Part 15 (1/2)
In matters of administration the _Bourses du Travail_ have made a step in advance since the early part of the century. They have succeeded in organizing the _viatic.u.m_ (aid to workingman traveling from town to town in search of work) on a national basis, and have amplified their services as employment bureaus. They are now systematizing their statistical work by making monthly and quarterly reports on the state of employment in their locality, on strikes, on the growth of organization, and on other industrial matters of interest. Their financial situation has been considerably improved, and in a number of cities they have left the munic.i.p.al buildings and have built their own ”people's houses”
(_maisons du peuple_).
Regard for matters of administration has not diminished the zeal of the Bourses for anti-militaristic propaganda. Most of them have organized in recent years the so-called _Sou du Soldat_ (Soldier's Penny). They send financial aid to workingmen who are doing military service, invite them to the social gatherings of the syndicats, distribute syndicalist literature among them, and in all ways try to maintain in the soldiers a feeling of solidarity with the organized workers.
The Federations of industries and trades after 1902 concentrated their attention upon their particular trade and industrial interests. The story of these Federations is the story of organization, education, and strikes which can not be told here in detail.
While the Bourses and industrial federations attended to the particular, local and administrative interests of their respective organizations, the General Confederation of labor intervened or took the initiative in questions that interested all or a considerable part of all workingmen.
The new statutes went into force on January 1, 1903. The elections secured the predominance of the revolutionary syndicalists in the Confederal Committee; Griffuelhes was elected secretary of the Confederation; Pouget, a.s.sistant; Yvetot, secretary of the Section of Bourses. In October of the same year the Confederal Committee was summoned to an extraordinary meeting to consider the question of the suppression of employment bureaus. This question had agitated a considerable part of the working-cla.s.s for many years. The workingmen had protested time and again against the methods and procedure of these bureaus, and their protests had been found to be well founded by all who investigated the matter.[188] The methods of the employment bureaus had been condemned in Parliament, and the Chamber had pa.s.sed a bill to suppress the employment bureaus with indemnity in 1901-2. The Senate, however, rejected it in February, 1902, and the question was dropped indefinitely.
[188] Senator Paul Straus in _La Grande Revue_ (Feb., 1914), pp. 320 _et seq._
The workingmen of the food-producing industries (_alimentation_) were particularly interested in the suppression of the employment bureaus. In October, 1903, exasperated by the fact that twenty-five years of lobbying and of pet.i.tioning had produced no results, they decided to take the matter into their own hands. October 29th, a ”veritable riot”
took place in the _Bourse du Travail_ of Paris, the police used their arms, and many were wounded on both sides.[189]
[189] _Journal des Debats_ (Nov. 6, 1903), p. 865.
The Confederal Committee decided to lend its help to the workingmen in the struggle. It appointed a special committee to direct the movement.
The plan adopted was to carry on a wide agitation for some time and then to arrange protest-meetings on the same day in all industrial centers of France. December 5, 1903, hundreds of meetings were held all over France, at which the same demand was made that the employment offices be abolished. The meetings were arranged with the help of the _Bourses du Travail_ which appear in all such cases as the centers of agitation.
November 5, 1903, the Chamber, by 495 votes against 14, voted a law suppressing the Employment Bureaus within a period of five years, with an indemnity of six million francs. In February, 1904, the law pa.s.sed the Senate with some modifications.
The agitation for the suppression of the employment bureaus appeared to all as a manifestation of the new theories on ”Direct Action.” ”The socialist syndicats have wrested the vote of the Chamber by the pressure of rebellion (_Coup d'emeutes_)” wrote the _Journal des economistes_.[190] The revolutionary syndicalists themselves considered the agitation as an ill.u.s.tration of their methods, and the success obtained as a proof of the efficiency of the latter. The report to the Congress of Bourges (1904) read:
[190] _Journal des economistes_ (November, 1903), p. 315.
Under the pressure of the workingmen the Government, till then refractory to the reform, capitulated.... To-day it is an accomplished fact; wherever syndicalist action was exercised with perseverance and energy, the employment bureaus have gone. This fact is characteristic. The General Confederation has the merit, thanks to the immense effort of the interested themselves, of having obtained a reform in a relatively short time, if it is compared with the slowness with which everything concerning the workingmen is done.[191]
[191] _XIV Congres National Corporatif_ (Bourges, 1904), p. 8.
The policy of the General Confederation, however, had opponents within the Confederation itself. A struggle for supremacy between the two tendencies was inevitable, and it took place at the very next Congress of the Confederation at Bourges (1904).
The report presented to the Congress of Bourges showed that the Confederation had made considerable progress since 1902. It counted now 53 Federations of industries and trades, and National syndicats (against 30 in 1902), 15 isolated syndicats, and 110 _Bourses du Travail_, a total of 1,792 syndicats (against 1,043 in 1902), with 150,000 members.
The Section of Federations of industries had received in dues for the two years, 11,076 francs; its total budget amounted to 17,882 francs; the Section of _Bourses du Travail_ had collected in dues 9,016 francs and had a total budget of 12,213 francs. The _Voix du Peuple_ was now self-supporting, and had increased the number of its subscriptions. The Congress of Bourges, for the first time, was organized on the financial resources of the syndicats without munic.i.p.al or governmental subsidies.
It was known before that the Congress of Bourges would discuss the question of methods, and both sides, the revolutionary syndicalists and those who were called ”reformists,” made all efforts possible to obtain a majority at the Congress. There were 1,178 mandates from as many syndicats. This was the system of representation adopted by the Statutes of the Confederation in 1902. At its Congress the Confederation resolves itself into an a.s.sociation of syndicats; the Federations and Bourses disappear and their const.i.tuent elements, the syndicats, take their place. Each syndicat--no matter how large or how small--has one vote; and one delegate may represent as many as ten syndicats. At the Congress of Bourges the 1,178 mandates were distributed among 400 delegates, of whom 350 came from the Provinces and 50 from Paris.
The attack on the Confederal Committee was led by M. Keufer, the delegate and secretary of the Typographical Union (_La Federation du Livre_). He accused the Confederal Committee of violating the statutes, of being partial and biased and of trying in every way to harm the _Federation du Livre_, because the latter pursued ”reformist” methods.
”Yes,” said M. Keufer, ”we prefer the reformist method, because we believe that direct and violent action, commended by the anarchists, will cost thousands of workingmen their lives, without a.s.suring durable results.”[192] He insisted that it was necessary to try conciliatory methods before declaring strikes and to solicit the help of representatives in the legislative bodies. He showed that, on the one hand, even the revolutionary syndicalists were compelled by circ.u.mstances to use such methods, while the _Federation du Livre_, on the other hand, did not shrink from strikes and from direct action, when that was inevitable. M. Keufer was supported by M. Lauche, the delegate of the machinists, and by M. Guerard, the delegate of the railway workers.
[192] _XIV Congres Corporatif_ (Bourges, 1904), pp. 95-6.
The accusations of the ”reformists” were repudiated by a number of revolutionary syndicalists who reaffirmed in their speeches adherence to the ideas, described in the preceding chapters, on the State, on direct action, etc. They were the victors, and the report of the Confederal Committee was approved by 812 votes against 361 and 11 blank.
The main struggle, however, centered on the question of proportional representation. This question had been brought up at previous Congresses by the delegates of some larger syndicats. At one time even some of the revolutionary syndicalists had advocated proportional representation as a means of finding out the real strength of the various tendencies in the Confederation. But after the Confederation became decidedly revolutionary, the revolutionary syndicalists became decidedly opposed to proportional representation which they now regarded as a move on the part of the ”reformist” element to obtain control of the Confederation.[193]
[193] _Mouvement Socialiste_ (Nov., 1904), p. 61.
Proportional representation was defended by the delegates of the Typographical Union, of the Machinists and of the Railway Workers. They criticised the statutes adopted at Montpellier which gave every organization, regardless of its numbers, one vote only in the Confederal Committee. This system, they declared, vitiated the character of the Confederation, and gave predominance to the minority. They claimed that the delegates in the Confederal Committee expressed the opinions shared by a small proportion only of the organized workingmen and that the Confederation was, therefore, a tool in the hands of a few ”turbulent”