Part 25 (1/2)
I hope, for the future of France, that she may be right. For there seems to be a tendency here, as there certainly is in other parts of France, to insist on sending their girls to the religious schools, even when they allow their boys to attend the lay schools, where they are exposed to having the 'true Republican' deputies and functionaries of the time get up--as M. Doumer did the other day, at the opening of a new lay school in the Aisne--and propound the doctrine that 'morals have nothing to do with religion.'
The lay schools are attended, for example, in Anjou by 22,451 boys, and only 3,562 girls: while the free congreganist schools are attended by 25,360 girls, and only 5,232 boys.
Adding the number together, this gives us a total of 30,592 children in the religious, as against 26,013 in the anti-religious or irreligious schools of one province.
If my good housewife at Thiers is right as to the influence of the character of the women in France upon the conduct of the men, there is hope in these figures, which I am a.s.sured pretty fairly represent the state of things in Flanders as well as in Anjou, with the difference that the proportion of boys attending the religious schools is probably larger in Flanders than in Anjou. M. Doumer's doctrine that 'morals should be taught independently of religion' certainly did not commend itself to all his const.i.tuents. The _Journal de St.-Quentin_, commenting upon it, plainly said, 'The verdicts of our a.s.size courts show us every day the result of the atheistic instructions recommended by M. Doumer and the rest of the Masonic Brothers. The truth simply is that if some remedy be not soon found for the situation created by these people, who are as stupid as they are mischievous, in a few years we shall be obliged either to decuple the gendarmerie, or to allow every citizen to go about armed with a revolver, in order to protect himself against our much too liberally emanc.i.p.ated young scolos!'
Curiously enough this voice from St.-Quentin in France substantially echoes another voice from another St. Quentin in California--the seat of the State Penitentiary in that young and active and opulent American commonwealth. In California the plan of giving instruction in morality, independently of religion, has been tried much longer than in France, and certainly in circ.u.mstances much more favourable to its success. The result, as set forth in an Official Report of the resident director, cited by Mr. Montgomery, ex-a.s.sistant Attorney-General of the United States, in his treatise on 'The School Question,' is that, while the illiterate convicts in the California penitentiary, at the date of the report, numbered 112, against 985 who could read and write, '_among the younger convicts they could all read and write_'.
I have already spoken of many of the advantages offered by the Anzin Company to its workmen and miners, as amounting really to a kind of partic.i.p.ation in the profits of the company. This, I think, must be admitted to be clearly the case with regard to certain regulations affecting workmen's pensions, established here by the governing council of the company in December 1886.
These regulations are to affect workmen who contribute to what is known as the 'National Retiring Fund for Old Age.' This fund was established originally in 1850 under the presidency of Louis Napoleon. It was re-organised by a law pa.s.sed in July 1886, and by a decree issued in December 1886. It is under the guarantee of the State, and is administered by a committee co-operating with the Ministry of Commerce.
Its object is to enable working-men and others to secure annuities up to the amount of 1,200 francs a year, at or after the age of fifty, by the payment of small regular a.s.sessments on their wages. The smallest sums are received by the fund, which of course is managed on principles not unlike those of the great life insurance companies. A running account is kept with the treasury to meet the current expenses of the fund, but all the rest of the money received by it is invested in the French public funds, or in securities guaranteed by the State. No part of the compound interest received by the fund is deducted to meet the expenses of administration. It all goes to the account of the depositors, the current expenses being met by the Deposit Fund, which manages the Retiring Fund. If at any time before that fixed for his enjoyment of the retiring pension, the depositor should be made incapable of work by some illness or accident, he is at once put into possession, without awaiting the age fixed in the original agreement, of a pension or annuity proportioned to the amount of his actual payments and to his age at the time when the incapacity is medically and legally established.
Every year a certain amount is voted by the Chamber as a subvention to this fund, and out of this annual appropriation these 'premature pensions' may be increased by the committee in charge of the fund. This is a sort of practical State socialism beyond a doubt. But it is at least as respectable as the expenditure made in this year's budget of 6,500,000 francs, or about one fifth of the whole amount of the French naval pension list, on annuities of indemnification 'to the victims of the _coup d'etat_ of 1851,' the _coup d'etat_ of 1851 having been simply a collision between the Legislature of that year, trying to suppress the Executive, with the Executive trying to suppress the Legislature, with the result that the Executive carried the day, and that the French people, by an overwhelming majority, approved the victory of the Executive.
Why the socialistic principles at the bottom of the National Retiring Fund for workmen should not be extended to others than working-men it is not easy to see. The French pension-list is now very heavy. It figures in this year's budget at nearly a hundred millions of francs, exclusive of the military and naval pensions, which amount to about one hundred and twenty-five millions more, and without counting the _debits de tabac_, which are in fact a kind of pensions used freely by deputies and other functionaries of influence to reward services of all sorts. Of these about two hundred were given away in 1888, the list filling five pages of the huge reports of the Finance Ministry.
The National Retiring Fund for Old Age is managed by a high committee of sixteen, which must include two deputies, two state councillors, two presidents of mutual aid societies, and one manufacturer. Workmen who choose to avail themselves of the fund may break off and renew their payments into it as they like, and increase or diminish the amount of their annual deposits without affecting by any interruption the value of their previously acquired interest in the fund. Deposits may be made in the name of any person at or after the age of three years, so that a father may in this way, if he likes, form a small property for his children. The authorisation of the father, however, is not required to validate deposits made in the name or for the benefit of a child, unless these deposits are made by the children themselves, in which case they merely show the authority of their parents as guardians until they have attained the age of sixteen. Married women may make deposits independently of their husbands, but unless these deposits are gifts to them, they are held to be equally the property of the husband and wife where these are not legally separated. In case of the absence either of the husband or of the wife for more than a year, a justice of the peace may authorise the deposit of money to the exclusive benefit of the partner on the spot. Deposits of one franc are received from one person, but in no case can one person deposit more than one thousand francs a year. The capital deposited may be alienated to the fund or reserved. In the latter case the capital may be returned, but without interest, to the representatives of the depositor in case of death. Any reserved capital may be alienated for the purpose of increasing the income at a certain age, to be named by the depositor when he signs the alienation.
The pension incomes are guaranteed by the State. They become payable at any full year of age selected by the depositor between fifty and sixty-five years. After sixty-five the pension-income is paid to the depositor from and after the first quarter-day following the deposit. Up to 360 francs the pension-incomes are not liable to be seized for debt.
If they accrue from a capital presented to the depositor the donor may have them declared unsellable to their full amount.
Funds deposited in the National Sayings Bank may be transferred in whole, or in part, to the National Retiring Fund for Old Age.
Under the conditions of this fund an annual alienated deposit of 10 francs, begun at the age of thirty years, will secure the depositor at fifty an annuity of 28 fr. 62 c., at fifty-five of 47 fr. 89 c., at sixty of 81 fr. 43 c., and at sixty-five of 145 fr. 97 c.
The regulations adopted by the Anzin Council in 1886 are intended to duplicate the results of this system of the National Retiring Fund for the benefit of any workman who chooses to make himself a depositor in the National Fund to the amount of 1-1/2 per cent. of his annual wages.
Suppose, for example, a miner earning 1,500 francs a year chooses to deposit in the National Retiring Fund 22 fr. 50 c. a year. Upon verification of this the Anzin Company will pay into the same fund for him annually an equal sum. This would give the miner who began his deposit of 22 fr. 50 c. a year at the age of thirty, a pension-income at the age of fifty of 128 fr. 74 c., or just about the pension-income which he would draw at the age of sixty-five from the National Fund if he began a payment of 10 francs a year into that fund at the age of thirty-two. A miner who began his annual deposit of 22 fr. 50 c. in the National Fund at the age of twenty-one, taking advantage then of the regulations of the Anzin Council, would enjoy at fifty a pension-income of very nearly 250 francs a year.
Under the Anzin regulations, the two payments made by and for the workmen concerned are inscribed in an individual bank-book which becomes his property. The sums paid in by the company are alienated, and to the exclusive advantage of the workman, while he is left at liberty to alienate or reserve his own payments. If he is married, of course his personal payments are held to be made one-half for the benefit of his wife.
In the case of subterranean miners, the company will begin to carry out this system as soon as they enter its service, and without regard to their nationality. In the case of the surface workmen, they must be eighteen years of age, and must have been in the service of the company for at least three years without interruption. The reasons for the difference are obvious.
The payments of the company cease at fifty years, but the workman is not obliged to draw his pension-income then, as by continuing his personal payments he can put it off, thereby increasing it until he attains the age of 55, 60, or 65.
To meet the case of miners drawn into the army, the company, as long as the miner so drawn and returning to its service shall remain in its service, will pay in fractions, and within a period equal to that of his military service, into the National Fund for his benefit a sum equal to the percentage he would himself have paid into the National Fund upon his wages, calculating them as being the same during the period of his military service that they would have been had he remained there at work in the mine.
In the case of a workman who falls ill or is injured, the company, if he is a member of a mutual aid society, which will make his personal percentage payments for him, will pay itself an equal sum during his illness or incapacity for at least one calendar year. After that each case must be separately dealt with.
Furthermore, and in addition to these general conditions, the company will grant to workmen long in its service, who shall have made their regular payments to the National Retiring Fund under these regulations, when they give up work, supplementary pensions calculated at the rate of 3 francs a year for fifteen years of service for the miners, and of 1 fr. 50 c. a year for fifteen years for the surface workmen. These supplementary pensions are doubled for married workmen, so that they may amount to 90 francs a year for miners, and to 45 francs a year for surface workmen.
On the whole, I think the miners of Anzin knew what they were about when they stood aloof from the 'strike' in the Pas-de-Calais. To do this was to aid the 'strikers' themselves much more effectually than by joining in the strike. For surely the spectacle of such an orderly prosperity as exists at Anzin, the result of equitable relations maintained for years between Capital and Labour, is the strongest possible argument in support of the reasonable demands of Labour. But what are the reasonable demands of Labour?
It appeared from an inquiry made by the 'Society of Mineral Industries'
after the great strike of 1883, that, out of ten coal-producing companies in the North of France which maintained a.s.sistance Funds for the miners, the Anzin Company alone did this entirely at the expense of the company. The nine other companies reported a joint revenue of 821,133 francs in 1882 for these a.s.sistance Funds, of which amount the workmen furnished 603,097 francs. The outlay for 1882 exceeded the revenues and amounted to 849,839 fr. 49 c. But, in addition to the 603,097 francs furnished by the workmen to these funds, the nine companies in question expended themselves, in pensions, medical service, school subventions, free fuel, hospitals and other contributions to the welfare of these 32,849 miners and workmen, no less than 2,942,694 fr.
91 c. So that while the workmen expended on an average 3 per cent. of their wages in maintaining a.s.sistance Funds, these nine companies (excluding Anzin, where no demand was made on the workmen) expended for the benefit of the workmen and their families an amount equal to 9 per cent. of the wages paid by them, and to 24 per cent. of the interest and dividends paid to the stockholders. On the average the companies thus spent about 50 c. for every ton of coal extracted.
Could labour reasonably demand more than this of capital?