Socialism and Democracy in Europe Part 36

6. Security to all workingmen, employees, and officials in their right to combine, to meet, and to organize.

7. Establishment of a national Department of Labor, officials of this Department to be elected by the interests represented upon the basis of universal and equal suffrage. Extension of factory inspection by the partic.i.p.ation of workingmen and workingwomen in the same.

Legalized universal eight-hour day, shortening the hours of labor in industries that are detrimental to health.

8. Reform of industrial insurance, exemption of farm laborers and domestic servants from contributing to insurance funds. Direct election of representatives in the administration of the insurance funds; enlarging the representation of labor on the board of directors; increasing the amounts paid workingmen; lowering age for old-age pensions from 70 to 65 years; aid to expectant mothers; and free medical attendance.

9. Complete religious freedom. Separation of Church and State, and of school and Church. No support of any kind, from public funds, for religious purposes.

10. Universal, free schools as the basis of all education. Free text-books. Freedom for art and science.

11. Diminution and ultimate abolition of all indirect taxes, and abolition of all taxes on the necessities of life. Abolition of duties on foodstuffs. Limiting the restrictions upon the importation of cattle, fowl, and meat to the necessary sanitary measures. Reduction in the tariff, especially in those schedules which encourage the development of syndicates and pools, thereby enabling products of German manufacture to be sold cheaper abroad than at home.

12. The support of all measures that tend to develop commerce and trade. Abolition of tax on railway tickets. A stamp tax on bills of lading.

13. A graduated income, property, and inheritance tax; inasmuch as this is the most effective way of dampening the ardor of the rich for a constantly increasing army and navy.

14. Internal improvements and colonization; the transformation of great estates into communal holdings, thereby making possible a greater food supply and a corresponding lowering of prices. The establishment of public farms and agricultural schools. The reclamation of swamp-lands, moors, and dunes. The cessation of foreign colonization now done for the purpose of exploiting foreign peoples for the sake of gain.

Voters of Germany! New naval and military appropriations await you; these will increase the burdens of your taxes by hundreds of millions.

As on former occasions, so now the ruling cla.s.s will attempt to roll these heavy burdens upon the shoulders of the humble, and thereby increase the burden of existence of the family.

Therefore, let the women, upon whom the burden of the household primarily rests, and who are to-day without political rights, take active part in this work of emanc.i.p.ation and join themselves with determination to our cause, which is also their cause.

Voters of Germany! If you are in accord with these principles, then give your votes on the 12th of January to the Social Democratic Party.

Help prepare the foundations for a new and better state whose motto shall be:

Death to Want and Idleness! Work, Bread, and Justice for all!

Let your battle-cry on election day resound: Long live the Social Democracy!

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC REPRESENTATION IN THE REICHSTAG.

BERLIN, December 5, 1911.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Personal tax; tax on movables; tax on land; door and window tax.

[2] A license to trade is required for many businesses in France.

IV. BELGIUM

POLITICAL UNIONISM IN BELGIUM

The Catholic Church essayed to organize in Belgium a "Christian Socialist" movement, patterned after Bishop Kettler's movement in the Rhine provinces. The movement was called "Federation des Societes Ouvriers Catholiques" and grew to considerable power. The federation soon, however, developed democratic tendencies that separated it from the Clerical Party, and the Abbe Daens, their first deputy in the Chamber of Representatives, provoked the hostility of the ecclesiastical authorities and was deprived of his clerical prerogatives.

The Catholic labor unions, which did not join in this democratic movement, have in the last few years developed some strength, and have now about 20,000 members.

The Progressists or Radicals have from the first been favorable to labor and have in their ranks many workmen from the industries "de luxe," such as bronze workers, jewelers, art craftsmen, etc.

The Liberals have a trades-union organization which does not flourish.

It has about 2,000 members. The Liberals have, however, together with the Progressists, some influence over the independent unions, with their 32,000 members.

The Socialist labor unions are the largest and most powerful. Their average yearly membership in the years 1885-90 was 40,234; in 1899 it was 61,451; in 1909 it had increased to 103,451.

STATISTICAL TABLES

TABLE SHOWING THE DEVELOPMENT OF CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES IN BELGIUM

=======+===========+============+===========+=========+ _No. of _Sales-- _Profits-- _No. of _Year_ Societies_ Francs_ Francs_ Members_ -------+-----------+------------+-----------+---------+ 1904 168 26,936,873 3,140,210 103,349 1905 161 28,174,563 3,035,941 119,581 1906 162 33,569,359 3,493,586 126,993 1907 166 39,103,673 3,843,568 134,694 1908 175 40,655,359 3,855,444 140,730 1909 199 43,288,867 4,678,559 148,042 ---------+-----------+------------+-----------+---------+ =======+===========+============+============ _No. _Value of _Paid-up of Realty Capital _Year_ Employees_ Francs_ Francs_ -------+-----------+------------+------------ 1904 1785 10,302,059 1,146,651 1905 1752 12,091,300 1,655,061 1906 1809 12,844,976 1,694,878 1907 2093 14,280,955 1,940,175 1908 2128 14,837,114 1,942,266 1909 2223 15,850,158 1,893,616 ---------+-----------+------------+------------

TABLE SHOWING THE GROWTH OF THE WHOLESALE CO-OPERATIVE MOVEMENT IN BELGIUM FROM THE DATE OF ITS BEGINNING IN 1901

========+===================== _Amount of Business _Year_ Done--Francs_ --------+--------------------- 1901 760,356 1902 1,211,439 1903 1,485,573 1904 1,608,475 1905 2,219,842 1906 2,416,372 1907 2,796,196 1908 2,995,615 1909 3,221,849 1910 4,489,996 --------+---------------------

PROGRAM OF THE BELGIAN LABOR PARTY

_Adopted at Brussels in 1893_

DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES

1. The const.i.tuents of wealth in general, and in particular the means of production, are either natural agencies or the fruit of the labor--manual and mental--of previous generations besides the present; consequently they must be considered the common heritage of mankind.

2. The right of individuals or groups to enjoy this heritage can be based only on social utility, and aimed only at securing for every human being the greatest possible sum of freedom and well-being.

3. The realization of this ideal is incompatible with the maintenance of the capitalistic regime, which divides society into two necessarily antagonistic cla.s.ses--the one able to enjoy property without working, the other obliged to relinquish a part of its product to the possessing cla.s.s.

4. The workers can only expect their complete emanc.i.p.ation from the suppression of cla.s.ses and a radical transformation of existing society.

This transformation will be in favor, not only of the proletariat, but of mankind as a whole; nevertheless, as it is contrary to the immediate interests of the possessing cla.s.s, the emanc.i.p.ation of the workers will be essentially the work of the workers themselves.

5. In economic matters their aim must be to secure the free use, without charge, of all the means of production. This result can only be attained, in a society where collective labor is more and more replacing individual labor, by the collective appropriation of natural agencies and the instruments of labor.

6. The transformation of the capitalistic regime into a collectivist regime must necessarily be accompanied by correlative transformations--

(_a_) In _morals_, by the development of altruistic feelings and the practice of solidarity.

(_b_) In _politics_, by the transformation of the State into a business management (_administration des choses_).

7. Socialism must, therefore, pursue simultaneously the economic, moral, and political emanc.i.p.ation of the proletariat. Nevertheless, the economic point of view must be paramount, for the concentration of capital in the hands of a single cla.s.s forms the basis of all the other forms of its domination.