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.