CHAPTER VI. The Belgian Labor Party

THE BELGIAN LABOR PARTY

In Belgium the physical, political, and economic environment is suited to a symmetrical development of Socialism. It is a small country, "at the meeting-point of the three great European civilizations," Vandervelde, the leader of the Belgian Socialists, has pointed out. And his boast is true that the Belgian Socialists have absorbed the leading characteristics of the social movement in each of these countries. "From England Belgian Socialists have learned self-help, and have copied their free and independent organizations, principally in the form of co-operative societies. From Germany they have adopted the political tactics and the fundamental doctrines which were expressed for the first time in the 'Communist Manifesto.' From France they have taken their idealistic tendencies, and the integral conception of Socialism, considered as an extension of the revolutionary philosophy and as a new religion, an extension and a realization of Christianity."

This threefold growth would have been impossible if the environment had not been favorable. The Belgian population is congested into industrial towns that are thickly strewn over the country, like the suburbs of one vast manufacturing community. These working people have always been miserably housed and poorly fed. In 1903-05 a public inquiry into housing conditions was instituted in Brussels. In the most congested portions of the city, 564 households, comprising 2,224 persons, lived in one-room tenements. The houses were in miserable condition.

The commission appointed after the riots of 1886 describes conditions that are little better than those that prevailed in England in 1830. Even as late as 1902, out of 750,000 working men and women one-tenth only worked less than ten hours a day; the rest worked from ten to twelve hours. One-fourth of these working people had a wage of 2 francs (40 cents) a day, another fourth had 2 to 3 francs (40 to 60 cents) a day, and the upper section only 3.50 to 4.50 francs (70 cents to 90 cents) a day. The government inquiry in 1896 disclosed the following rate of wages:

170,000 persons received less than 2 fr. (40c.) a day. 172,000 persons received less than 2-3 fr. (40-60c.) a day. 160,000 persons received less than 3-4 fr. (60-80c.) a day. 102,000 persons received more than 4 fr. (80c.) a day.

In the low countries where agriculture is the leading occupation, conditions are no better. The peasant is poor; the conditions of tenancy hard, though recent legislation has modified them somewhat in the tenant's favor; and the holdings small. Agricultural wages are very low. The men in the Flemish district receive an average of 1.63 francs (33 cents) a day, without board, or about .90 francs (18 cents) with board. The women receive 1.06 francs (21 cents) without board and .64 francs (12-1/2 cents) with board.

Here, then, is a population of industrial and peasant workers who are barely able to make a living, who have little time and less opportunity for education and general development. The percentage of illiteracy is very great; and is equaled only by the most backward countries of southern Europe. In 1902, out of every 1,000 militiamen, 101 were entirely illiterate; in France, 46; in England, 37; in Holland, 23; in Switzerland, 20; in Denmark, .08; in Germany, .07. In 1909 Rowntree estimated the illiteracy in the four largest Belgian cities to be 11.75 per cent.; in the Flemish communes, 34.69 per cent.; and in the Walloon communes (excepting Liege), 17.34 per cent.

Outward circumstances have not been wanting to arouse this teeming population into violent discontent. The government for years paid no heed to their misery, and the Church, which is very powerful in Belgium, was content to distribute charity and consolation, and to admonish the employer to patriarchal care for his men.

The national status of the country is guaranteed by the powers; there is no fear of invasion and no need for the intolerable military burdens that weigh down the great countries of Europe. There have been no international complications. This little country, with its clusters of thriving towns, its mines, farms, and seaports, could settle down contentedly to its daily tasks like a large family.

The great manufacturers and industrial leaders took even less interest in the welfare of the working people than the state or the Church. No one seemed to care how the worker fared, and when he himself learned to care the first reactions were violent.

We will limit ourselves, in this inquiry, to the political development of the labor movement.

Belgium is a constitutional monarchy. The Constitution, provides for a parliament composed of the Senate and the Chamber of Representatives, both elected by the people, the Representatives by direct, the Senators by indirect, elections. The King has the veto power and the power to prorogue parliament. A general election follows prorogation, in which the whole membership of Senate and House are elected. The communes are governed by elective communal councils.

From the establishment of the constitution, in 1831, there have been two leading political parties--the Clerical or Catholic, and the Liberal. The Clerical Party has been not merely conservative, it has been reactionary. It clings not only to monarchic prerogatives, but to ecclesiastical supremacy. This medieval policy it imposed upon school and government and Church. The party has until very recently been in the majority. It is strongest in the low counties, among the agricultural Flemings. When the activity of the Socialists and Radicals forced the question upon the country, a "left" wing of the party began to interest itself in the laboring man, through the traditional methods of the Church, rather than by means of state interference.

The Liberal Party is a protest, not only against the predominant influence of the Church in political affairs, but also against the financial policies of the Conservatives. The Liberals early espoused the cause of free schools, modified tariffs, greater local autonomy, and liberal election laws.

The election laws confined the electorate to the few property-holders and professional men of the country. In 1890, out of 1,800,000 male citizens, 133,000 were qualified electors.

These were the conditions that prevailed when the Socialists quite suddenly appeared on the scene. There had been a Socialist propaganda for years in Belgium. Brussels was a city of refuge to many fleeing revolutionists of 1848. In 1857 a labor union was organized among the spinners and weavers of Ghent. The same year Colin published his book, What Is Social Science? This volume prepared the way for the remarkable collectivist movement, which was stimulated into modern activity by Anselee, a workingman of Ghent and organizer of the Vooruit Co-operative Society. Caesar de Paepe, a disciple of Colin and a man of remarkable intellectual endowments, tried to bring unity to the Belgian movement. But the factionalism was not cast aside until 1885, when the Belgian Labor Party (Parti Ouvrier Belge) was organized.

Now Socialists of all factions were drawn together. But, unlike Socialists in other countries, they did not expend their energies on political action. The Belgian labor movement had a threefold origin--the co-operative movement of Colin, the labor-union movement, and the Socialistic or political movement of de Paepe. These three activities, united in the Labor Party, have continued to develop, until they are a model for Socialists in all countries.

The organization of the party is simple. The various organizations are federated into large groups, e.g., the co-operative group, each with a separate organization. The provinces and communes have their local committees for each separate activity. Over the entire party sits a general council (conseil general). An executive committee of nine is chosen from this council, and this committee has practical control of the party. The annual convention is the supreme authority. It elects the general council and decides, in democratic fashion, all important questions of policy and activity. Every constituent organization, such as the co-operative societies, etc., contributes from its funds to the support of the party. The party is therefore a federation of many societies with various activities, not a vast group of individual voters, as the German Social Democracy. Its solidarity is not individual, but federal.

The organization of the Labor Party proved a stimulus to all the constituent societies. From 1885 to 1895 over 400 co-operative societies were formed, and within a few years 7,000 mutual aid societies were organized. The membership of the labor unions increased from less than 50,000 in 1880 to 62,350 in 1889, and nearly 150,000 in 1905.

The Socialist movement had now achieved solidarity, and was prepared to enter into a conflict for power. Its issues were two: universal suffrage and free secular education. The second was necessarily included in the first; for without parliamentary power it would be impossible to secure liberal educational laws, and without a liberal franchise it would be impossible to get parliamentary power. All their political energies were therefore devoted to the reform of the election laws.

It is in this activity that the Belgian movement forms for our purpose one of the most instructive chapters of European Socialism. Here is a proletarian horde deprived of participation in government in a constitutional monarchy, struggling toward political recognition. It is armed with all the weapons of militant Socialism: a revolutionary tradition; a national history rich in mob violence, street brawls, and conflicts with police and soldiers; possessed of a well-organized party, a class solidarity, and capable and courageous leaders who are willing to go, and do go, to the extreme of the general strike and violence in order to achieve their goal.

In short, here we have the Socialist political ideal working itself from theory into reality through class struggle. But there is the usual important modification of the Marxian conditions; viz., the liberal bourgeois prove a potent ally to the Socialists in the press and on the floor of the Chamber of Representatives. While the Socialists were surging in vehement earnestness around the Parliament House, the Liberals were as earnestly pleading their cause within.

The definite fight for universal suffrage began a few years before the organization of the Labor Party. In 1866 a group of workingmen issued an appeal to their fellows to begin the battle for the ballot. In 1879 the Socialists issued a manifesto which stated the case as follows: "'All powers are derived from the nation; all Belgians are equal before the law,' says the Constitution of 1831.

"In reality all powers are derived from a small number of privileged ones, and all the Belgians are divided into two classes--those who are rich and have rights, and those who are poor and have burdens.

"We wish to see this inequality vanish, at least before the ballot-box. For the most numerous class of society ought to be represented in the Chamber of Representatives, because the people whose daily bread depends upon the prosperity of the country should have the power to participate in public affairs.

"Constitutions are not immutable, and what was solemnly promulgated on one occasion may, without revolution, be altered on another."

The proclamation then proceeded to call a meeting at Brussels for the following January (1880). At this meeting it was decided to circulate a monster petition asking Parliament to pass a liberal election law and to organize a demonstration to be held in Brussels the following summer. In this, the first of a long series of demonstrations, about 6,000 persons from various parts of the kingdom paraded the streets of the capital. There was a clash with the police, and a number of arrests were made. From 1881 to 1885 the Liberals tried to persuade the Clericals to agree upon a constitutional revision; and the Socialists brought to bear upon them all the pressure of the streets. But the Clericals were firm. Then the Socialists tried another manoeuver. They issued a manifesto "to the people of Belgium," complaining of the dominion of the Church over education, the dominion of a few families over the nation, and the failure of the government to grant liberty to the people. "The hour has come for all citizens to rally under the republican flag."

Instead of a republican uprising, something more significant and potent occurred; the Labor Party was organized, welding together all the forces of discontent and unifying their demands into a protest so strong that the government was finally compelled to yield. Not, however, until it had exhausted almost every resource of resistance.

The party was organized just in the crux of time. A financial crisis was beginning to increase the hardships of the industrial classes. The unrest was intensified by an ingenious piece of propagandist literature, a Workingman's Catechism (Catechism du Peuple), written by a workingman. Two hundred thousand copies in French and 60,000 in Flemish were scattered among the discontented people. Its influence was wonderful. A few questions will indicate the power that lay behind its simple questions and answers.

Question. "Who are you?"

Answer. "I am a slave."

Q. "Are you not a man?"

A. "From the point of view of humanity I am a man, but in relation to society I am a slave."

Q. "What is the 25th article of the Constitution?"

A. "The 25th article of the Constitution says: 'All power is derived from the nation.'"

Q. "Is this true?"

A. "It is a falsehood."

Q. "Why?"

A. "Because the nation is composed of 5,720,807 inhabitants, about 6,000,000, and of this 6,000,000 only 117,000 are consulted in the making of laws."

And so through every grievance, social, economic, and political. Every workman learned his catechism. Those who could not read gathered in groups around their more fortunate comrades and listened to the effective questions and answers.

By the beginning of 1886 the little land was a seething caldron of political and economic unrest. The strike movement began at Liege and soon spread to Charleroi and other industrial centers. There was enough destruction of property and clashing with police and soldiery to create a panic in the country. In Brussels business was at a standstill for days. The Socialist Party, in a circular issued to the people, said: "The country is visited by a terrible crisis. The disinherited classes are suffering. Strikes are multiplying, riots are provoked by the misery. The constantly decreasing wages are spreading consternation everywhere."

The disorder aroused a number of Anarchists in Brussels. They posted anonymous placards inciting the people to violence. The Socialists repudiated the Anarchists, and one of their orators said: "Do not let yourselves be carried away by violence; that will only benefit your adversaries."

A mass demonstration was planned, but the mayor of Brussels prohibited it. The Labor Party, however, were allowed to hold their annual convention and to march under their red flag, the government merely requesting that the demonstrants refrain from shouting, "Vive la Republique!" Thirty thousand laboring men joined in the demonstration. The Liberals and Radicals refused to take part in it because they claimed it was only a workingman's movement, and the Anarchists refused because "elections lead to nothing." This demonstration was so serious and imposing that it made a deep impression upon the people, and was not without effect upon the government.

The crisis finally passed over. A great many rioters were imprisoned in spite of the popular clamor for universal amnesty. The general strike brought no immediate advantage to the workmen.

The next few years the Socialists devoted to organization. They were determined not to enter upon extended strikes again without thorough preparation. In the meantime the Liberal Party split. The Radicals, or Progressists, at their first congress in 1877 declared themselves in favor of the separation of Church and state, military reform, compulsory education, social and electoral reform. They were, however, not yet prepared to commit themselves to universal suffrage. They favored rather an educational test for voters. This, however, they abandoned in 1890, and virtually placed themselves upon the Socialist platform.

On August 10, 1890, another great demonstration in favor of universal suffrage took place in Brussels. Over 40,000 men joined in the parade. The Progressists did not take part in the marching, but they were stationed along the route to cheer the men in line. Before they dispersed, all the participants united in taking a solemn oath that they would not give up the fight "until the Belgian people, through universal suffrage, should regain their fatherland." This is the famous "Oath of August 10."

After this demonstration the Progressists joined with the Socialists in a conference for discussing ways and means for securing universal suffrage. This conference is notable because it drew Radicals, Progressists, and Socialists into a united campaign for suffrage reform. The conference resolved to organize demonstrations in every corner of the kingdom and to memorialize Parliament. This was to be a final peaceful appeal. If it remained unheeded a general strike would follow. The bourgeois Progressists assented to this ultimatum.

A few days before the Socialist-Progressist conference met, a clerical social congress had convened at Liege. The agitation of the Labor Party had at last aroused the Conservatives. The resolutions of this conference were pervaded by the traditional apostolic paternalistic spirit of the Church. It demanded social reform, amelioration of harsh conditions, state arbitration, industrial insurance; but it set its face against universal suffrage. On the wings of an awakened conservatism it tried to ride the whirlwind of Socialism.

But no halfway measures would now placate the agitators. The great mass of Belgian workmen were aroused, and nothing but the ballot would satisfy them.

A propaganda was begun in the army. The enlistment laws were favorable to the rich, who could purchase freedom from military service. The poor conscripts were especially susceptible to the Socialist propaganda.

In the autumn of 1890 at the Labor Party's annual convention it was suggested that, inasmuch as the parliament of the Few had not heeded the wishes of the nation, a parliament of the People should be called, to be composed of as many members as the existing parliament, but chosen by universal suffrage. Even a program was proposed for this fancied parliament.

By this time the petitions prepared by the suffrage congress were ready. In every arrondissement there were demonstrations. In Brussels 8,000 men marched to the city hall and handed the mayor their petition protesting against the privileged election laws and demanding universal suffrage. From every village in the kingdom protests were brought to the government demanding universal suffrage.

Finally on November 27, 1890, a Liberal member in the Chamber of Representatives proposed a change in the Constitution enlarging the electoral franchise. He explained the injustice of the limited franchise, dwelt on the dangers of strikes and riots, and said that he believed the Belgian workmen as capable of exercising the rights of citizenship as those of neighboring countries. All parties agreed to discuss the amendment. The debate held popular excitement in abeyance. But as it became more and more evident that nothing would be done the workingman became restive. Early in 1892 riots broke out in various cities. The situation became acute. Socialists and Radicals organized a popular referendum on the question. It was not an official referendum, and its results were not binding. But it was an effective method of propaganda, and in many of the communes the councils gave it their sanction, thereby lending it the color of legality.

Five propositions were submitted to the voters: (1) manhood suffrage at twenty-one years; (2) manhood suffrage at twenty-five years; (3) exclusion of illiterates and persons in receipt of public or private charity; (4) household suffrage and mental capacity defined by law; (5) the exclusion of all who have not passed an elementary educational standard. As a rule the Clericals refused to participate in the referendum.

In Brussels, out of 72,465 entitled to vote only 38,217 voted, with the following results: manhood suffrage at twenty-one years, 29,949; manhood suffrage at twenty-five years, 5,253; all other propositions together, 3,015. In Huy, out of 3,513 voters only 1,800 voted, and 1,700 of these were in favor of universal suffrage. In Antwerp, where Liberals and Clericals are about evenly divided, only forty-three per cent. of the electors voted, and of 18,701 votes cast, 15,704 were for universal suffrage.

This referendum, and all the demonstrations, had very little effect upon parliament. The deputies were in favor of revision, but could not agree upon a plan. The Radicals were in favor of universal suffrage, the Clericals unalterably opposed to it, and the Liberals only sympathetic towards it.

Finally, in April, all the proposals were voted down by the Chamber of Representatives. The Socialists immediately ordered a general strike.

It began in the coal mines of Hainault, spread to the weavers and spinners of Ghent, to the glass and iron works of the Walloon districts, to the printers and pressmen of Brussels, and to the docks at Antwerp. Two hundred thousand men stopped work in the course of a few days. While the mills and mines were idle the police and soldiers were busy. Six men were killed at Joliment, six killed and twelve wounded at Mons. In Brussels the mob pried up the paving-stones for weapons; the city guards patrolled the city, meetings were forbidden, the streets were cleared of people, and the mayor was wounded in a melee. A band of "communists" threw a barricade across Rue des Eperonniers, the last of the barricades. The troops made short work of it. Scores of arrests were made in the various cities and the offenders received sentences varying from six years' imprisonment to a fine of fifty francs.

In the height of the excitement the Chamber of Representatives convened and agreed upon a franchise amendment. Immediately the general council of the Labor Party met and declared the strike off. It sent out this pronouncement: "The Labor Party through its general council records the insertion of manhood suffrage in the Constitution. It declares that this first victory of the party has been won under pressure of a general strike. It is resolved to persist in the work of propaganda until it has won universal political equality and has suppressed the plural voting privilege."

The new electoral law (1893) was a compromise suggested by Professor Albert Nyssens of the University of Louvain. It recognized the three principal demands of the three parliamentary factions: universal suffrage of the Radicals, property qualifications of the Clericals, and educational qualifications of the Liberals. Universal suffrage was granted to all male citizens twenty-five years of age. But this was modified in favor of property and education by the granting of additional votes. One additional vote was give (1) to every voter thirty-five years of age who was the head of a family and paid a direct tax of 5 francs (one dollar); (2) to every owner of real property valued at 2,000 francs ($400.00), or who had an annual income of 200 francs ($40.00) derived from investments in the Belgian public funds. Two additional votes were given to the holders of diplomas from the higher schools, to those who were or had been in public office, and to those who practised a profession for which a higher education was necessary. No one was allowed more than three votes.

Whatever may be said of this fancy franchise, it is at least ingenious. It satisfied the first popular hunger after the ballot. The workmen could vote. The conditions imposed for the casting of two votes seem very liberal and the majority of American voters could qualify under them. But in Belgium, the land of low wages and congested populations, they were real barricades. Nearly two-thirds of the voters failed to reach even this low standard.

Voting made compulsory. Election was by scrutin de liste.

III

Under these conditions the Socialists went into battle. There were 1,370,687 electors; 855,628 with one vote 293,678 with two votes, 223,380 with three votes. The Socialists polled 346,000 votes, the Clericals 927,000, the Liberals 530,000. The new parliament was composed as follows: Chamber of Representatives--Clericals, 104; Liberals, 19; Socialists, 29; Senate--Clericals 71; Liberals, 21; Socialists, 2.

From the first the Socialists in Belgium have not been reluctant in making election arrangements with other parties. In this their first election they united with the Progressists. In Brussels on the second ballot they proposed terms to the Liberals, which were refused. The Socialists, however, instructed their followers to vote against the Clericals in every instance. Wherever there were no Radical or Socialists lists they supported the Liberals.

The same widespread alarm that the first Socialist parliamentary accessions aroused everywhere, was caused by these twenty-nine Belgian Socialist representatives, especially as some of their number were promoted from prison to parliament, and one striker was given his liberty for the time being so that he could attend the session. Vandervelde allayed popular apprehension when he announced the program of his party, which combined with the usual labor legislation the demand for the state purchase of coal mines, state monopoly of the liquor business, and communal election reforms. The proposals of the Belgian Socialists in parliament have invariably been practical, not revolutionary or visionary. One of the first bills introduced by them provided for the reduction of the stamp tax and the tax on the transfer of property and leases. This tax was extremely high, nearly seven per cent., and worked a peculiar hardship on the small tenant. The bill failed of passage. But the government was so impressed by the facts presented in debate that it brought in a law reducing the tax on transfers for all small estates.

It is by this indirect method, by their presence in the Chamber, and by their powers in debate that the Belgian Socialists have achieved many practical reforms. They have not the hauteur and aloofness of the German Social Democrat, nor the fiery passion for idealistic propaganda of the French; they are more sensible than either. Since their entrance into parliament a Secretary of Labor has been added to the cabinet, and every department of labor legislation has felt their influence. The delegation is in constant touch with the party in the various districts. An old-age pension act has been passed, great reductions have been made in military expenditure, the conscript laws have been modified, and the Socialists led in the opposition to the Belgian policy in the Congo.

Their two main contentions have been over the educational laws and the electoral laws. A school law was passed by the Clericals in 1895. It was regarded as reactionary by the Socialists, and stormy scenes accompanied its enactment. Its provisions are still the source of constant agitation among Socialists and Liberals. They protest especially against the teaching of religion in the communal schools. It is true that any parent may have his child excused from attending such instruction for reasons of conscience on written application to the proper authorities. But they insist that this subjects the objecting parent to harsh treatment in Clerical communities.

The provincial and communal election laws were less favorable to the Socialists than the national law. In 1895 the government brought in a new local election bill which fixed the voting age at thirty, required three years' residence in a commune, and strengthened the plural voting system by giving a fourth vote to the large land-holders. The Socialists and Radicals united in contesting 507 of the communes (about one-fourth of the whole number). They won a majority in eighty and a considerable minority in 180 of these communal councils. Necessity had cemented the alliance of Radicals and Socialists. The Radicals were now called "Chevre-choutiers" because they tried to carry the goat and the cabbage, Liberals and Socialists, across the stream in the same boat.

In 1899 the government brought in its new election bill in which it proposed to concede to the demand for proportional representation. But only the large constituencies were to be included in the change, leaving the smaller districts, mostly in the Flemish section, to the Clerical majorities that prevailed there. The measure was unpopular. The people organized protests against it in every city in the land. In Brussels a mob gathered in front of the Chamber of Deputies. Paving-stones were ripped up and hurled through the windows, and there was charging and counter-charging between police and populace. Inside the Chamber the scene was not less tumultuous. The Socialists tried to prevent business by mob tactics. Desk-lids were banged, there was shouting and singing, one deputy had provided himself with a horn. The government was compelled to adjourn the session. All that night (June 28) there was rioting in Brussels. When the Chamber met the following day the wild scenes were re-enacted, when a Clerical deputy moved that any member causing a disturbance be expelled. In the debate that followed the government declared itself willing to adjourn and study the various proposals of the opposition. This cooled the crowd waiting outside the Chamber, and at Vandervelde's suggestion the mob quietly dispersed.

In the meantime the mayors of Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and Liege waited on the King and told him they would no longer be responsible for the maintenance of order in their cities if the minister did not withdraw the obnoxious electoral bill. The Liberals now joined the Socialists and Radicals in their processions in every town, singing their war-songs and carrying placards and banners of protest.

All this had its effect on the government. A committee representing all the groups in the Chamber was appointed to consider all the proposals that had been introduced. Vandervelde, in supporting the committee, said that he "spoke for the country that had so effectively demonstrated its power and achieved a victory." Soon after this the reactionary ministry fell, and the new government brought in a bill providing uniform proportional representation for all the districts. This bill was promptly enacted into law.

The first general election under this law resulted as follows:

Total vote cast 2,105,270 Socialists 467,326, electing 32 deputies. Clericals 995,056 " 85 " Liberals 449,521 " 31 " Radicals 47,783 " 3 " Christian Democrats 55,737 " 1 "

The Clerical majority was cut from seventy to eighteen and at last the Liberal elements were hopeful of gaining the government and effecting universal suffrage "pure and simple."

We have now seen how popular agitation wrested, first, a law permitting plural voting; second, a law permitting proportional representation, from an unwilling government. The contest for universal suffrage "pure and simple" has continued to the present day. In 1901 the Labor Party at its congress at Liege decided to renew the agitation in favor of universal suffrage, "even to the extent of the general strike, and agitation in the streets, and not to cease until after the conquest of political equality." Vandervelde introduced a bill into the Chamber providing for "one man, one vote," and it was defeated by a vote of 92 to 43. Immediately Vandervelde and the Radical leader proposed a revision of the Constitution. The debate on this motion continued until the spring of 1902. All the old spirit of unrest and violence broke out anew. To the violence of protesting mobs was added the coercive force of the general strike. Three hundred thousand men stopped work and began demonstrating. Troops were called out to guard the government buildings in Brussels and to hold the crowds at bay in the provinces. In Louvain eight strikers were killed by the soldiers, and in other localities there was bloodshed and destruction of property.

Finally the Chamber of Representatives voted to close the debate and dismiss the question entirely for the session. The strike was declared off and quiet restored.

In the elections the following May the Socialists lost three seats. This had its effect. A meeting of the party was called and it was decided not to resort to further violence. A delegate from Charleroi, the seat of the most tumultuous element in the party, expressed regret that the Labor Party had compromised with the bourgeois parties in calling off the strike. Vandervelde defended the action of the council on the ground that the continuance of the strike threatened internal dissensions because of the misery of the strikers and the violence of the government.

The party organ, Le Peuple, said on June 5, 1902: "We are no longer in 1848. The days of barricades have gone by. The narrow little streets of former years have expanded into wide avenues. The soldiers are armed with Albinis and Mausers. Even if all the people were armed it would only be necessary to plant a few cannon at strategic places in the city to put down an insurrection in spite of the greatest heroism of the insurgents."

Van Overbergh, in his history of the strike, says: "The period of romantic Socialism in Belgium is past; the days of realism have commenced." And Bertrand, the historian, adds the reason: "Its [the general strike's] effect was to keep down the vote. Even in the elections of 1904 and 1906 the vote has remained quite stationary."

Whether this means the apotheosis of the general strike in Belgium will depend no doubt upon circumstances, it is significant that the words were uttered, and still more significant that political coalition has taken the place of industrial warfare. The Liberals and Radicals now plan with the Socialists. They no longer stand aside and let the Socialists march, but they join step with them and carry banners.

The greatest of all Belgian demonstrations for universal suffrage and free schools took place in August, 1911. In spite of the extreme heat, nearly 200,000 Radicals, Liberals, and Socialists gathered in the capital, "not so much to impress the government," a Socialist leader said to me, "but to impress the people that we are in earnest, and then to prepare for the coming elections."

It must not be inferred from this rapid survey of its warfare for political privilege that Belgian Socialism has forgotten the co-operative movement and all the various activities that were blended in the making of the Labor Party. Belgian Socialism is primarily economic. This makes it unique. It has succeeded in becoming economic, in building dairies and bake-shops, in running dry-goods stores and grocery stores and butcher shops, in the present dispensation; and it has succeeded in doing so by accommodating itself to the present conditions. It adopts the eight-hour day when it can, but it is not averse to ten hours when necessary. It pays its employees the highest wage it can, but it recognizes talent and ability like the bourgeois shopkeeper across the street. It has insurance funds that draw interest at the same rate that is paid by bourgeois banks, and it has no scruples about putting the latest approved machinery into its workshops and bakeries.

In all this, their activities have remained Socialistic. They compete with the bourgeois, but co-operate among themselves. The profits of their activities go to the members of their societies and to the party. Their competition has brought ruin to the door of many a shopkeeper who finds his customers flocking to their own shop. Government commissions have inquired into the movement at the nervous requests of merchants and tradesmen, but only to find every co-operative enterprise carefully conducted and thriving.

The Belgian Socialist leaders all emphasize the importance of this unity of economic and political activity, and the priority of the economic over the political. It has been a splendid stimulant for the Belgian workman. It has aroused him out of the lethargy that has been his greatest enemy for years. It has taught him to work with others, the value of mass movement, the futility of separateness. It has schooled him, not only in reading and arithmetic, in the night classes established everywhere; but in business, in weights and measures; in percentage, in profit and loss; and most of all, in the real hardships that meet tradespeople and commercial men everywhere in their endeavor to get on. Workingmen often think that a business man is a necromancer juggling profits out of other people's necessities. The Belgian co-operativist has found out that trading is a commonplace and tedious task which requires constant alertness and is merely the drudgery of detail. This experience has taught him, moreover, the futility of laws and the utility of effort. In Belgium I was impressed most of all by the nonchalance, almost contempt, that the workman displays toward mere legislation. "Why should I toy with words when I have this?" And he points proudly to his co-operative store.

The Belgian workman has been taught through his co-operative experience the value of patient toil and frugality. Slowly he has built up these institutions out of his own savings. When he thought his scant wages were barely enough for bread, he discovered means somehow to pay his dues in the "Mutualite." As an instance of his thrift, he saves every year a little fund which is used by the family for an annual holiday, usually a short excursion to a neighboring place of interest. Every member of the family contributes to this fund, and, no matter how poor, they look forward to their yearly holiday.

The Belgian Socialist has also been successful in another field. While in other countries the Socialists have tried usually in vain to lure the peasant and small farmer, the Belgians have made constant progress in this direction. The agrarian movement began with the organizing of the Labor Party.

Vandervelde and Hector Dennis, a Professor of Economics in the University at Brussels, have been constant in their zeal for the agrarian interests. Again, the lure is not Socialism in the abstract, nor the gospel of discontent. It is practical, business co-operation. Dairies, stores, markets are proving powerful propagandists, even in the Catholic lowlands. Dr. Steffens-Frauenweiler quotes from a conservative newspaper: "From different sides we have heard the remark that Socialism would never penetrate into the country. In contradiction to this opinion we must observe that those who express this view, and presume to laugh away the Socialistic movement among the peasants and farmers, are either not well informed or are submitting themselves to illusions. Only a serious attempt to fight Socialism through positive reforms will prove a lasting check upon the ambitions of Socialists."

In Belgium the general strike has been used as an aid in the warfare for political power. We have seen how the first strike was premature, the second effective, and the third proved a boomerang in its reaction upon the Labor Party.

Vandervelde distinguishes between the general strike as a means toward social revolution, and the general strike as a political weapon used for securing a definite object. He says: "The revolutionary general strike is itself the revolution. The reformist general strike, on the contrary, is the attempt of the proletariat to secure partial concessions from the government without questioning the existence of the government, and especially the administration that represents the government." To effect this, it is not essential that all the workmen go out, but only enough to interrupt "the normal course of business, even if the majority of the workers remain at work."

The political general strike has its example, then, in the Belgian movement for the electoral franchise. Whether it would succeed in wresting other political privileges from the state, is conjecture; that it would not succeed except under the most favorable conditions, is certain.

The Belgian movement has displayed great absorptive powers and facility of adaptation. It has absorbed all the labor activities of the Radical and Socialist workmen. It has adapted itself to the necessities of the hour, giving up the daydreams of intangible things. In all this, it has displayed a saneness, in spite of its revolutionary traditions and anarchistic blood. It has the most "modern" program of the European Socialist parties, and the most worldly efficiency.

In visiting one of the large workingmen's clubhouses found in the cities, the visitor is impressed with the beehive qualities of the Belgian movement. At the "Maison du Peuple" in Brussels--that was built by these underpaid workmen at a cost of 1,000,000 francs--you find activity everywhere. The savings-bank department is swarming with women and children, come to conduct the business of the family. The cafe, the headquarters of the party, the offices of the co-operative societies, all are busy. In the evening there are debates, gymnasium contests, moving-picture shows, classes for instruction in the elementary branches, in art, and literature. A temperance movement, started by the workmen some years ago, has attained a great deal of influence. Placards are on the walls of the clubhouses, setting forth the evils of the drink habit.

Or you visit a co-operative bakery or butcher-shop or grocery store, and the same spirit of diligence, thrift, and reasonableness is there. And you are quite convinced that here is Socialism approximating somewhere near its ultimate form. If the Belgian Labor Party should secure control of the government to-morrow it would be more competent to assume the actual obligations of power than would the Socialists in any other European country. For they have not built a structure in mid-air, with merely an underpinning of more or less indifferent theories.

FOOTNOTES:

L'Enquete Gouvernementale, Vol. XVIII.

L'Annuaire Statistique.

BERTRAND, Histoire de la Democratie et du Socialisme en Belgique depuis 1830, Vol II, p. 331.

This conference sent the following telegram to the King: "You have asked what is the watchword of the country; the watchword is universal suffrage."

The candidates are arranged in groups or "lists," and the voter votes the list as well as for the individual names on the list. Any 100 electors may prepare such a list. The successful candidate must receive a majority. This often necessitates a second ballot between the two receiving the highest number of votes.

BERTRAND, Histoire, Vol. II, p. 552.

One of the significant incidents of this election was the contest against Frere Orban, for thirty years a parliamentary leader and one of the greatest politicians of his day. His seat was contested by an obscure workingman, and the distinguished parliamentarian was compelled to submit to the ordeal of a second ballot.

The Clerical forces are gradually retreating before the repeated onslaughts of Liberals and Socialists. But the loyalty to the Church remains undiminished. On May 17, 1901, a Clerical deputy remarked in the Chamber that he would like to see the temporal power of the pope restored. The Socialists immediately started an uproar which ended in their singing their "Marseillaise" and the adjournment of the sitting.

BERTRAND, Histoire, II, p. 590.

La Greve Generale Belge d'Avril, 1902, Brussels, 1902.

Histoire, II, p. 592.

See DR. STEFFENS-FRAUENWEILER, Der Agrar-Sozialismus in Belge.

Op. cit., p. 37.

See an article by E. VANDERVELDE, "Der General Streik," in Archiv fuer Sozial-wissenschaft und Sozial-Politik, Tuebingen, May, 1908. The same article was published, same date, in Revue du Mois, Paris.

Supra cit., p. 541.

Bakunin had a large following in Belgium during the days of the "Old International," and Anarchists have never entirely ceased their activities in the large cities.

On the walls of the "Maison du Peuple" you will find noble paintings. Here labored Constantine Meunier, the sculptor, on his notable "Monument au Travail." Three remarkable sections of this monument, "La Mine," "L'Industrie," "La Glebe," can be seen in the Gallery of Modern Art, in Brussels. There are evidences everywhere of the art interest of these alert working people. One of them, with sincere indignation, pointed out to me the large pile of stone that surmounts the heights of the city, the Palace of Justice, completed in 1883, and said its "bourgeois Babylonian hideousness is the high-water mark of bourgeois taste in art and bourgeois power in politics."