seven hours in twenty-four." M. Félix | In mines it is scarcely more than eight Martin exposed, in the Senate, the sit- to eight and a half hours of effective uation to which this law reduces the work. But the Socialists may well women employed in stitching printed say: "Since the legislator can fix the matter. They go to the workshop at nime o'clock at night. They may remain there till four o'clock in the morning. Then they are inexorably shown to the door. It may be raining or freezing, it may be light or dark; but, however that may be, these workwomen must go, and must not re-appear in the workshop during the next seventeen hours which complete the twenty-four. What follows? Under the pretence of protecting the women stitchers, the law really turns them out of employment and causes their replacement by men. And, to speak frankly, all the fine phrases spun in the ostensible interest of women and for the protection of children have been but pretexts though in France there is a very large infantile mortality in a certain number of more or less manufacturing departments of the south. In reality, what the Socialists have always aimed at in Frauce is the exclusion of women from all industrial work. They have always regarded women as disloyal competitors who work at a lower price. They therefore fashion beautiful phrases for their special benefit, but with the object of getting rid of them from the labor market. French gallantry is thus transformed into a savage egotism. Up to the present time the only fruit of the law of the 2nd of November, 1892, has been strikes and discontent. day's work at twelve hours, why not fix it at eight? The principle is consecrated by the law." Others have still more generous proposals. Μ. Vaillant, the new Socialist deputy of the Blanquist school, suggests, a legal working day of six hours. M. Pablo Lafargue, a relation of Karl Marx and late deputy for Lille, demands a threehours' day. Zero is, in fact, the only figure which is safe from being outbid. The legal limitation of the hours of labor has an appearance of theoretic profundity for those who believe, with Karl Marx, that the employer's profit comes only out of surplus labor; and it presents, at the same time, an immediate practical solace to the people who proudly style themselves "workers," but whose ideal is to work as little as possible. We do not blame them. They obey "the law of least effort" which dominates humanity in the economic as well as in the linguistic field. Only, the majority of them well understand that if the law diminishes their hours of work it must intervene again if it would prevent any diminution of their wages. The legislator thus finds himself committed to intervention in labor bargains in two ways and to the regulation of the cost of production. He thus substitutes the law, an authoritative arrangement, for a private contract freely entered into; and if, as Sir Henry Sumner Maine has demonstrated, social progress substitutes contract for State intervention, it follows that State interference in the sale and purchase of labor, so far from marking an advance, is symptomatic of retrogression. From the moment when one accepts the principle of the intervention of the legislator for the limitation of the labor of adult women there is no ground of principle on which to base its rejection for the labor of men. The law of the 9th of September, 1848, passed under Among the legal measures demanded the Socialistic influence of the moment, by the Socialists is the expulsion of forlimited men's labor to twelve hours per eign workmen. They are all internaday; but the decrees of the 17th of tionalists in words - they even accept competition is scarcely ever effective the Rue Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and ex May, 1851, and the 3rd of April, 1883, specify exceptions. In fact, custom has reduced the duration of daily labor to less than the legal limit in the majority of workshops and manufactories. subsidies towards their election penses from their German friends but in fact they do not like the competition of foreigners, especially that of the Belgians and Italians. Yet this afterwards built a magnificent edifice, which cost three millions of francs, in the Rue du Château d'Eau, which was opened in the month of May, 1892. This bourse lacked only one element in order to justify its title: there were plenty of sellers of labor but the purchasers of it were rigorously shut out. The supply of labor was there, but the save in work which they consider beneath them. They seek, however, to reconcile their theory of fraternity between the proletarians of all countries with their personal interest by demanding that the fine, and if necessary imprisonment, shall be imposed on the employer of foreign workmen. This system.satisfies all their requirements, and it affords an excellent opportunity demand came not; and the very perof having one fling the more at the sons who showed purchasers the door employer. It is very difficult for the wondered and were indignant at their Chamber of Deputies not to follow the absence. They consoled themselves, Socialists on this path; for the latter however. The delegates of the syndiwill say to the Protectionists: "You cates received an honorarium for their have asked for duties for the protection presence from the subventions given of native industry;' but this industry by the Municipal Council of Paris, and is not native from the moment when they multiplied every day. The time foreigners can come and take part in it." The Socialists also demand the suppression of the registry offices which submitted to the decree of 1852. These are completely in the hands of the police, who can intervene in case of abuse of their functions. The Socialists, in order to insure the recruitment of the trade syndicates, wish to give them a monopoly as agents between employer and employed. A committee of the last legislature adopted a bill framed to accomplish this. I procured its rejection by the Chamber of Deputies on the 8th of May last. This would have been a formidable instrument of oppression. The syndicates would have placed an interdict on all employers and workmen who would not come to terms with their chiefs. V. It was because of this that the question of the Bourse du Travail came up. M. de Molinari, one of the most original economists of this century, had so early as 1843 proposed the creation of bourses du travail at which bargains might be made by those who sought work and those who desired to purchase it. This idea was taken up by the Socialists, but with very different intentions from those of its author. The Municipal Council of Paris first opened a Bourse du Travail in 1887, in which they did not employ in discussions between themselves they consecrated to the elaboration of the Journal de la Bourse du Travail, which contained the most virulent articles against "capitalism" and employers. They organized public meetings, at which they gave themselves up to invectives and anathemas against the bourgeois. They busied themselves in provoking strikes at all points of France. They sent delegates to various Socialist congresses; and one of them, M. Chausse, himself a municipal councillor of Paris, on his return from the Congress of St.Quentin, published a plan of the strategy to be adopted in social war. They organized lists of officers of Socialism and Revolution, as in 1871 the delegates of the battalions of the National Guards, forming the central committee, organized the Commune. Through indifference, in order not to make a fuss, the police and the government permitted the installation of this focus of anarchy and its support by the Municipal Council at the expense of the rate-payers. Under pressure by the Chamber of Deputies, the ministry took the energetic step of closing it on the 6th of July last. Will they re-open it, as they are summoned to do by the Socialists? And, if so, on what conditions? Indeed there are bourses du travail in certain towns of the departments in some of which the errors of that of Paris still prevail. Will the two thousand underground workers in government attend to this? Will it allow them to continue their action, which, by serving to form their organization, was not without effect on the success of the Socialists at the last general election ? VI. France, more than one-half are grouped in the departments of the Nord and the Pas-de-Calais. It was so much the easier to work upon them, as these miners were admirably disciplined by the companies. They, however, put the quality of obedience which they had acquired at the service of revo ACCORDING to the ultimate concep-lutionaries, and with docility obeyed tion of the Socialists, all laws of the their orders. kind we have just described are, notwithstanding their Socialistic character, but bourgeois legislation. But they claim the honor of having called them into existence, and they have no gratitude to the bourgeois Radical Socialists, like Messieurs Floquet and Clémen When the strike broke out, drawing into its vortex many thousands of workmen, the public, whose knowledge of mining was drawn solely from their imagination and their recollection of explosions of fire-damp, drew a fancy picture of mining in which it was of who desired to buy his coal at the cheapest rate subscribed in support of the miners on strike, without seeing the self-contradiction in which he was involving himself. ceau, who have lent themselves to the all occupations the most terrible and passing of this legislation. They loudly dangerous. They were captured by declare that the concessions made to sympathy for the miners; and the man them will but serve to fortify their cause and weaken their adversaries. They frankly forewarn those who cooperate with them that they are deceiving no one but themselves; but there are some persons who have a passion for this jeu de dupes. We shall see, in the coming legislative session, not only Radical Socialists, but Monarchists who have recently "rallied " to the present form of government and Republicans, accept it as the theme of their adulation and from the desire to try to deserve the gratitude of people who tell their allies that they must not count on receiving it. In our French legislation the concession of a mine is regarded as a privilege conferred by the State. A strike of miners, therefore, offered a magnificent opportunity to the Socialists to mount the tribune and ask of the minister of public works what he was doing and what he intended to do. If he replied that the mine, once conceded, is property like anything else which is the truth-they would accuse him of being a supporter of industrial feudalism. There are some ministers to whom this reproach is not a matter of indiffer In reality, the chief means of action of the Socialists is the strike. They do not look upon it in its economic aspect. They do not at all regard it as the with-ence. Moreover, we have seen, in drawal of labor from the market by the laborers, the rendering of the supply of labor a monopoly in order to raise its price. For them it is a combat of the advanced guard, a precursory episode of the social war. It is with these sen 1892, at Carmaux, all the authorities giving in to the miners, who, under the direction of certain Socialist deputies, and especially of M. Baudin, set patrols in order to prevent the realization of any desire to return to work, and timents that they stir up strikes as fre- threatened the army and the constabuquently as possible. They have been lary. The strike finished, in October, obliged to give up the notion of a gen- 1892, by a lamentable debate, in which eral strike, as the agriculturists decline M. Loubet, the prime minister, conto follow them. Not having succeeded sented to serve as arbitrator; and, as in this, they endeavor to multiply par- his decision did not give complete sattial strikes. The miners' strikes were isfaction to the demands of Messieurs the best for them. For, of the ninety-Clémenceau, Millerand, and Camille Pelletan, who set themselves upas delegates of the miners, they insulted the arbitrator whom they had asked to act, and rejected arbitration at the very time when they had just voted, in the Cham- be confessed, though they feel uneasy ber of Deputies, in favor of compulsory in respect of them, have no economic VII. THE Socialists have a programme of immediate action and a political plan of campaign. Many Republicans, it must arbitration. This strike ended with a dynamite explosion in the Rue des Bons Enfants, which killed five persons. The champions of the strike then judged it prudent to put an end to their rodomontade. These furious harangues and more after their kind will be reproduced in the new Chamber. The Socialists announce that they are about to demand that the mines shall re-enter into the domain of the State and be worked by it. This is a good field for them, as there are many good owners of real property who imagine that the mines are not property as other things are, and that it is only necessary to dig a hole in the earth to make it debouch millions. They do principles sufficiently firmly held to oppose them. The Protectionists, while demanding the intervention of the State in exchange agreements, are in a bad position to refuse it in labor agreements. Having claimed that profits shall be guaranteed to them, what can they say to the workmen who claim that the law should guarantee to them a certain scale of wages? Many others have no criterion by which to determine what should be the limit of the intervention of the State in the economic domain. Has the government any such principle? Or will it drag the majority into concession after concession to the Socialists? Will it say, what has already been said and repeated too often, that the new Cham not even know that of the twelve hun-ber of Deputies should occupy itself dred concessions of mines in France with labor questions and labor laws? there are eight hundred which are not worked, after having exhausted the resources of those who have obtained them; and that of the mines in actual working one-half produce nc profit. The Socialists are also going to demand that the railroads be taken over and worked by the State. That will not be a way of putting our finances more in order. The example of Prus What are labor laws -lois ouvrières? We are here back to caste legislation we who believed that the Revolution of 1789 had abolished caste ! If the government and the majority put their shoulders to this wheel, it will be very serious, not only for the new legislature, but for the elections of 1897. The Socialists are about to multiply their proposals. They will put sia shows us that the State forgets forward resolutions and propose "orwillingly to redeem the cost of the ders of the day." Many of these will railroads. Moreover, if the State man- be lost. They will heap up these ages the railroads it will have to lower the scale of charges and raise all the salaries. The conditions of such management will, therefore be ruinous. However, it is well to bear in mind that this proposal meets with a favorable reception on the part of some Republicans who repudiate Socialism. The transport industries are always unpopular; and the management of the railroads, in their relations with the State, is very complicated in France. losses carefully and go to the electors with the cry: "Here is what we proposed! We have been defeated! You must give us a majority in the next Chamber." While they will utilize their defeats for the denunciation of "bourgeois society" and parliamentary government, they will make use of every law which has the appearance of Socialism, proposed by themselves or others, to point out how many concessions they have obtained, and what might have been if they had obtained them in greater number. They have, at the present time, the power of atand indirect proportion to the control by man of external nature. 124 An English Dictionary of the Days of King James I. traction. They are attacking; the ❘ for its object the restraint of the intelRepublicans, on the other hand, are on lectual or productive activity of man. the defensive - the worst of strategical Progress is in inverse proportion to the conditions in politics as in war. The coercive interference of man with man, Socialists wish to attract into the circle of their activity the indifferent, the timid, the apathetic, and the still more numerous folk who always look to see which way the wind is blowing in order to let themselves be carried in its direction. However, this movement is nothing to be frightened about, for it has against it a considerable resistant force. The workmen of the large industries number eight hundred thousand; but the workmen of the small scale industries, of whom the majority desire to YVES GUYOT, Late Minister of Public Works of France. From The Leisure Hour. AN ENGLISH DICTIONARY OF THE DAYS OF KING JAMES THE FIRST. Two hundred and sixty-eight years ago appeared a small book, which has proved the parent of a gigantic offspring. It was a modest little volume, become employers, number fifteen hun- hardly too large for your waistcoat dred thousand. Trade and transport pocket, and bore on its title-page the give occupation to more than a mil- following legend: "The English Diclion; proprietors cultivating their own tionarie, or an Interpreter of hard Eulands count for nearly twenty-five hun-glish words: enabling, as well Ladies dred thousand; small proprietors for and Gentlewomen, young Schollers, nearly eight hundred thousand; farm- Clarkes, Merchants, as also Strangers ers, métayers, and planters for more of any Nation, to the understanding than twelve hundred thousand; land- of the more difficult Authors already lords and fundholders for more than five hundred thousand; members of the liberal professions for nearly as many; etc. Now certain Socialist fictions may well seduce a few of those small employers who have one or two workmen, and a few medical men and barristers in search of a means of bettering their position or popularity; but the great majority of the proprietors, large and small, are inaccessible to that conception which has Collectivism for its final and logical result, the seizure by the State of the whole economic activity of the country and the forcing of every man fit for work into the ranks of State functionaries. But it is indispensable that the Republicans should agree to oppose propaganda to propaganda, and to meet the demand for a Socialistic Utopia by the enunciation of certain principles, which I summarize thus: Every institution is pernicious which has for its object the protection of an individual or a group from competition, for it results in apathy and decay. Every institution is noxious which has printed in our Language, and the more speedy attaining of an elegant perfection of the English tongue both in reading, speaking, and writing." The author who entertained this benevolent and ambitious design styles himself "H. C. Gent.," i.e., "Henry Cockeram, Gentleman." To the curious in the use and treatment of words, a short account of this lexicographical progenitor may perhaps not fail in interest. The worthy Cockeram divided his book into three parts. The first part consists of a list of the less common words in use at the time, and gives brief explanations. Some of these, as might be supposed, are pretty quaint. For example, "Athleticall science, The wrastling science: Baptist, A washer : Balasse [= Ballast], Gravell, or anything of waight layd in the bottome of shippes to make them goe upright: Hereticke, He which maketh choice of himselfe what poynts of Religion he will beleeve, and what hee will not [a very complimentary description!]: Lunacie, A disease, when at certaine |