorical. But when Millerand himself became a member of the cabinet in the Waldeck-Rousseau coalition, and began to translate his words into deeds, a rupture followed.

In the meantime occurred the Dreyfus affair, which shifted all the political forces of the Republic. At first the Guesdists remained indifferent, while Jaures, with great energy, threw himself into the contest in behalf of Dreyfus. But when the affair took an anti-Republican turn and democracy was threatened, then all the Socialists united, with no lack of energy and zeal, in the defense of the Republic. On June 13, 1898, Millerand was spokesman in the Chamber of Deputies for the Socialist group, which now held the balance of power. With threats of violence against the Republic in the air, he assured the deputies that his comrades were united for "the honor, the splendor, and the safety of the Fatherland" (l'honneur, la grandeur, et la securite de la Patrie). And this was part of the price of their adhesion: old-age pensions, a fixed eight-hour day, factory legislation protecting the life and health of the workman, military service reduced to two years, and an income tax. The Radical Left adopted this "minimum program" of the Socialists, and the famous "Bloc" was formed. Jaures was made vice-president of the Chamber and soon proved himself master of the coalition. Now for the first time in history the Socialists were in political power, and what occurred is of the greatest interest to us.

III

And now for the first time a Socialist becomes a cabinet member. In 1899 Waldeck-Rousseau appointed Millerand Minister of Commerce, to the consternation of the Conservatives and the division of the Socialists. Jaures congratulated his colleague on his courage in assuming responsibility. But while the Independents were jubilant over the elevation of one of their number, the Guesdists and Blanquists withdrew from the "Bloc." They issued a manifesto setting forth their reasons. They did not wish further alliances with a "pretended Socialist." They were tired of "compromises and deviations," which for too long a time had been forced on them as "a substitute for the class war, for revolution, and the socialism of the militant proletariat."

To them the war of the classes forbade their entrance into a bourgeois ministry; and the conquest of political power did not imply collaboration with a government whose duty it was to defend property. Jaures proposed to put the question up to the party congress, and in 1899 at Paris a bilateral compromise resolution was adopted. Guesde, however, restless and dissatisfied, compelled the congress to vote first upon the question, "Does the war of the classes permit the entrance of a Socialist into a bourgeois government?" The answer was 818 "no," 634 "yes." Jaures' compromise was then adopted, 1,140 to 240.

The international congress held in Paris, September, 1900, adopted Kautsky's resolution declaring that the acceptance of office by a single Socialist in a bourgeois government "could not be deemed the normal commencement of the conquest for political power, but only an expedient called forth by transitory and exceptional conditions."

At the Bordeaux congress, April, 1903, the whole time was given over to this perplexing question. The congress was composed largely of friends of Millerand and Jaures. By this time the Socialist minister had had three years' experience in the cabinet. The Waldeck-Rousseau premiership had given way to Combes, who was also dependent upon the Socialists for his power.

Millerand had especially offended the Socialists by voting against his party on three separate occasions: first, on a resolution abolishing state support for public worship; second, on a resolution to prosecute certain anti-militarists for publishing a book that tended to destroy military discipline; and, third, on a resolution asking the Minister of Foreign Affairs to invite proposals for international disarmament. He had further offended the Socialists by officially receiving the Czar on his visit to Paris.

The debate, then, was disciplinary rather than doctrinal. But it was political discipline, evidence therefore that a party consciousness of some sort had been achieved. This meeting is significant because it tried to fix definite limits for Socialistic action and committed Jaures to the narrowing, not to the expanding, policy of the party.

M. Sarrante expressed the Millerand idea when he told the delegates that they were to judge "an entire policy," the policy of "democratic Socialism, which gains ground daily on the revolutionary Socialism, a policy which Citizen Millerand did not start, which he has merely developed and defined, and which forces itself upon us more and more in our republican country." The test of Socialism, he said, was just this "contact of theory with facts."

Jaures found himself in logical difficulty when he endeavored to reconcile both sides for the sake of party unity. He said that Sarrante was wrong "when he thinks it enough to lay down the principle of democracy in order to resolve, in a sort of automatic fashion, the antagonisms of society.... The enthronement of political democracy and universal suffrage by no means suppresses the profound antagonism of classes.... Sarrante errs in positing democracy without noting that it is modified, adulterated, thwarted by the antagonism of classes and the economic preponderance of one class. Just as Guesde errs in positing the class war apart from democracy."

To Jaures the problem was to "penetrate" this democracy with the ideas of Socialism until the "proletarian and Socialistic state has replaced the oligarchic and bourgeois state." This can be brought about, he said, by "a policy which consists in at once collaborating with all democrats, yet vigorously distinguishing one's self from them."

Jaures acknowledged the awkwardness of this policy, which required a superhuman legerdemain never yet accomplished by any party in the history of politics.

Guesde's motion to oust Millerand from the party was lost. And a compromise offered by Jaures censuring him for his votes, but permitting him to remain in the party fold, was adopted by 109 to 89 votes, fifteen delegates abstaining from voting. This was a very close margin, and in spite of Millerand's promise that he would in the future be more careful of his party allegiance he was expelled the following year from the Federation of the Seine. The stumbling-block was removed.

More important than the party discipline is the question of the economic measures attempted by Millerand. In general he followed the outlines laid down in his Saint-Mande program. His experience carried him farther away from the Guesdists every year until he repudiated the class war and adhered to social solidarity; substituted the method by evolution for the method by revolution, still espoused by Guesde; and placed the national interests upon as high a plane of duty as the international and the personal. His program of labor legislation was comprehensive, and he succeeded in getting some of it passed into law. These were his leading proposals:

1. Regulating the hours of labor and creating a normal working day of ten hours. He began the reduction at eleven hours, reducing it to ten and a half, and then to ten within three years. In the public works of his own department he reduced the working day at once to eight hours.

2. In public contracts he introduced clauses favorable to workingmen. These clauses embraced the number of hours in a normal work day, the minimum wage for every class of workmen, prohibition of piece-work, guarantee of no work on Sunday, and the per cent. of foreign workmen allowed on the job. He arranged that the workingmen should unite with the employer in fixing the wages and the hours of labor before the contract was signed. In these contracts, furthermore, the state reserved the right to indemnify the workmen out of the funds due to the contractor.

3. An accident insurance law.

4. The abolition of private employment agencies, with their many abuses, and replacing them with communal labor bureaus free to all. The voluntary federations of the trade unions were put on a similar footing with the communal labor exchanges, and were encouraged to co-operate with them. Millerand took great care to perfect the organization of trade unions. He introduced amendments to the old law of 1884, giving greater scope and elasticity to the unions, granting them greater corporate powers, and making the dismissal of a workman because he belonged to a union ground for a civil suit for damages. He began a movement to secure the co-operation between the unions and the state workshop inspectors. There had been a great deal of abuse in the operation of the inspection laws by the employers. An attempt was now made to define strictly the rights and duties of the inspectors.

5. His pet scheme was the establishing of labor councils (conseils du travail). On these councils labor and employer were to have equal representation. The duty of the councils embraced the adjudication of all disputes arising between employer and employee, suggesting improvements, and keeping vigilance over all local labor conditions. In 1891 a supreme labor council had been established. To this Millerand added lay and official members and greatly increased its efficiency. He tried to make it a central vigilance bureau, keeping in close touch with local conditions all over the land.

6. He elaborated a plan for regulating industrial disputes. This was to be effected by a permanent organization in each establishment employing more than fifty men, a sort of committee of grievance to which all matters of dispute might be referred. In case of failure to settle their difficulties an appeal to the local labor council was provided. By this democratic representative machinery Millerand hoped to solve the labor problem.

It will be seen that Millerand's plan was an attempt, by law, to project the working class, not into politics but into the capitalist class. He would do this by compelling the employer to share the responsibility of ownership with his employees. This would mark the beginning of a revolution very different from the revolution ordinarily preached by propagandists, because this revolution would substitute class peace in place of our present incessant economic class war.

The Socialists made it plain that Millerand's procedure was not Socialism. When Millerand was first asked to take a cabinet portfolio his friend Jaures told him to accept. When he had perfected his practical procedure, and the bulk of the proletarians evinced their disappointment and chagrin that the elevation of a Socialist had not brought utopia, Jaures gradually slipped away from his former alliance and finally left the reformist group.

Jaures also had his day of power. The Dreyfus affair presented the issue in tangible form--the old traditions, religious, political, social, against the new ideas of society, property, and government. It was the heroic period of modern French Socialism. Red and black flags were borne by enthusiastic multitudes through the streets of Paris. The "Universite Populaire" was inaugurated by students for the purpose of instructing the common people in the issues that were at stake. The flame of eager anticipation spread over the Republic.

As master of the "Bloc" in the Chamber, Jaures became the first real head in the first French democracy. Two great reforms were undertaken: the disestablishment of the Church, carrying with it the secularization of education and the reorganization of the army. The old Royalist families had continued to send their sons into the army and navy. Many of the officers were suspected of royalist sympathies. An elaborate system of espionage was instituted, and the suspects weeded out. The last vestige of the old monarchy has now disappeared from French officialdom. France has a bourgeois army, a bourgeois school system, a bourgeois bureaucracy, thanks to the power of the proletarian Socialists led by Jaures in the days of the Republic's danger.

Jaures remained orthodox; Millerand became heretic. The Millerand episode left a deep impression on the public mind. The first Socialist minister shaped not only a program but an entire policy. In 1906, when a new cabinet was formed, Millerand declined a portfolio, but two other Socialists accepted cabinet honors; Viviani, a well-known Parisian lawyer, held the newly created ministry of labor and social prevision (prevoyance sociale), and Aristide Briand became Minister of Public Instruction and Worship, and later Minister of Justice.

The public regarded the elevation of two Socialists to the cabinet as a matter of course. Millerand's activity had taken the fear out of their hearts. Even the Marxian Socialists failed to notice the event. They had written into their party by-laws that no Socialist could accept office, so the new ministers, by their own acts, ceased to be "Socialists."

Clemenceau, the new Premier, ushered in the next period of social adventure by a brilliant debate in the Chamber with Jaures in which the philosophical basis of individualism was reviewed with great skill and some of the social questions discussed.

Jaures claimed for the Socialists a dominant share in the great victory won by the friends of the Republic during the Dreyfus turmoil, and made much of the multitudes of workingmen to whom the Republic was now under great obligation. These workingmen, the proletariat, were the force now to be dealt with. "If you really wish society to evolve, if you wish it really to be transformed, there is the force you must deal with, and that you must neither repress nor rebuff." The parliamentary experience of Socialism Jaures passed over lightly; it added nothing new, he thought, to the theory or the arguments of the Socialists.

His opponent, however, in a single sentence laid bare the weakness of the Socialist's logic: "The truth is that it is necessary to distinguish between two different elements of the social organization, between the man and the system." Clemenceau read the Socialists' program upon which they had won their victory. It embraced: the eight-hour day, giving state employees the right to form unions, sickness and unemployment insurance; a progressive income tax; ballot reform (scrutin de liste) and proportional representation, and "restoration to the nation of the monopolies in which capital has its strongest fortress."

"What a terribly bourgeois program!" exclaimed Clemenceau. "M. Jaures, after expounding his program, challenged me to produce my own. I had very great difficulty in restraining the temptation to reply: 'You know my program very well. You have it in your pocket. You stole it from me.'"

This debate was significant, not in what was said, but in the fact that it was possible to enlist the Prime Minister, the cleverest of French statesmen, and Jaures, the greatest of French orators, in a discussion of Socialism from the tribune of the Chamber of Deputies. The whole country listened. During this brilliant tilt Clemenceau taunted Jaures that his Socialism was impractical, a dream. "You are a visionary, I am a realist; you have dreams, I have facts." Jaures replied with great fervor that he would prove to the people of France that Socialism is not impracticable and that within a year he would produce a plan for the new social order. The "Unified" Socialist Party, built up largely on Jaures' abandonment of his former colleague and his earlier liberal convictions, may be considered a part of the fulfilment of this promise. The other part, the plans and specifications for the new society, is not yet before the world. Its introduction, properly its prelude, is the volume published by Jaures in 1911, L'Armee Nouvelle, containing suggestions for reorganizing the state defense along lines of voluntary militia and cadets.

Clemenceau's regime was destined to test the Socialist policy in a new direction. The law of 1884 gave state employees the right to form associations, but not to federate or organize syndicats. A great many organizations were formed, especially among the postal employees and teachers. They were mutual benefit societies, "friendly" associations, and the government recognized them to the extent of discussing their grievances and questions of mutual interest with them.

Among the workmen in the navy yards and the national match, tobacco, and porcelain works similar organizations existed. The Syndicalists would not let the matter rest there. They demanded that these organizations become members of the C.G.T. (General Confederation of Workingmen). The government objected because that would give the men the right to strike, a dangerous anomaly giving to the state's servants the right to make government nugatory. This extreme doctrine found ready advocates in the Chamber among the Socialists.

In March, 1909, the post-office clerks and telegraph operators went out on strike. The government promptly discharged thirty-eight of the ringleaders and arrested eight of the strikers in Paris on the charge of resisting the police. In the course of a few days over 800 out of 15,000 employees were discharged. Soldiers were introduced into the service, and with the help of local chambers of commerce and other civic bodies the postal service was renewed. The strikers were then willing to make terms. They stipulated that the dismissed employees be reinstated and that M. Simyan, the Under-Secretary of Posts and Telegraphs, be dismissed. The first request was conceded, the second was denied. The ostensible cause of the strike had been the attitude of the under-secretary; the men asserted that he was arbitrary and had imposed petty political exactions upon them. The government refused to allow the men to dictate its affairs, the under-secretary remained, and the men went back to work.

The Socialists censured the government for not being considerate with the men, and placed the entire blame upon the ministry for refusing the national employees a right to organize as other workmen. To this Simyan replied: "We are in the presence of an organized revolutionary agitation ... this is blackmail by strike." The Minister of Public Works said: "Over our heads these officials have revolted against you and against the entire nation. These are serious hours when the government needs perfect facilities of communication with its ambassadors and consuls [the Balkan question was in the pot], and in such hours a strike is an attack upon the national sovereignty. In these circumstances I cannot re-enter into negotiations with the general postal association. If I did so that would mean abdication." The Socialist deputies voted against the government's resolution "not to tolerate strikes of functionaries."

The general strike committee was not discharged when the men returned to work. When it became evident that the government did not intend to ask the under-secretary for his resignation the post-office employees organized a trade union, unauthorized by law. The government refused to meet representatives of this union, on the ground that state employees had organized for one purpose only, namely, to have the right to strike, and the government would not concede that right.

On May 12 a second general post-office strike was called. The government immediately dismissed over two hundred of the strikers. The Socialists in the Chamber began a demonstration against the government. One of their number started the "Internationale," the Socialist war-song. After the first blush of indignation had passed, the whole Chamber sprang to its feet, there were shouts of protest, a Republican started the Marseillaise, and the two revolutionary hymns, bourgeois and proletarian, were blended for the first time in a parliamentary chamber.

Now the general confederation of labor (C.G.T.) took charge of the strike, and soon plots began to be carried out in various parts of the country. There were indications of violence everywhere. The general committee of the C.G.T. declared a general strike. The situation threatened to become serious, but the soldiers distributed over the affected territory had a tranquilizing effect. Men in other trades were reluctant to follow the orders of the committee. A few electric workers succeeded in cutting some wires in Paris, leaving the city in darkness a few hours. There were desultory acts of sabotage, but there was more terror than enthusiasm, and in two days the general strike was over.

Here was an attempt to place the 800,000 French state employees into the revolutionary current of the C.G.T. The real question at issue was this: Is striking an act of mutiny? Barthou, a member of the ministry, said in the Chamber of Deputies that "the more solemnly you denounce the strike as a crime against the state, the greater the victory of the Syndicalists." The Syndicalist journal, Le Voix du Peuple, the day after the first strike was settled proclaimed "the victory which our comrades of the postal proletariat have won over their employer the state." This, they said, showed that the state conceded the main contention of Syndicalism--that it is not different from a private employer. And the Syndicalists gloried in the fact that the government, instead of treating the strikers as mutineers, parleyed with them and reinstated them.

Clemenceau brought in a bill designed to relieve the situation by fixing the status of the state employees. The men were to be given the right of association for "professional" purposes only,--i.e., for improving their efficiency,--but were absolutely prohibited from striking and from joining other unions. A comprehensive civil-service reform was embodied in the bill, aimed to prevent the men from becoming victims of political abuse.

Before the bill could be thoroughly considered the Clemenceau ministry fell and a new Prime Minister was called to the helm. This was none other than Aristide Briand, the first Socialist Prime Minister in European history. His former comrades had long before this disowned him, and he was soon to participate in events that would forever alienate them. He had been a furious Socialist, an anti-militarist, and defender of the general strike. In the Socialist congress at Paris, 1899, he said: "The general strike has the seductive advantage that it is nothing but the practice of an intangible right. It is a revolution which arises within the law. The workingman refuses to carry the yoke of misery any farther and begins the revolution in the field of his legal rights. The illegality must begin with the capitalist class, if it allows itself to be provoked into destroying a right which they themselves have professed to be holy." At the same meeting he expressed himself on the soldiery as follows: "If the command to fire is given, if the officers are stubborn enough to try to force the soldiers against their will, then the guns might be fired, but perhaps not in the direction the officers thought." Briand repeated these sentiments at the Amsterdam congress in 1903.

This was the man whom destiny had chosen to lead the French government against the organized revolt of government employees.

On assuming the premiership he announced his program:

1. Parliamentary and electoral reform, he said, were of the first necessity, but he deemed it best to experiment with the new methods of balloting locally before adopting a national system of reform.

2. A graduated income tax.

3. Fixing the legal status of state servants.

4. Old-age pension.

October 10, 1910, the men employed on the Northern Railway went out on strike. Before they did so they had a conference with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Public Works, Millerand, requesting that they try to arrange a meeting between the men and the officials of the railway. The ministry offered its services to the railway directors, but they refused to meet the strikers, although Briand had volunteered to preside at such a meeting. The Prime Minister told the men firmly that the government could not tolerate a suspension of railway service, that it would exert its authority to prevent it, and that it relied on the common sense and patriotism of the men to prevent it.

However, the strike spread to other lines, including the state railway. The men's demands were three: 1. A minimum wage of five francs a day. 2. A revision of the railway pension act making the pensions retroactive. 3. A weekly day of rest--the men had been excluded from the "rest day" act when it was passed.

Briand at once characterized the strike as political in motive and revolutionary in character. In his mind the strike ceased to be merely a question of the right to strike, but was a criminal outbreak, an act of rebellion planned by a few revolutionary leaders and submitted to by the rank and file without their even voting on the question. He was greatly incensed at the sudden calling out of the men after the government had received their representatives, and especially since the railway companies had granted their request for a minimum wage and had taken under advisement the other demands of the men.

Five of the ringleaders were promptly arrested under dramatic circumstances. They were attending a meeting in the office of L'Humanite, attended by Jaures and Vaillant and other leaders of the party. They were arrested under color of Sections 17 and 18 of the law of 1845 dealing with railway traffic.

This law proved a powerful factor in checking the strike. Arrests were made far and near. The energetic Prime Minister did not wait for acts of violence; he anticipated them. Briand called out the reserves (militia), and nearly all of the strikers were compelled to put on the uniform. If they refused they were guilty of a serious offense; if they obeyed they could no longer strike.

The railways were run as in times of war, under military rigor. In spite of these precautions acts of violence occurred, and sabotage was reported from various railway centers.

In one week the soldiery, under the determined minister, had done its work. The strike was over. The government refused to reinstate about 2,000 men employed on the state railway.

The strike committee issued a manifesto excusing the failure of the strike, assuming the full responsibility for calling it, and affirming that the government had "lowered itself to the level of the most barbarous employer."

The strike was hastily conceived, never had the sympathy of the public, and the destruction of property was deplored even by the labor unions, which, when it was all over, passed resolutions condemning sabotage. The leaders of the Syndicalists, the plotters of the strike, no doubt believed that the time was opportune. The Prime Minister and two of his cabinet, Viviani and Millerand, were Socialists, and a third member, Barthou, was a Radical who had as a private member of the Chamber, a short time before his appointment to the cabinet, vigorously defended the railway men's "right to strike." But official responsibility had its usual effect.

Now began a series of dramatic events in the Chamber. The united Socialists maintained that the men had a legal right to strike and that the government had denied to French citizens their legal privileges. Briand replied (October 25) that the strike had nothing to do with the labor problem. The government, had been confronted with "an enterprise designed to ruin the country, an anarchistic movement with civil war for its aim, and violence and organized destruction for its method"; and he had treated it as a rebellion, not as a strike. The government, he said, had evidence of a well-laid plot for sabotage; and the Syndicalist idea of liberty he characterized as a "hideous figure of license."

Millerand (October 27) characterized the strike as a "criminal enterprise," and the saboteurs as "criminals" guilty of "a revolutionary mobilization with a political object." For the Socialists Bouveri, a miner, replied. He defended bomb-throwing and sabotage; asked the Minister of War if, in case of invasion by a foreign foe, he would not blow up the bridges; and said the strikers were engaged in a social war and had the same excuse for destroying property.

The climax of the debate came October 29, when Briand, turning to the Socialists, said: "I am going to tell you something that will make you jump (que vous faire bondir). If the government had not found in the law that which enabled it to remain master of the frontiers of France and master of its railways, which are the indispensable instruments of the national defense; if, in a word, the government had found it necessary to resort to illegality, it would have done so."

No words can describe the disorder of the scene that followed this challenge. Cries of "Dictator!" "Resign!" were mingled with catcalls and hisses. Finally Jaures was heard in bitter rebuke of his former comrade. Viviani answered Jaures; they had fought together the battles of the workingman and would do so still "if Socialism had not adopted the methods of sabotage, of anti-patriotism, and of anarchy."

A few weeks later Briand and his cabinet resigned, although sustained by a majority of the Chamber. But President Fallieres immediately requested the dauntless Prime Minister to form a new cabinet. In his new program he included measures that would greatly strengthen the arms of the government in times of strikes, punishing sabotage by heavy fines and penalties, penalizing the public railway servant for striking, and contemplating an elaborate system of conciliation boards patterned after Millerand's plan.

These rigorous suggestions increased the flame of hatred against him, and his life was threatened. Nothing daunted, he proceeded in his warfare against the C.G.T., which he denounced as a handful of plotters exercising a wicked tyranny over Socialists and workingmen. Finally, February 27, 1911, he resigned, refusing to hold office by the sufferance of the reactionary Right. The Socialists voted with their enemies to dethrone their first Premier, whom they considered a traitor to the course.

So ended one of the most significant episodes of modern political history. Every government, especially every democratic government, will within the next few decades be compelled to meet the railway problem and the question of the relation of the government to its state servants.

Two important details in the Briand affair are of especial interest.

First, the Prime Minister's attempt to project the authority of the state into the contract relations of the railway employees and the companies. Instead of hostility, Briand's plan might well have deserved the support of the Socialists. For he was expanding the functions of the state, was enlisting the power of society in behalf of a contract that is of universal interest.

Secondly, Briand's bill making it unlawful for a railway servant to strike was quite as revolutionary as the C.G.T.'s contention that the state had no right to interfere. Here, too, Briand was the Socialist and the Socialists were the individualists; the one recognized the paramount interests of society, the other saw only the interests of the individual worker. Put to this test, French Socialism failed as signally in theory as the violence, sabotage, and insubordination of the C.G.T. failed in practice.

Who were these revolutionary labor leaders, this small handful of plotters to whom Briand constantly alluded? In order to understand the Socialist movement in any country, both politically and industrially, it is necessary to understand the organization of labor. Socialism began as a class movement, and in every country it is endeavoring to capture the labor organizations.

In no two countries are the relations quite the same. In the United States the unions have traditionally kept out of politics altogether. In Great Britain they refused to be busied with politics until a few years ago, when the Labor Party was organized. Since then a number of union men have identified themselves rather loosely with Socialism. In Germany there is the closest co-operation between the party and the unions, but not any organic unity. In Belgium the political and economic organizations are virtually merged.

In France the most interesting development has taken place. From the Revolution until 1864 no labor organizations were allowed. The National Assembly abolished all the trade guilds and corporations. The Loi le Chappelier forbade unions of workers and of masters, and the Code Napoleon imposed a penalty of imprisonment on those engaging in unlawful combinations. In 1864 the criminal laws were revised, and unions of twenty members were allowed. The law of 1884 left the way untrammeled for their development.

Within a few years unions were formed everywhere. In 1886 the Guesdists organized the National Federation of Trade Unions, a Socialist body of workers subordinated to the Workingman's Party. Soon thereafter the Municipal Socialists, the Broussists, founded the Paris Labor Exchange, built a large clubhouse for if, and succeeded in getting an appropriation of 20,000 francs a year from the city for its maintenance. Within ten years about fifty of these exchanges were formed in as many cities, and about seventy per cent. of the union members belonged to them. The object of these exchanges was educational and benevolent. But they were soon made the hotbeds of Socialistic politics. In 1892 they were all federated in the Federation of Labor Exchanges (Federation du Bourse du Travail).

In 1895 Guesde's political adjunct, the National Federation of Trade Unions, became extinct. The Blanquists then organized a new federation, the notorious General Confederation of Labor (Confederation Generale du Travail), commonly called the C.G.T. These two bodies were bitter rivals, after the French fashion, until, in 1902, they amalgamated, retaining the name C.G.T. The organization is dual, retaining the benevolent activities of the local exchanges and the trade activities of the local unions. These activities are federated into national councils. The union of these councils forms the central governing body of C.G.T. The organization allows a great deal of local autonomy, but the central control is none the less effective. In 1907 the C.G.T. claimed 350,000 members, in 1911 it reported 600,000.

This body of workmen is known for its violence. Within its ranks has spread the doctrine known as revolutionary Syndicalism, a resurrection of the spirit of Proudhonism in the body of labor unionism. Briefly stated, it is class war in its most violent form without the aid of parliaments and politics; with the enginery of the general strike, and the spirit of universal upheaval and anarchy. It is the most effective outbreak of Anarchism since the days of Bakunin.

The intellectual revival of the doctrine of violence may be dated from the appearance of Georges Sorel's book, The Socialist Future of Trade Unions, in 1897, and the culmination of the tide in his volume Reflections upon Violence, in 1908.

For a movement so young Syndicalism has had a peculiarly expansive literature, written by professors and journalists of the bourgeois class, who live on respectable streets, receive you in comfortable drawing-rooms, and from their upholstered ease display a fine zeal for the oppressed proletariat.

It is not easy to classify Syndicalism, for it refuses to be called Anarchism, repudiates the leadership of Socialism, and scorns to be merely trade-unionism. The following are its principal characteristics:

1. It is disheartened with Socialism because, it says, Socialists have lost their ideals in the race for political power. Law-making is useless, because no laws can emancipate the workingmen. It therefore despises governments and abjures parliaments. But its ideals are Socialistic; it believes "in reorganizing society on a communistic basis, so that, with a minimum of productive effort, the maximum of well-being will be obtained."

2. But repudiating governments and parliaments, they say, does not make them Anarchists. Syndicalists believe in local or communal government. Their state is a glorified trade union whose activities are confined to economic functions, their nation is a collection of federated communal trade societies. When I went among them they were especially solicitous that they should not be regarded as "mere Anarchists."

3. Syndicalism is not trade-unionism pure and simple, because its method is violence and its ideal the industrial unit, not the trade or craft unit. The weapon of Syndicalism is the general strike. A circular issued by the executive committee in 1898 defined the general strike as "the cessation of work, which would place the country in the rigor of death, whose terrible and incalculable consequences would force the government to capitulate at once. If it refused, the proletariat, in revolt from one end of France to the other, would be able to compel it." Sorel says that "revolutionary Syndicalism nourishes in the masses the desire to strike, and it can thrive only in places where great strikes, occupied with acts of violence, have taken place." The strike committee of the C.G.T. in 1899 proclaimed the general strike as "the only practical method through which the working class can fully liberate itself from the capitalistic and governmental yoke." The general strike includes the boycott, sabotage, and all kindred forms of violence.

4. Syndicalism revives the old revolutionary methods of conspiracy, of a dominant minority swinging the masses into line; "a conscious minority, which, through its example, sets the masses in motion and drives them on." There are plots, underground manoeuvers, and sudden outbursts. An air of mystery pervades their spectacular uprisings. In order to accomplish their purpose there must be a solidarity of labor. But this unity is the result of the energy of the "conscious few," not of the assertive many.

5. Finally, Syndicalism proclaims that democracy is a "fraud" perpetrated upon the workingmen by the property-owning bourgeois; representative government and majority rule is to them merely a polite form of tyranny, and patriotism a farce. Potaud says: "Patriotism can only be explained by the fact that all patriots without distinction own a part of the social property, and nothing is more absurd than a patriot without a patrimony."

"We workingmen will have none of these little fatherlands! Our country is the international world!" cried Yvetot to the post-office strikers in Paris.

They regard the soldiers with enmity. At the national congress at Amiens, 1906, they resolved that the "anti-military and anti-patriotic propaganda should be promulgated with the greatest zeal and audacity."

Syndicalism is the extreme pessimism of the laboring class. It reached its height about 1907-1908. Portions of France were terrorized, more by its extravagant language than by its overt acts. There was no limit to their superlatives. "Rip up the bourgeois!" "Turn your rifles on your officers!" "Cut buttonholes in the skins of the bourgeois!" were familiar battle-cries. There was so much talk about putting vitriol into coffee, ground glass into bread, pulling the fire-plug out of engines, that finally language came to mean nothing.

The "new commune" thought it was coming into reality with the post-office and railway strikes. We have seen how these outbreaks were met by a Radical government. Since then their ardor has cooled, and their adjectives grown flabby. They are now devoting themselves to organization.

Anti-militarism does not mean merely opposition to standing armies. All Socialists are opposed to the maintenance of armaments. Anti-militarism is opposition to all force used by the state to assert its sovereignty. This includes the police and constabulary as well as the army, and courts and parliaments as well as the navy. Since soldiers and policemen are servants of the state, and since the state is the expression of nationalism, the anti-militarist concludes that his supreme enemy is the nation, the master of the soldier. Anti-militarism is the forerunner of anti-patriotism.

In 1906 this doctrine was so rampant that, on May Day, an uprising was feared in Paris. A prophet had arisen, proclaiming the most extreme doctrines of anti-patriotism. This was Gustave Herve, a teacher of history from Auxerre. He had spoken the suitable word, and became famous overnight: "The French flag arose from dirt!"; and to the peasantry he shouted, "Plant your country's flag in the barnyard dung-heaps!" He came to Paris and started a daily paper, La Guerre Sociale. Syndicalists and Socialists flocked to his standard, and even Jaures was compelled to acknowledge his influence.

Herve has a simple remedy for militarism: "The way to stop war is to refuse to fight." He exhorts his fellow-Socialists to join the army, but fire on their commanders, not on their comrades. He was arrested several times for these utterances and the overt acts that they aroused. Some years ago a Parisian workingman was arrested for an offense against public morals. He protested his innocence and, when released, in revenge killed a policeman. He was promptly executed. Herve used the occasion for an onslaught upon the government in his paper. He said: "If the working class would display one-tenth of the energy that this workman displayed, the social revolution would not be long in coming." For his imprudence he was imprisoned for a term of four years. His influence is waning, but the words he and his following have planted in the hearts of the conscripts may bear some strange fruit.

While the French Socialists have been prolific in the developing of factions and theories, they have been slow at achieving practical results. As early as 1887 they acquired considerable power in Paris. They contented themselves with establishing a labor exchange and extending a few municipal charities.

The local program, as outlined at Lyons, included: the feeding of school children; an eight-hour day and a fixed minimum wage for municipal employees; the abolition of the "octroi"; sanitary regulations for workshops and factories; abolition of private employment bureaus; establishment of homes for the aged; maternity hospitals; free medical attendance for the poor; free public baths; sanitaria for children of workmen; free legal advice for workingmen; pensions for municipal employees; and the publication of a municipal bulletin giving record of all the votes cast by the councilors.

In 1892 a number of important cities were won by the Socialists, and in September of that year the first convention of Socialist municipal councilors was held at Saint-Ouen. The discussions were filled with revolutionary phraseology. In a few years the ideas of violence were discarded for more practical issues. In 1895, when the municipal convention met at Paris, the time was largely given over to the question of organizing the municipal public service, public hygiene, etc.

In Lille the Socialists began their administration of local affairs by raising the budget from 740,000 francs in 1897 to 1,019,000 francs in 1899. Free industrial education was established for the working people; a municipal theater was opened; school children were fed and clothed; and an attempt was made to regulate the length of the working day and fix a minimum wage for municipal employees. At Dijon the feeding and clothing of school children was regulated by the amount of wages earned by the parents. Free medical aid was provided, and a drug-store was induced to sell medicines to the poor at reduced cost. The local labor exchange was voted an appropriation from public funds.

These illustrations show the general trend of municipal Socialism in France. The results are not numerous. But the French Socialists justify their meager practical results by pointing to the centralized system of administration which enables the prefect and other administrative officers to veto many of the acts of the municipal councils. The first thing that the Socialists attempted to do in their towns was the readjustment of the finances for the benefit of the working classes. Their acts were vetoed on the ground that they were ultra vires. The attempt to fix a minimum wage for municipal employees met the same fate. Then the municipalities petitioned the central government for greater financial autonomy. This was denied. In Roubaix the opening of a municipal drug-store was disallowed by the prefect on the ground that the corporations act does not grant that power to municipalities. Municipal bakeries met the same fate. During the last few years, however, the rigor of the central administration has relaxed and the towns are allowed greater liberty in municipal affairs.

Under the circumstances it is perhaps little wonder that French municipal Socialism is a poor housekeeper. You look in vain for the high ideals of the Socialist evangelist. If you visit the towns where Socialism abounds you will be told that the Socialists have spent more money on the poor than their predecessors. You will find better nurseries for the babies of the working mothers, meals and stockings doled out to school children of the poor, here and there a physician or a lawyer retained by the town to render free service to the working people. On inquiry you will find that the soldiers are drawing increased pensions, the widows and orphans of the workingmen are especially provided for, and that bread is delivered to the needy at the door so they need not go ask for it, need not be beggars.

You are impressed that these proletarian town governments are trying to destroy poverty. Their ideal is noble, but some of their efforts are very crude.

The French Socialists are not by any means a unit on the municipal question. In 1911 it was the principal question discussed at their national convention at Saint-Quentin. Professor Millhaud of the University of Geneva, in a very clear and able speech, pointed out the merits of municipalization, citing the ownership of street railways, gas, waterworks, garbage plants, and other public utilities of European and American cities. He included municipal drug-stores, the feeding and clothing of school children, the establishing of playgrounds, and many other municipal activities familiar to American practice, in his local Socialistic program.

His exposition met with the approval of the Jaures faction. But the Guesdists were not satisfied. "Who would benefit by cheap municipal gas?" cried a delegate from the rear of the hall. "The rich man, for he needs a great deal of gas to light up his big house. But what laboring man needs gas? When has he time to read? In the evening he is too tired, and he gives no receptions." Guesde maintained with great vehemence that municipal ownership and state ownership are not Socialism; they may be a step toward Socialism, but often result in substituting the tyranny of the state for the tyranny of the private employer.

The convention adopted a municipal program after a prolonged discussion that brought out clearly the fact that the Guesdists are not devoted to state or municipal ownership as a principle, but only as a means to a greater end.

During the last few years a very important movement has been taking place among the peasantry of southern France. Under the leadership of Compere-Morel, a gardener and member of the Chamber of Deputies, Socialism is spreading rapidly among these small and independent landowners. There are several million of these thrifty peasants in France, and their acquisition to Socialism will mean, not only a great increase in political power, but a modification of their theory of property. The Socialists are luring the small land-holder by telling him that they are with him in his fight against the large estates. They assure the peasant that they have no designs upon his small holdings. It is the great property, not merely property, that is the object of their hostility.

There are other evidences that French Socialism is mellowing. Most of its leaders are bourgeois. Of the seventy-six united Socialists in the present Chamber, only thirty are workingmen, or trade-union officials; eight are professors in the University or secondary schools; seven are journalists; seven are barristers; seven are farmers; six are physicians; three are school teachers; and two are engineers. This does not suggest class war.

Socialism is a power in French politics. An observer who moves among the middle class wonders how much of a power it is in French life. The Radical Party would be considered Socialistic in England or the United States; half of it calls itself Socialist-Radical. It rules the Republic from the Chamber of Deputies. Everywhere you hear the people talking about collectivism, the nationalization of railways, of mines, of vineyards, of docks, and ultimately of wheat-fields and market-gardens.

But the French are a nation of small farmers and shopkeepers who cling to their property while they argue and vote for their radicalism and Socialism. This is the duality of their temperament; they love possessions and they love philosophical speculation. They keep their fields and their little shops, and speculate about the new to-morrow. They vote and debate with imaginative fervor; they pay taxes with stolid commonplace silence. In measuring the strength of French Socialism it is necessary to keep this in mind. Not that the Frenchman does not take Socialism seriously. He takes it as seriously as he takes monarchism or republicanism, and much more seriously than he takes religion. There is only one thing he takes more seriously--his property.

That is why the Socialists number among their adherents all classes and all conditions of men, from Anatole France, most fastidious of literary aristocrats, to gaunt and hungry proletarians who infest the cellars and garrets of ancient Paris.

The French are, after all, the greatest of realists. They speculate in dreams and delicate theories; but they never lose their grip on their little farms and their little shops and the gold bonds of Russia.

FOOTNOTES:

GEORGES WEIL, Histoire du Mouvement Socialiste en France, Paris, 1904, p. 220.

Other groups--the word party is hardly applicable in the French Chamber of Deputies--are the reactionary Right; the republican Conservatives, or Center; the Radical Left, or Liberals.

WEIL, supra cit., p. 276.

In France, when any one candidate for the Chamber of Deputies fails to receive a majority of the votes cast, a second ballot is taken, for the two receiving the highest number of votes

Quoted by ENSOR, Modern Socialism, pp. 48-55. See also a collection of Millerand's speeches, Le Socialisme Reformiste Francais, Paris, 1903.

See "Manifeste 14 Juillet," 1899.

See V^{me} Congres General des Organisations Socialistes Francais tenu a Paris du 3 au 8 Decembre. Compte-rendu stenographique officiel, 1900, p. 154 ff.

A partial report of the debate of the Bordeaux congress is given in ENSOR'S Modern Socialism, pp. 163-184.

See A. LAVY, L'Oeuvre de Millerand, Paris, 1902, a sympathetic account of his work; contains also extracts from his speeches and state papers.

See the Contemporary Review, August, 1906, for a brief abstract of this debate.

One of the first laws passed with the aid of the Socialist vote was the "day of rest" law, commanding one day of the week as a day of rest. It met the obstinate opposition of the Conservatives. The operation of the law is of interest, and instructive. The workmen naturally rejoiced over this increased leisure. The employers, on the other hand, found themselves paying wages for hours in which no service was rendered. They lowered the wages; the workmen resisted. Finally the law was so amended as virtually to annul its effect, in certain trades. The Socialists became irritated to the verge of breaking their entente with the Radicals.

Proceedings Chamber of Deputies, March 19, 1909.

During this agitation the teachers of the public schools, who had formed a great number of associations, joined in the demand of the Syndicalists. One of their number who had signed a vitriolic circular was dismissed by M. Briand, the Minister of Education, and for a time a strike of schoolmasters was threatened, but it did not materialize.

L'Humanite is the leading Socialist daily of Paris. Briand had written editorials for it in his "red" days.

These sections declare that the employment, or abetting or instigating the employment, of any means of stopping or impeding railway traffic is a crime; and if it has been planned at a seditious meeting, the instigators are as liable to punishment as the authors of the crime, even if they did not intend to provoke the destruction of railway property. The penalties imposed are very severe.

Placards displayed the bitterness of the men. "For our vengeance Briand will suffice" was read on the walls under flaming posters that quoted fiery sentences from Briand's earlier speeches.

Viviani, Minister of Justice, resigned soon after the close of the strike. He did not agree with Briand in his efforts to pass a law making all railway strikes illegal. He said as long as railways were private property men had the right to strike, but not to destroy property.

Before his resignation, the old-age pension bill had passed the Senate and thus became a law. The Socialists supported the bill; but Guesde voted against it in spite of his party's instructions, because labor was charged with contributing to the fund. The syndicalists were also violently opposed to it because they believe the amount of the pension is too small.

When in January, 1912, M. Poincare was appointed Prime Minister, he promptly invited Briand into his cabinet as vice-president and Millerand as Minister of War.

The co-operative movement is spreading gradually throughout France. There are two kinds of societies--the Socialist and the independent. In 1896 there were 202 co-operative productive societies. In 1907 there were 362. The following figures show the increase in the number of co-operative stores: 1902--1,641; 1903--1,683; 1906--1,994; 1907--2,166.

The following table, compiled from the reports of the Minister of Labor, shows the growth of the labor-union movement:

Year Number of Number of Unions Members 1885 221 ... 1886 280 ... 1887 501 ... 1888 725 ... 1889 821 ... 1890 1,006 139,692 1891 1,250 205,152 1892 1,589 288,770 1893 1,926 402,125 1894 2,178 403,430 1895 2,163 419,781 1896 2,243 422,777 1898 2,324 437,739 1899 2,361 419,761 1900 2,685 491,647 1901 3,287 588,832 1902 3,679 614,173 1903 3,934 643,757 1904 4,227 715,576 1905 4,625 781,344 1906 4,857 836,134 1907 5,322 896,012 1908 5,524 957,102

See Journal of Political Economy, March, 1909, for a comprehensive article on French labor unions by O.D. SKELTON.

From the beginning there were two kinds of unions, named after the color of their membership cards. The "yellows" are those pursuing a policy of peace, and the "reds" are the militants.

The following figures show the increase of strikes since the organization of the C.G.T.:

Years Average Average Number Number Average Number of Strikes of Strikers of Days Idle 1890-1898 379 71,961 1,163,478 1899-1907 855 214,660 3,992,976

The doctrines of Syndicalism may be found in the writings of Georges Sorel. Also in the following: POUGET, Les Bases du Syndicalisme; GRIFFUELHS, L'Action Syndicaliste, and Syndicalisme et Socialisme; POUGET, La Parti du Travail; POTAUD and POUGET, Comment nous ferons la Revolution; PAUL LOUIS, Syndicalisme contre l'Etat.

POUGET, The Basis of Trade Unionism, a pamphlet issued in 1908.

Reflexions sur la Violence.

See YVETOT, A B C du Syndicalisme, Chap. V. This pamphlet is issued by the C.G.T.

Statement of Strike Committee C.G.T., 1899.

"In every state, the army is for the property owner; in every European conflict, the working class is duped and sacrificed for the benefit of the governing class, the bourgeoisie, and the parasites. Therefore the XVth Congress approves and extols every action the anti-military and anti-patriotic propaganda, even though it only compromises the situation of all classes and all political parties." See YVETOT, A B C du Syndicalisme, p. 84.

Herve has written a history of France that has had considerable vogue as a text-book in the public schools. He begins with the significant year 1789; glorifies the violence, and praises the Socialistic manifestations and the heroism of the revolutionists, that have made the past century one of turmoil and perpetual commotion. This book is a sample of the reading given into the hands of the children of the Republic. I was told, upon careful inquiry, that a large number of the primary and secondary school teachers are Socialists. Thiers, before he became President, while still a functionary of monarchy, objected to the establishment of government schools in every village, because, he said, he did not want "a red priest of Socialism in every town." To-day he would find these "red priests" everywhere. They have even organized syndicats and joined the C.G.T.

When I called upon him in the Prison Sante he told me that he was as sincerely opposed to military measures as ever; but that it would be a long time before the people would regard all mankind, rather than a single ethnic group, as the object of their patriotism. Pointing to the grim walls of his prison, he said, "Vive la Republique! Vive la Liberte!"

Syndicalism and anti-militarism have spread to Spain and Italy. But they have not found favor among the phlegmatic North-European countries.

See STEHELIN, Essais de Socialisme Municipal, 1901.

See Les Paysans et le Socialisme, a speech delivered by Compere-Morel, in the Chamber of Deputies, December 6, 1909. Also published in pamphlet form by the Socialist Party.