Part 28 (1/2)

'Look at the part which money played in our first unhappy revolution!

'It is the most instructive part of that whole sad history, and yet, for a hundred different reasons, it is the part which from the beginning has been most obscured by a miscellaneous conspiracy of silence. Some day perhaps it will be possible to get a true life written of Le Pelletier de Saint-Fargeau, the millionaire Mephistopheles of Philippe egalite.

The hand that struck him to death in the very centre of the scene of his long machinations, there in the Palais Royal, with his vote, dooming the king to death, still as it were on his lips, did not strike at random.

There was no such bit of dramatic justice done in those dark days as the killing of that man in that place between the giving of that vote and the murder of the king that followed it next day!

'But the story cannot be written yet. They were much more concerned about the death of Le Pelletier next day in the Convention, you will see if you look into the true records of the session, than they were about the murder of the king, which was then going on in the Place de la Revolution. They gave him--why not?--(the most active of them and the deepest in the plot were his property, bought and paid for)--they gave him a national funeral, and made his heiress--the greatest heiress she was in France--the ward of the nation.

'It was quite another vision he had in his mind for her! I will show you some day a curious letter of hers written after she became a d.u.c.h.ess, about the Empress Josephine. It is very instructive. She grew up a lovely, untameable, unmanageable young person, made a love-match, as you know, and with whom you know, broke her husband's heart, got a divorce and married again. To go into all this now would disturb the peace of families in no way responsible for her career or for the plots and schemes of her father. It would be like ”flus.h.i.+ng” the ghost of that monster Carrier who drowned the poor and the priests at Nantes, only to plague his descendants. His son was an excellent person who very properly changed his name. The most malicious thing I ever knew one woman say of another, was said of one of his grand-daughters at a foreign court by another Frenchwoman, jealous of her social success.

”She is very charming, no doubt; but look at her mouth, and you will see she has carious teeth--_des dents Carrier_!” But when, if ever, the truth about that dark episode of Le Pelletier and his schemes is told, it will be seen how much more gold and private ambitions had to do with the final fatal drift of things after the destiny of France fell into the swirl of Paris, than all the howlings and ravings of the philosophers and the patriots. What happened in the last century will happen again whenever and wherever human society ceases to be held together by the idea of Duty. It is not the discontent of Labour which makes me most anxious as to the future. It is the egotism of Capital, educated and encouraged into egotism by the false doctrines of what is called Liberalism in this country, and provoked into egotism by the equally egotistic discontent of Labour. What I most value in the work of M. Harmel is the courage and precision with which he has from the first insisted upon the Duty of the employer to the employed. You have seen, of course, his _Catechisme du Patron_?'

The Cardinal Archbishop had given me a copy of this book, which is really one of the most remarkable contributions ever made to the practical study of the relations between Capital and Labour. In it M.

Harmel has condensed, in the catechetical form of questions and answers, his lifelong experience in the work of ascertaining and fulfilling all the duties inc.u.mbent, from the point of view of Christian duty, upon the capitalist who employs the labour of his fellow-men in putting his capital into use and making it profitable. It would be very interesting merely as a theory of the true relations between Labour and Capital. It is more than interesting as the ripe expression of an experiment faithfully and successfully carried out by a man of resolute will and great practical ability for more than a quarter of a century in a field which, when he entered upon it, was certainly one of the most unpromising in the world.

The 'Christian Corporation' was an established inst.i.tution, as I have said, at Val-des-Bois, in 1870, when the war with Germany broke out. In 1871, after the storm of the invasion had been followed by the horrors of the Commune of Paris, the principles on which the industrial family at Val-des-Bois had been organised began to attract attention all over France. A club of Catholic working-men was opened at Paris in 1871, and a movement began in earnest for extending these inst.i.tutions throughout France. It made rapid progress. In September 1874 a great disaster occurred at Val-des-Bois. The factory buildings took fire during the night of the 12th of that month, and despite the efforts of the whole population they were all in ashes when the morning broke. Before noon of the next day M. Harmel announced to his workmen that he had leased, at no small sacrifice of his immediate pecuniary interests, another factory at some distance from the Val-des-Bois, called La Neuville, and that the 'Christian Corporation' of Val-des-Bois might at once be transferred thither, and carried on as before until the reconstruction of its original site. The tidings of this calamity brought substantial succour from Catholic clubs all over France, from Ma.r.s.eilles to Nantes, and from Bordeaux to Lille. More than a hundred clubs were represented in this outburst of sympathy, and the disaster led, not indirectly, to a formal approval of the work in a brief issued by His Holiness Pius IX. on October 2, 1874.

In 1878 there were more than four hundred clubs in France, with a members.h.i.+p of nearly a hundred thousand persons. Concurrently with the development of these clubs a movement went on for establis.h.i.+ng an organisation of honorary members, not belonging to the working cla.s.ses, who should co-operate with the clubs in promoting the principles represented by the 'Christian Corporations.' In 1875 a parliamentary inquiry was made into the condition of Labour in France; and on behalf of the committee which conducted this inquiry, the deputy, M. Ducarre, who drew up the report, declared it to be the opinion of the committee that all the syndicating movements of modern times point to the necessity of re-establis.h.i.+ng the corporate system of labour which was destroyed by the First Republic in 1791. The language used in this Report is worth citing.

'All the remedies suggested for the existing state of things,' said M.

Ducarre, 'may be summed up in this conclusion; there must be an end of the isolation of the individual labourer. This must be replaced by the action of collectivities, a.s.sociations, or syndicates, whose duty it shall be to watch over the interests of every calling. In a word we must go back to the system of corporations of the trades, _maitrises_, and _jurandes_, under which labour was so long carried on in France.' This Report found no favour in the eyes of the Radicals because it aimed at a good understanding and practical co-operation between Labour and Capital. Nine years afterwards, on March 21, 1884, a law was carried through the French Parliament authorising the establishment of 'professional syndicates.' The object of the Republicans, then as now controlling a majority of the Chamber, in pa.s.sing this law, was to strengthen the trades unions as against the employers of France. The law, it will be observed, was pa.s.sed at the time when a syndicate of miners in the North, which had no legal right to exist before the pa.s.sage of the law, was actively promoting, under its leader, M. Basly, the great strike at Anzin of which I have spoken in a preceding chapter.

But while the law of March 1884 legalised 'syndicates' of this aggressive, and in the nature of things tyrannical, type, it also necessarily legalised precisely such Christian corporations as those contemplated in the Report of 1875, and long before organised on the lines laid down by M. Harmel. A great and visible responsibility was thus thrown upon the employers of France and upon what are called the upper cla.s.ses generally in that country. It was clear that, if they would energetically and systematically throw themselves into the work of bringing about a reconstruction of social order on the principles of co-operation and sympathy as opposed to the principle of antagonism between Capital and Labour, the law of 1884, intended to widen, might be effectually used to close the threatening breach between the employers and the employed. There seems to be little doubt that down to that time the promoters of the Christian Corporation movement in France had made greater headway with the working cla.s.ses than with the employers. A Report presented in 1885 by the general committee of the Catholic clubs of France to the French bishops states this very plainly. This report was signed by the Marquis De La-Tour-du-Pin-Chambly, who from the beginning of M. Harmel's experiment at Val-des-Bois had been one of his most earnest and active coadjutors, by the Comte de la Bouillerie, Treasurer of the General Society, by the Comte de Mun, and by the Comte Albert de Mun, the moving spirit now of the whole work, who resigned his commission in the army to devote himself to it, and who went up from the Morbihan to Paris as a deputy in 1885, elected by 60,341 votes, to demand not only the restoration of the monarchy but a property restriction upon the suffrage. In 1889, under the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ readopted by the terrified Republicans to defeat 'Boulangism,' Count Albert de Mun was re-elected without opposition for the 2nd division of Pontivy. In no part of France is the pa.s.sion of equality stronger than in the Morbihan; and the contempt of the people there for 'universal suffrage' is extremely instructive.

'Of the Christian Corporations,' says this Report of 1885, 'as of the working-men's clubs, it is proper to say that never in any place or at any time has any obstacle been offered to them by the working cla.s.ses.

On the contrary, there is plainly going on among the working cla.s.ses, under the influence of the deplorable crises which affect the industrial world, an instinctive and ever-increasing movement towards this a.s.sociation of common and professional interests, the notion of which is suggested by the natural sentiment of right and wrong, as well as by some confused memory, obscured by revolutionary doctrines, of the traditions of Labour in France, which predisposes the working-man to seek safety in a return to the old system of the Corporations. A similar feeling exists among the employers, who desire, though they too often despair of seeing, a closer union of interests between themselves and their working-men. Wherever the movement languishes, one of the chief causes will be found to be the apathy, the discouragement, and the frivolity of the upper cla.s.ses.'

In the case of great factories like that of the Val-des-Bois, the Christian Corporations naturally are sufficient unto themselves. There the employer and the employed between them const.i.tute a small world, which can take care of itself and carry out the numerous subsidiary features of the system, such as the promotion of domestic economy, the establishment of savings-funds, the organisation of festivals and of courses of instruction, without relying much, or at all, upon any co-operation from without. It is in the development of the system for the benefit of working-men who are isolated in their work, or employed in small establishments, that the co-operation of the upper cla.s.ses is needed; and while I incline to think that there is still much ground for the strong language on this point employed in the Report of 1885, there appears to be no doubt that a great improvement has taken place during the last three or four years. In 1884 the efforts of the Cardinal Archbishop of Reims, the Bishop of Angers, and of other energetic prelates, secured the active partic.i.p.ation of the Holy See in the promotion of this work. In February of that year a pilgrimage to Rome of members of the Catholic Clubs of France was organised. The pilgrims were received in special audience by Leo XIII., and he gave his Papal approbation and benediction to the work in a very remarkable address which produced a deep and widespread impression throughout Catholic France. Similar pilgrimages were made in 1887 and in 1889.

One very important effect of this has been to bring about a better understanding between the parochial clergy of France in general and these steadily increasing lay organisations. It is in the nature of things that the clergy should be slow in giving their unreserved aid to any movement, no matter how admirable in itself, which involves a good deal of extra-clerical activity in matters religious. This was ill.u.s.trated in the att.i.tude of the English Protestant clergy towards Wesley and Whitfield, and there are some curious coincidences--of course absolutely undesigned--between some of the methods of the great and powerful Protestant sect of the Wesleyans and those of M. Harmel's Catholic Clubs.

The Methodist 'cla.s.s-leader,' for example, reappears in a modified form in the _zelateurs_ and _zelatrices_ of the Harmel Clubs and fraternities. These are members, working-men and working-women, who are willing to devote themselves to promoting religious sentiments and practices among their comrades, and who hold regular meetings to consider and work out the best and most practical way of doing this.

It is not surprising that in many cases the cures should have looked with a little uneasiness upon the development of such a system until it had been fully considered and formally approved by the highest authority in the Church. Of its efficacy from the point of view of M. Harmel there can be no doubt.

Something not wholly unlike the 'exclusive dealing' which contributes so much to the strength of Methodism in America has also been established for the benefit of the members of M. Harmel's Christian Corporation.

This is 'exclusive dealing 'of an honest and honourable sort, and must not be confounded with the rascally 'exclusive dealing' known in Ireland as 'boycotting.' It combines a system of 'privileged purveyors' with an acc.u.mulative savings fund.

The firm of Harmel Brothers, acting for the Corporation, makes contracts with tradesmen at Val-des-Bois--grocers, butchers, bakers, and the like--by which the tradesmen bind themselves to sell certain wares to members of the Christian Corporations, and to them only, at a fixed discount below the lowest current rate of prices--the wares to be of the best quality, under a penalty--and the lowest current rate to be fixed by an average taken from the current rates as given to Harmel Brothers by four dealers in such wares in the city of Reims, of whom two are to be named by them and two by the 'privileged purveyor.' Each member of the Corporation receives certificates, of one franc, ten sous, or ten centimes in value, from the office of Harmel Brothers, and these are taken by the 'privileged purveyor' in payment at their face value.

For him they are each week cashed in money at the office of Harmel Brothers. If the members prefer to pay the 'privileged purveyor' in cash, or in orders upon their wages, the sums so paid are inscribed on the account of the Corporation. When the weekly or fortnightly accounts are made up, a certain percentage of the differences between the current market-price of the purchases made and the actual price so paid by the purchasers goes to what is called the 'Corporation profit,' the residue of the difference being paid over to the member with his or her wages.

The 'Corporation profit' is a savings fund. Each member has a book showing--with his or her number, and with the full name of the head of the family to which he or she may belong--the amount of this fund standing each quarter to his or her credit, with interest at 5 per cent.

This can only be drawn out by the member, on leaving the employment of the firm, in case of illness or incapacity, or at the age of fifty years.

An actuary's estimate shows that the share of the Corporation profit accruing to each member in twenty-five years on an annual estimated average Corporation profit of 70 francs a member, with five per cent.

interest, would be 3,300 francs. And this, be it observed, will have cost the member nothing, being simply a result of the union of employer and employed in a corporate dealing with the purveyors. In 1879 the annual budget of a hundred families at Val-des-Bois, earning among them 249,242 francs, showed an actual 'Corporation profit' of 91,319.05 francs, which ought to have been much larger had Val-des-Bois then possessed more than one butcher, baker, grocer, and tailor. These hundred families comprised 496 members, 279 of them employed in the factory and 217 occupied at home.

During the last ten years, and especially since the pa.s.sage of the law of March 1884, the scope of these Christian Corporations, not only at Val-des-Bois and at Reims, but all over France, has been considerably extended. Many of them have now the character of true guilds, as at Poitiers, for example, where there is a Corporation of the Builders under the invocation of St-Radegonda, another--Our Lady of the Keys--founded upon a syndicate of clothiers, and a third, of St.-Honore, founded upon a syndicate of provision-dealers. At Lille I found a typical Corporation, that of the spinners and weavers, known as the Christian Corporation of St.-Nicholas. This was founded in May 1885.

This Corporation admits workmen and workwomen, employees and manufacturers, belonging, either by residence or by connexion with the industry named, to the commune of Lille or to one of the adjoining communes. It had last year a members.h.i.+p of 887 persons, of whom 26 were master manufacturers and 37 employees, the rest being workmen and workwomen. Five large firms were represented in it. The Syndical Council was made up of a syndic employer, a syndic employee, and a syndic workman from each of these firms, and of a syndic workman, M.

Courtecuisse, representing the members who were employed in other establishments. The directing bureau consisted of seven members, including the chaplain. It was presided over by one of the great manufacturers of Lille, M. Feron-Vrau, and the two vice-presidents were M. Edouard Bontry, of the house of Bontry-Droullers, and M. Courtecuisse already named.

This Corporation, under the law of 1884, can own the buildings necessary for its meetings, its libraries, and its lecture-courses; it can establish among its members special savings funds, mutual a.s.sistance and pension funds; found and conduct offices for information bearing on the business of its members, and it may be consulted, under Article 6 of the Law of 1884, on 'all difficulties and misunderstandings and questions arising out of its specialty.' This provision--specially intended by the authors of the law to arm the 'strikers' of France against French employers--may thus, it will be seen, be turned quite as effectually to purposes of concord and harmony as to purposes of discontent and strife.