Part 9 (2/2)
Its aim can be only the complete emanc.i.p.ation of the proletariat through the violent expropriation of the capitalist cla.s.s.
The Congress, in view of the situation, declares that the movement which may take place in favor of the miners, the importance or character of which n.o.body can foresee and which may go to the point of a general emanc.i.p.ation, will be in any case a movement of solidarity which will not impair in the least the revolutionary principle of the general strike of all workingmen.[123]
[123] _Ibid._, p. 179.
The delegate of the Typographical Union (_La Federation du Livre_) combated the idea of the general strike and argued that it was impossible in view of the small number of organized workingmen. But his argument had no effect on the Congress. It was rejected as of no importance because the minority of organized workingmen could carry away with it the majority.
The question of labor laws was the subject of an animated discussion at the Congress because of its importance. The answer given to this question was to determine the att.i.tude of the General Confederation to legislative reforms and to the State in general.
The question was a very practical one. The government of Waldeck-Rousseau (22 June, 1899-6 June, 1902), in which the socialist, Millerand, was Minister of Commerce and Industry, outlined a number of labor laws which touched upon the most vital questions of the labor movement. The most important of these law-projects were on strikes and arbitration, on the composition of the superior Council of Labor, on the inst.i.tution of Councils of Labor, and on the modification of the law of 1884.
The policy of the government in planning these laws was clear and expressly stated. It was the continuation and accentuation of the policy which had guided M. Waldeck-Rousseau in 1884 when he was Minister of the Interior in the Cabinet of Jules Ferry, and which had then found partial expression in the ministerial circular on the application of the new law on syndicats.
This ”Circular,” sent out to the Prefects August 25, 1884, pointed out to the Prefects that it was the duty of the State not merely to watch over the strict observation of the law, but ”to favor the spirit of a.s.sociation” among the workingmen and ”to stimulate” the latter to make use of the new right. In the conception of the government the syndicats were to be ”less a weapon of struggle” than ”an instrument of material, moral and intellectual progress.” It was ”the wish of the Government and of the Chambers to see the propagation, in the largest possible measure, of the trade a.s.sociations and of the inst.i.tutions which they were destined to engender” (such as old-age pension funds, mutual credit banks, libraries, co-operative societies, etc.) and the government expected the Prefects ”to lend active a.s.sistance” in the organization of syndicats and in the creation of syndical inst.i.tutions.[124]
[124] See the ”Circulaire” in G. Severac, _Guide Pratique des Syndicats Professionnels_ (Paris, 1908), pp. 125-136.
The aim of Waldeck-Rousseau was to bring about the ”alliance of the bourgeoisie and of the working-cla.s.s”[125] which Gambetta and other republican statesmen had untiringly preached as the only condition of maintaining the Republic. In the period 1899-1902 this policy seemed still more indispensable. It was the time when the agitation caused by the Dreyfus affair a.s.sumed the character of a struggle between the republican and anti-republican forces of France. Republicans, Radicals, Socialists, and Anarchists were fighting hand in hand against Monarchists, Nationalists, Anti-Semites and Clericals. The cabinet of Waldeck-Rousseau const.i.tuted itself a ”Cabinet of Republican Defense”
and it sought to attain its end by securing the support of all republican elements of the country. This was the cause which prompted Waldeck-Rousseau to invite a socialist, Millerand, to enter his cabinet and to accentuate his policy of attaching the working-cla.s.s to the Republic by a series of protective labor laws.
[125] G. Hanoteaux, _Modern France_ (tr. by J. C. Tarver, New York, 1903-09), vol. ii, p. 181.
The policy of the Government was clearly expressed by Millerand in the Chamber of Deputies on November 23, 1899. ”It has appeared to me,” said he, ”that the best means for bringing back the working ma.s.ses to the Republic, is to show them not by words, but by facts, that the republican government is above everything else the government of the small and of the weak.”[126]
[126] A. Lavy, _L'Oeuvre de Millerand_ (Paris, 1902), p. 2.
The facts by which M. Millerand undertook to show this were a number of decrees by which the government tried to enforce a stricter observation of labor-laws already in existence and a series of new law-projects for the future protection of labor, such as the bill on a ten-hour day, which became law on March 30, 1900. As M. Millerand expressed it, this law was ”a measure of moralization, of solidarity, and of social pacification.”
Social pacification was the supreme aim of M. Millerand and of the government. M. Millerand hoped to attain this by calling workingmen to partic.i.p.ation in the legislative activities of the Republic, by accustoming them to peaceable discussions with employers, and by regulating the more violent forms of the economic struggle.
A decree from September 1, 1899, modified the const.i.tution of the Superior Council of Labor, in existence since 1891, so that it should henceforth consist of 22 elected workingmen, 22 elected employers and 22 members appointed by the Minister from among the deputies of the Chamber, the senators and other persons representing ”general interests.” The Superior Council of Labor was ”an instrument of study, of information and of consultation” in matters of labor legislation. It studied law-projects affecting the conditions of labor, made its own suggestions to the government, but had no legislative powers.
The decree of M. Millerand was particularly significant in one respect: it called upon the workingmen organized in the syndicats to elect fifteen members of the Superior Council of Labor. M. Millerand pointed out the significance of this measure in a speech delivered on June 5, 1900. Said he:
The workingmen are henceforth warned, that in order to partic.i.p.ate through delegates sprung from their own ranks in the elaboration of economic reforms which concern them most, it is necessary and sufficient that they enter the ranks of that great army of which the syndicats are the battalions. How can they refuse to do this?
By inducing them to do so we believe that we are defending their legitimate interests at the same time that we are serving the cause of social peace in this country.[127]
[127] A. Lavy, _op. cit._, p. 66.
The ”Councils of Labor” were organized by two decrees from September 17, 1900, and from January 2, 1901. Composed of an equal number of workingmen and of employers, these Councils had for their princ.i.p.al mission to enlighten the government, as well as workingmen and employers, on the actual and necessary conditions of labor, to facilitate thereby industrial harmony and general agreement between the interested parties, to furnish in cases of collective conflicts competent mediators, and to inform the public authorities on the effects produced by labor legislation.[128]
[128] _Ibid._, p. 79.
M. Millerand emphasized that the Councils of Labor were to bring workingmen and employers together for the discussion of ”their general interests” and that this new inst.i.tution would be one more motive for the utilization of the law of 1884 on syndicats. ”To encourage by all means the formation of these trade-a.s.sociations, so useful for the progress of social peace,” wrote the Minister in his decree, ”is a task which a republican government cannot neglect.”[129]
[129] A. Lavy, _op. cit._, p. 80.
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