Socialism and Democracy in Europe Part 13

The new electoral law (1893) was a compromise suggested by Professor Albert Nyssens of the University of Louvain. It recognized the three princ.i.p.al 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_.[5]

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.[6]

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.[7]

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 pa.s.sage. 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 pa.s.sion 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 pa.s.sed, 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 pa.s.sed 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.[8]

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 const.i.tuencies 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 Const.i.tution. 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."[9]

Van Overbergh, in his history of the strike, says: "The period of romantic Socialism in Belgium is past; the days of realism have commenced."[10] 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."[11]

Whether this means the apotheosis of the general strike in Belgium will depend no doubt upon circ.u.mstances, 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."

IV

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 compet.i.tion 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 ma.s.s movement, the futility of separateness. It has schooled him, not only in reading and arithmetic, in the night cla.s.ses 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 inst.i.tutions 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.[12]

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."[13]

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.[14] 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."[15]

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.[16] 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, cla.s.ses for instruction in the elementary branches, in art, and literature.[17] 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 a.s.sume 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:

[1] _L'Enquete Gouvernementale_, Vol. XVIII.

[2] _L'Annuaire Statistique._

[3] BERTRAND, _Histoire de la Democratie et du Socialisme en Belgique depuis 1830_, Vol II, p. 331.