UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT LOS ANGELES SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK ■ BOSTON • CHICAGO DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON • BOMBAY ■ CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE BY FREDERIC AUSTIN OGG, Ph.D. PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE IN THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN Nefco 2f0tk THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 1927 AS rights reserved Copyright, 1912, By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1912- NorfaooS $rf88 J. S. Cushing Co. — Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. 345 FOREWORD In this little volume an attempt has been made to gathel up and to explain with succinctness those aspects of Euro- pean social development since the later eighteenth century which by common acceptation seem to possess enduring sig- nificance. The subject is as limitless as it is inviting, and in the present survey of it many things of substantial impor- tance have, of necessity, been passed with the barest allusion, or, at the most, with an exposition which is not more than introductory. Not a few topics of interest, I am well aware, have failed so much as to be mentioned. Effort has been made, however, to lay emphasis upon fundamentals and to make clear at least some of the principal developments by which, within the past hundred and twenty-five years, the state of European society has been made what it now is. The reader who may desire to pursue further any of the sub- jects here touched upon is referred to a selected bibliography which appears at the close. In the chapters which are con- cerned with the growth of popular political institutions I have utilized a number of passages from a forthcoming volume entitled The Governments of Europe. FREDERIC AUSTIN OGG. Cambridge, Massachusetts, April io, 1912. CONTENTS FAGS Foreword v CHAPTER I. Points of View I II. The Eighteenth Century Background ... 5 III. The Old Regime in France 15 IV. The Revolution in France 30 V. Napoleon and the New Regime 46 VI. The Transformation of English Agriculture . . 62 VII. The Industrial Revolution in England ... 83 VIII. Economic Changes on the Continent .... 100 IX. Political Reform in England to 1832 . . .125 X. The Growth of English Democracy .... 139 XL Popular Government in Germany and Northern Europe 160 XII. Popular Government in the Romance Countries . 174, XIII. Popular Government in Eastern Europe . . .188 XIV. The Rule of the People in Switzerland . . . 200 XV. Public Protection of Labor 213 XVI. The Care of the Poor 227 XVII. Germany and the Common Man 246 XVIII. The Spread of Social Insurance 264 XIX. The Organization of Labor 293 XX. Wages and Savings 308 XXI. Education 324 XXII. The Growth of Socialism ...... 337 Bibliography ...» 361 vii SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CON- TEMPORARY EUROPE CHAPTER I POINTS OF VIEW That the European world of to-day is fundamentally unlike the European world of St. Francis and of Frederick Barbarossa, and even that of Martin Luther and of Queen Elizabeth, is a sufficiently familiar fact. How enormous a proportion of the changes by which this difference has been brought about has fallen within a comparatively recent period — within the past hundred or hundred and twenty- five years — is not so commonly understood. In the eigh- teenth century, and far into the nineteenth, even the most advanced of European countries presented aspects, especially on the side of social and industrial economy, that were es- sentially mediaeval, and many indeed of the transitions and readjustments by which the life of Europe, as that of all por- tions of the civilized world, has been made what it is to-day have fallen within the memory of men still living. The eighteenth century was itself an era of remarkable change. Indeed, the scope of eighteenth century speculation and in- vention is only beginning adequately to be recognized. It remained, however, for the nineteenth to carry forward with greatly accelerated speed, and in entirely new directions, the transformations that had been begun, and to work out con- clusive answers to scores of problems which in the earlier period had been but dimly discerned. When one undertakes a comparison of the Europe of George III. and of Louis XVI. with the Europe of George V. 2 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE and of William II. the differences which are likely to impress themselves first of all are those that relate to the number, extent, organization, and grouping of nations. Within the space of a century and a quarter two great states, the Ger- man Empire and the kingdom of Italy, have been built up from autonomous and discordant political elements ; Austria, ejected from the German federation, has become an indepen- dent nation and, in conjunction with Hungary, a power of the first rank; France has been brought from absolutism to republicanism; Belgium has been converted from a depend- ency of Austria into a sovereign nation ; the three Scandina- vian states, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, have finally, in our own day, become entirely disassociated; and in the southeast the rule of the Turk has been vastly restricted, while upon the soil which he once possessed there has sprung up a cluster of small but promising and not unimportant states. After all, however, these are only a few of the changes by which, within the period mentioned, the European world has been reconstituted. Other changes of divers sorts have con- tributed much more directly to that amelioration of social conditions which comprises perhaps the nineteenth century's principal claim to distinction. A fundamental prerequisite of substantial progress must always be the growth of inde- pendent, compact, and powerful states, but all history goes to show that by such development alone the lot of men is not of necessity much improved. The changes by which the past hundred and twenty-five years have been given charac- ter are preeminently social, intellectual, legal, and indus- trial — the breaking-down of the barriers which once sepa- rated classes of men, the abolition of privilege, the extension of political power to the masses, the establishment of equality before the law, the upbuilding of popular education, the freeing of thought and of the press, the liberating of religious opinion, the application of scientific discovery to the problems POINTS OF VIEW 3 of human existence, the invention of machinery and the in- troduction of the use of steam-power, the placing of public safeguards about the conditions of labor, the extension and re-adaptation of philanthropy, the provision of agencies for the care of the people's savings, the establishment of systems of insurance against sickness, unemployment, and old age, and a multiplicity of other more or less far-reaching innova- tions in the interest of the public weal. There is not a country of Europe in which the past four or five generations have not been productive of considerable development in respect to many or all of these things, and no history of the nineteenth century can be adjudged in any wise adequate which does not assign to them a larger permanent importance than to war, diplomacy, or court affairs. It is the purpose of this book to explain the origins and character of some of the changes that have been enumerated. The ground to be traversed in point of time is the century and a quarter which has elapsed since the uprising of 1789 in France. The subject to be covered is "social progress." The term "social," susceptible of numerous definitions, must here be interpreted very broadly to comprehend everything that bears with any degree of directness upon the status and opportunity of the average man in the society in which he lives. It partakes of the political, the legal, the intellectual, the religious, and the economic. Similarly, the term "prog- ress" must be accorded a liberal construction. It is often by no means easy to say wherein progress consists, and at the best the term, like the thing for which it stands, is largely relative. What is progress to-day may be reaction to-morrow, and what by one person is considered progress may by an- other be considered retrogression. The purpose in hand, however, is to gather up and follow at some length those threads of recent politics, legislation, industry, and reform upon which have been strung noteworthy benefits for the ordinary member of society. Wherein, and 4 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE to what extent, are the conditions amidst which the average European of to-day lives and works more conducive to wel- fare and happiness than were the conditions surrounding his ancestors of the third and fourth, and even of the first and second, generations removed ? This is the query with which it is proposed to approach the social and economic maze of contemporary Europe. No final or complete answer is to be expected. No facts are more elusive than those which pertain to the homeliest concerns of everyday existence, and the range of the inquiry that can be undertaken here is, of necessity, severely restricted. Certain broad conclusions may, however, be arrived at, and those conclusions ought to possess no mere academic interest. For a variety of reasons they should be of practical concern hardly less to the Ameri- can than to the European. It may be maintained that, on the whole, Americans cherish fewer prejudices respecting foreign peoples and are able to assume a more appreciative attitude toward them than any other great national group of men. Our newspapers and magazines are filled with foreign news and discussions of foreign affairs. Hundreds of thou- sands of Europeans land at our ports every year and settle among our people, and through the immigration problem alone we are being compelled to inquire closely into the antecedent conditions of our newcomers, and therefore into the manner of life of a very large proportion of the population of Europe. Industrial changes, problems of capital and labor, land ownership and control, conditions of everyday life, opportunities and effects of education, the various forms of social propaganda, the care of the criminal and dependent classes — all these things, and many more, are of interest to us, whether viewed in Great Britain, in Germany, or in Russia. They are interesting in themselves, and doubly so by reason of the fact that in many respects we have our own similar problems and stand in need of the practical experi- ence of other and older peoples. CHAPTER II THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND To the end that the direction, extent, and character of the social development of Europe since the French Revoution may adequately be measured, it is essential that certain fundamental aspects of the European situation in the eigh- teenth century be emphasized at the outset. For present purposes these aspects may be grouped under five heads, according as they relate to (i) population, (2) the mechanical appliances of civilization, (3) government, (4) social strata and privilege, and (5) economic condition. In the first place, it is to be observed that in the eighteenth century the inhabitants of Europe were both very much fewer than they are to-day and very differently distributed. One of the things for which the past hundred years has been especially remarkable is the growth of populations that has taken place within the period. The aggregate population of Europe in 1800 has been estimated at 150,000,000 and that in 1900 at 330,000,000, which means that for every five persons living at the time of the establishment of Napoleon's consu- late there were eleven at the time of the death of Queen Victoria. The first of European censuses whose results are of much value were those taken in Great Britain and in France in 1801. The French census, taken at the instance of Napo- leon, and covering, in addition to France proper, the territory of Alsace-Lorraine, showed a population of 27,350,000, which (leaving out of account the extremely uncertain popu- lations of Russia and Turkey) was at the time the largest in Europe. The population of Great Britain and Ireland, estimated in 1789 at 14,000,000, was shown by the census 5 6 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE of 1801 to be 16,345,646, being exceeded by the populations of France, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, and Italy. With the exception of France, virtually every European country has doubled, or more than doubled, its population since the period mentioned. The population of France has been in- creased by less than half, being, in 1906, 39,252,267. But that of the United Kingdom rose by 1911 to 45,216,665, and that of the territories comprising present-day Germany came up by 1910 to 64,896,881 — in neither instance far short of a tripling. In 1800 the number of inhabitants per square mile was 134 in France and 113 in Germany. In 1908 the number in France was 189, in Germany 303. The population den- sity of Germany is now substantially equal to that of Italy, is approaching that of Great Britain, and is materially exceeded in Europe only by that of Belgium and Holland. Another phase of population change has been that involved in the growth of towns and cities. In most European coun- tries the nineteenth century was a noteworthy period of ur- ban development. In 1801 England and Wales contained but 106 urban centres exceeding 5000 in population and 15 exceeding 20,000; in 1891 the numbers were, respectively, 622 and 106. In 1801 the proportion of Englishmen and Welshmen living in towns of 20,000 was less than 17 per cent; in 1891 it was 53.5 per cent. At the present day eight of every ten Englishmen dwell in towns of 10,000 and upwards. Between 1846 and 1891 the proportion of the population of France classed as urban (i.e., resident in communes contain- ing 2000 persons or more) increased from 24.4 to 37.4 per cent. The urban element (in gemeinden of 2000 people or more) in the kingdom of Prussia rose between 1867 and 1895 from 35.8 to 51.4 per cent. In Austria the same element rose between 1843 an< i 1890 from 18.9 to 32.5 per cent. Not merely did the proportion of urban to total population tend thus universally to be increased ; the century witnessed the rise of those vast agglomerations of people which to-day comprise THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND 7 the populations of London, Paris, Berlin, St. Petersburg, Vienna, and scores of lesser centres. The population of London in 1801 was 864,845; to-day it is 7,252,963.* That of Paris in 1801, was 547,756 ; in 1906 it was 2,722,731. That of Berlin in 1819 was 201,138 ; that of the German metropolis in 1905 was 2,040,222. Such cities as existed in the eighteenth century, even the largest of them, were hardly better equipped with the conveniences of civilized life than were those of the Middle Ages. In the boulevards of Paris in 1787 the mud was not infrequently six inches or a foot deep. 2 Berlin in 1800 had no sidewalks, paving, or sewers. London by 1800 had lamp-posts, but was the only city of Europe which boasted such a luxury. A second fact, indeed, which needs constantly to be borne in mind is that the Europe of the eighteenth century was devoid of a multiplicity of mechanical inventions and appli- ances whose use has been woven into the very texture of our present-day civilization. No man before the nineteenth cen- tury ever saw a railroad or a steamship, and the mere lack of these great agencies of travel and trade was sufficient to impart to the eighteenth century a character distinctly dif- ferent from that of more recent times. There was in the eighteenth century no such thing as the telegraph or the tele- phone, by which almost instant communication at great distances has been made not only possible but convenient and cheap. Electricity was not unknown, but appliances for the utilization of electrical power were yet to be developed. Photography, anaesthetics, antiseptics, illuminating gas, kerosene, friction matches, and scores of other products and 1 This is the population, in 191 1, of Greater London, comprising the city and the Metropolitan Police District. 2 Of Paris, the English traveller, Arthur Young, who visited the city in 1787, writes: "The streets are very narrow, and many of them crowded, nine-tenths dirty, and all without foot pavements. Walking, which in London is so pleas- ant and so clean that ladies do it every day, is here a toil and a fatigue to a man, and an impossibility to a well-dressed woman." 8 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE arts owing their existence to the practical application of scientific knowledge were yet undreamt of. The founda- tions of the modern sciences of physics, chemistry, astronomy, botany, and geology were laid by the remarkable researches of eighteenth century scholars, but the establishing of the relations between theoretical scientific knowledge and the everyday needs of human life remained largely to be accom- plished during the past hundred years. In the next place, it may be observed that there was not in operation in Europe prior to 1789 a single governmental sys- tem which properly can be termed democratic. 1 England, it is true, possessed the elements of a modern popular govern- ment. Already, save during the more vigorous days of George III., it could be said that the king reigned but did not gov- ern, and the fundamental principles of parliamentary control of legislation and finance and the administration of public affairs by a ministry responsible singly and collectively to the House of Commons had been brought permanently into operation. The requirements of the franchise, however, were so exacting that the great mass of small landholders and non-landholders continued, as in the Middle Ages, to be ex- cluded entirely from the electorate ; the House of Commons represented only a small minority of the nation, and the aris- tocratic House of Lords could prevent the enactment of any measure which the Commons succeeded in passing; the offices of state were monopolized by members of the Estab- lished Church; in short, the nation as a whole was not yet self-governing. On the continent the situation was worse, because all but universally such agencies of popular govern- ment as at one time or another had sprung into existence were, in the eighteenth century, inactive or even obsolete. In France the States General, comprising representatives of 1 Switzerland, the tiny republics of Andorra and San Marino, and the Nether- lands were not monarchies, but their governmental systems were by no means wholly democratic. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND 9 the three estates, or orders, had not met since 1614. The Spanish Cortes, while not fallen completely into desuetude, was seldom convened for purposes other than the swearing of allegiance to a new sovereign and the performance of other nominal duties incident to the inauguration of a reign. In Austria, Prussia, and the German states generally autocracy was unrestricted. During the course of the century there reigned a number of sovereigns who by historians are com- monly designated as the " enlightened despots," — Frederick II. of Prussia, Catherine the Great of Russia, Maria Theresa of Austria, the Emperor Joseph II. and his brother Leopold (grand-duke of Tuscany), and Charles III. of Spain. Each of these monarchs labored conscientiously and more or less successfully to promote the welfare of the people over whom he or she ruled. But all of them were thoroughgoing absolut- ists, and there was no place in the plans of any of them for popular institutions. Government continued uninterruptedly to mean despotism — benevolent, perhaps, but yet despotism. In all countries, but especially on the continent, the eigh- teenth century was still essentially mediaeval in respect to the stratification of society and the status possessed by the various social orders. A twelfth century chronicler in France declared that the society of his day consisted of three classes — the fighting class, the praying class, and the farming class. With the addition of an industrial class, which came into importance at a later time, this grouping of the social ele- ments was maintained essentially unchanged in the eighteenth century. The fighting class was no longer distinctively a feudal class as once it had been, for feudalism had all but disappeared ; but it was represented in effect by the nobility, shorn, it is true, of the enormous governmental powers that had belonged to it in most countries in the Middle Ages, but preserving a very large measure of eminence and privilege. The "praying class," comprising the clergy, was in no country so powerful as once it had been, but it likewise preserved in 10 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE a large degree its wealth, influence, and privileged position. The industrial class, using the term broadly, included the traders, craftsmen, artisans, and to some extent the profes- sional men. At the bottom of the scale, now as ever, stood the farming class, i.e., the rural peasantry, Formerly the members of this class had been very generally serfs, which means that they were obligated to remain through life upon the manor to which they belonged and to render to the proprietor a burdensome aggregate of dues, some in the form of produce and some in the form of manual labor. In some countries serfdom had disappeared gradually during the later Middle Ages, and by the eighteenth century had become practically non-existent. This was true especially of England and, in a somewhat smaller degree, of France. In Spain, Austria, Prussia, portions of Italy, and Russia, however, the peasants were still, at the outbreak of the Revolution in France, all but universally serfs, and in some of the countries mentioned they continued to be so until the middle of the nineteenth century. Even where, as in England and France, the eigh- teenth century peasant was not a serf, he was pretty certain not to be an independent proprietor of his own bit of ground, as is the French or the American small farmer of to-day. He lived, as a rule, still upon the ancient manor, and whether or not legally free, was in point of fact, by reason of his pov- erty and his economic dependence, bound by numerous obli- gations and exactions. He dwelt in a cheerless hut, labored incessantly to meet his obligations to landlord, state, and church, considered himself fortunate to be able to keep soul and body together, and, at the last, transmitted to his chil- dren a lot in life neither worse nor better than that which had been his own. In connection with this matter of social stratification it is essential to take note especially of the peculiar status of the clergy and of the power which ecclesiastical tradition and THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND n organization exerted upon the minds and deeds of men. During the sixteenth century the solidarity of the Church universal had been shattered, but through the centuries that followed there existed in every country of Europe some one branch of the Church which for all practical purposes occupied the same exalted station that the undivided Church had occupied throughout Christendom in the Middle Ages. In France, Spain, Portugal, Austria, and the Italian states this Church was the Catholic ; in the Scandinavian and North German states it was the Lutheran ; in England it was the Anglican, and in Scotland the Presbyterian. In most countries the clergy constituted a separate, powerful, and highly privileged order of society. The Catholic Church continued enormously wealthy; its influence was still pre- dominant at many courts; and its range of activities — religious, judicial, educational, philanthropic — was scarcely more restricted, save geographically, than five hundred years before. Within England the position occupied by the Estab- lished Church approximated closely to that occupied by the Catholic organization in France or Spain. Protestant and Catholic churches in common were intoler- ant of dissenters, and in every important country there were penal laws of the most thoroughgoing character by which attempt was made to maintain the unity of the faith. Thus in France under terms of a decree of 1724 persons who should assemble for worship in accordance with any creed save the Catholic were condemned to forfeit their property, the women being imprisoned for fife, the men being sent to the galleys, and the ministers who convoked such meetings or conducted unapproved services being put to death. It is only fair to say that this rigorous law was but mildly enforced. But the fact of its existence in one of the most enlightened of European countries within two hundred years of our own day is significant. England, likewise, maintained through- out the eighteenth century an essentially intolerant religious 12 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE system. The Act of Toleration of 1689 permitted Protestant dissenters to hold meetings; but "papists and such as deny the Trinity" were excluded from the benefits of the measure, the celebration of the mass was rigidly prohibited, and Catholics were forbidden to enter the country and all public offices were closed against them. At the middle of the eigh- teenth century there was rendered a judicial decision to the effect that English law did not recognize the presence of Roman Catholics within the kingdom and that their con- tinuance in the country was made possible only by lax en- forcement of the statutes. 1 Within the domains of industry and commerce the eigh- teenth century, at least until toward its close, was for all prac- tical purposes about as far removed from the nineteenth as was the sixteenth or seventeenth. Industry was still almost exclusively of the handicraft, household type; ma- chines were few and crude; steam-power was but in its ex- perimental stage; the factory system was unknown. The demand for manufactured goods was comparatively small, and the industrial output was correspondingly limited. The various crafts were carried on still, for the greater part, by master workmen who were organized in guilds and who were assisted in the processes of manufacture by members of their families, by journeymen, or hired workmen, and by ap- prentices. The work was done in small shops attached to the living rooms of the master craftsman, and the goods pro- duced were apt to be exhibited for sale on the spot. A guild comprised the organization of masters engaged in a particular craft within a town, e.g., the weavers, the goldsmiths, the tailors, the tanners, the bakers, the candlemakers, and by it were regulated minutely the quantity of goods to be pro- duced, the quality to be maintained, the prices to be charged, the number of journeymen and apprentices to be kept, the wages to be paid, and, above all, the conditions to be required 1 Robinson and Beard, "Development of Modern Europe," I., 155. THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY BACKGROUND 13 Tor the admission of new members of the organization. Within its sphere the guild maintained a rigid monopoly of industry. No one might set up a shop unless he were a guild member, and no member might engage, no matter how slightly, in an industry other than that which customarily he followed. Specialization was carried to such ridiculous lengths that the hatter who made felt hats might not make silk hats, and the baker who made bread might not make pies or cakes. By maintaining arbitrary standards of efficiency for admission, the guilds were able to restrict severely the number of persons who were entitled to participate in their benefits, and in many instances the guild became a close and selfish corporation whose strong hand but stifled the development of industry. In England, France, and Germany alike the guild system was preponderant until toward the close of the eighteenth century. In Germany the restrictions which the guilds imposed upon industrial freedom were especially galling. The prevailing characteristics of industry were reflected in a large degree in the conditions under which trade was con- ducted. The eighteenth century idea was that trade is a series of transactions involving of necessity both profit and loss — that in every commercial operation one party is certain to gain and the other to lose. That commercial rela- tions not only may, but ordinarily must, conduce to the mu- tual benefit of buyer and seller is a fact which is self-evident to-day, but to which the economists of a century and a half ago were almost universally blind. Commerce was organized wholly with the idea of procuring a "favorable balance of trade," and the principles which underlay it were those of monopoly and rigid regulation by the state or other consti- tuted authority. How these principles operated in practice, even when administered by the most liberal government in Europe, is familiar enough to every one acquainted with the commercial vicissitudes of the American colonies in the cen- tury preceding the Revolution. It was not until 1776, when 14 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Adam Smith, a professor in the University of Glasgow, pub- lished his "Wealth of Nations," that the doctrine of freedom of trade found an authoritative and influential spokesman. At no point was the eighteenth century more backward than in respect to agriculture. It is doubtful whether in any considerable portions of Europe a hundred years ago the soil was cultivated with either the science or the skill which were commonplaces of rural husbandry in the better days of the Roman Empire. Large stretches of land, especially in Ger- many, were still covered with forests or swamps. Of the arable areas, much was cultivated, if cultivated at all, in the most haphazard and unproductive fashion. By reason of lack of knowledge of the arts of fertilization and soil-preservation, it was more necessary even than in the Middle Ages to allow cultivated ground to lie fallow every third year to permit of its recuperation. Crops were few, seed varieties were unim- proved, methods of cultivation were antiquated, agricultural machinery was of the crudest sort, and the product, small at best, was liable always to serious diminution by flood, drought, or other natural visitation. An enormous proportion of the people lived all of the time upon the verge of want, even of starvation. Far into the nineteenth century progress in re- spect both to acreage and agricultural technique was slow, and, as will be pointed out subsequently, with the growth of the great industrial populations of the present day it has been found necessary in most countries to depend ever more largely upon the importation of foodstuffs from the outlying world. CHAPTER in THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE In view of the fact that a general overturning of the condi- tions that have been described came first in France, and came elsewhere largely in consequence of the movement in France, it is desirable that attention be directed somewhat more specifically to certain phases of the eighteenth century situa- tion within that pivotal country. The first thing to be ob- served is that while the France of the prerevolutionary period was, for purposes of government, a highly centralized nation, in respect to law, finance, social customs, economic status, and even language, the country was one in which there were the most surprising diversities. By a long series of conquests, purchases, inheritances, confiscations, and extinctions of feudal dynasties, stretching all the way from Hugh Capet in the tenth century to Louis XVI. in the eighteenth, there had been brought into the royal domain, i.e., under the im- mediate control of the crown, an aggregate of territory which comprised very nearly the area of the present French republic. Most of the territories thus acquired possessed originally their own governmental arrangements, their own body of local law (in some cases written, in others not), their own more or less peculiar social and industrial characteristics. Save in so far as administrative efficiency required, there was usually, upon the annexation of a district to the domain, little interference with its local conditions or usages. If the king received the taxes and the military service that were due, he was likely to be content. Thus it came about that at as late a date as 1789 France was but an agglomeration of territorial units, many of them representing survivals of ancient coun- 15 1 6 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE ties, duchies, or other feudal districts, and all of them differing widely among themselves in the most fundamental charac- teristics. For example, in the highly important matter of law there had been no unifying development such as that which across the Channel had produced the great Common Law of England; instead, law was regional, and while in large portions of the south the Roman law had never been superseded, in the north and west there were in operation an aggregate of no fewer than two hundred eighty-five more or less widely differing legal systems. Commercially, also, the nation was devoid of unity. A network of tariff walls set off the provinces sharply against one another. Even the royal imposts, notably the rates charged by the government for the salt whose sale it monopolized, varied enormously from one portion of the country to another. Some taxes which fell heavily upon certain regions were not collected in others at all. Government was in form and fact absolute. The princi- ple underlying the administration of public affairs is perfectly expressed in the aphorism attributed to Louis XIV. — L'etat, c'est moi, "I am the state." There is no evidence that this pre- cise phrase was ever employed by the great Bourbon mon- arch, but it summarizes exactly the political doctrines to which Louis and his dynasty adhered. Louis XVI., in whose days came the deluge, put it thus: "The sovereign authority re- sides exclusively in my person. To me solely belongs the power of making the laws, and without dependence or co- operation. The entire public order emanates from me, and I am its supreme protector. My people are one with me. The rights and interests of the nation are necessarily identical with mine and rest solely in my hands." Under the auto- cratic supervision of the sovereign, such laws as were enacted were drafted and prepared for promulgation by the five great councils of state, consisting exclusively of royal appointees. The executive power was wielded directly by the king, in so far as he cared to burden himself with it, and for the rest, by THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 17 the councils and a vast hierarchy of appointed officials, reach- ing downwards through the various bureaus, the secretariats, the intendants in charge of the thirty-two generalites, the provincial governors, and the intendants' assistants, the sub- delegates in the petty Elections or districts. Justice was ren- dered in some thirteen parlements and in a multitude of inferior tribunals whose proceedings were subject to the most arbitrary interference at the dictation of the crown or of vested interest. Under the authority of a royal lettre de cachet, or "sealed letter," any person not only might be placed under summary arrest, but was liable to be held in prison until such time as it might suit the pleasure or the convenience of the constituted authorities to inquire into the merits of his case. Lettres de cachet were not difficult to obtain, and the power which they carried was in practice gravely abused. Not infrequently they became the instruments of mere personal malice or vengeance. The life of the nation centred in the capital, and that of the capital in the court. Versailles, a suburb of Paris con- taining some 80,000 inhabitants, was the seat of the court, and there the wealth, fashion, and ambition of all France was gathered. Even after the attempts at economy, by which the earlier years of Louis XVI. were marked, the military retinue of the king consisted of 9050 persons, his civil house- hold numbered something like 4000, and the aggregate cost of maintenance of the two was 45,000,000 francs a year. At Versailles, which, after all, was but one of the dozen residences which were kept in readiness for the royal family's use, the king had 1857 horses, 217 vehicles, and 1458 men in livery. Marie Antoinette's private stables in 1780 contained 75 vehicles and 330 horses. In 1786, three years before the storming of the Bastile, there were in the palace at Ver- sailles 150 pages, 128 musicians, 48 physicians and assistants, 383 officers of the table, and 198 persons whose sole function was to wait upon the person of the king. When opposition 18 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE arose to the queen's proposal to economize in the matter of the "household" to be established for the one-month old Princess Elizabeth, a compromise was finally agreed upon to the effect that a body of 80 persons would be adequate. It need hardly be said that 75 per cent of the attendants and equipment mentioned served absolutely no purpose save that of lending the court an imposing appearance. Not only was the direct cost of such lavishness enormous ; the whole order of things stimulated extravagance and recklessness. Pen- sions for favorites, fat sinecures for incompetents, purchases of estates or palaces for impoverished courtiers at prices four or five times their value — these were constant drains upon the treasury which not even a sovereign of stronger will than a Louis XVI. could have checked without threatening the overturn of the foundations upon which the eighteenth cen- tury monarchy rested. Nor was the prodigality, or its evil effect, restricted to the court. "Every noble of any impor- tance," as one writer puts it, "must have his little Versailles, and waste his property and other peoples' property in main- taining his state, while all Europe must go bankrupt trying to live like the king of the French — who was himself going bankrupt most rapidly of all." * The population of France in 1789 numbered approximately 25,000,000, an increase of some eight millions since the close of the wars of Louis XIV. Of this body of people, the two privileged orders, the nobility and the clergy, comprised together a trifle more than 1 per cent. The estimate of Taine is that the nobility numbered 140,000 and the clergy 120,000 to 130,000; that is, about 25,000 or 30,000 noble families, and about 23,000 monks in 2500 monasteries, 37,000 nuns in 1500 convents, and 60,000 curates and vicars attached to the various secular churches and chapels. The number of archbishops was 18, and that of bishops 121, exclusive of 11 who possessed actually no dioceses in France. The aggrc 1 Mathews, "The French Revolution," 33. THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 19 gate wealth of the two orders, nobility and clergy, was ap~ proximately equal. Each owned from a fifth to a fourth of the soil of France. Centuries of development of the royal power had left the nobility very generally shorn of political prerogative ; but the social distinctions and public privileges which had always attached to the order had been preserved, and at some points even augmented, so that on the whole the position of the eighteenth century French nobleman was one of scarcely less dignity and immunity than had been that of his mediaeval ancestor. As always, of course, the nobles were not at all on a common footing among themselves. Some were great and some were small, some were rich and some poor, some had long pedigrees and some short. A title of nobility was no longer necessarily a token of lofty birth, nor a brevet of personal distinction. It denoted only that a man, or his ancestors, had property, or that he, or they, had met with favor at the royal hand. Allowing, however, for the wide differences that separated higher from lower members of the order, the privileges of the nobility in eighteenth century France may be said to have consisted in four things. The first that may be mentioned was exemption from military service, from the obligation of contributing to the subsistence of the soldiery, from the duty of assisting in the upkeep of the public highways, and, most important of all, from substan- tially all taxation. The nobles as a class enjoyed no collec- tive tax exemption, as did the clergy. Each man entered into his own agreement with the governing authorities, how- ever, and the consequence was that some nobles paid no taxes at all and the majority paid but little. The taille (a direct tax on land), yielding 91,000,000 francs, was paid almost exclusively by the roturiers, i.e., the peasants. To the capita- tion, or poll tax, yielding 41,500,000 francs, and to the ving- tiemes, or "twentieths," yielding 76,500,000 francs, the nobles contributed but meagre amounts. The Duke of Orleans, 20 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE reputed the richest proprietor in the kingdom, stated his own case and that of many another of his class when he said frankly: "I make arrangements with the officials, and pay only about what I wish to." A second important privilege was that of exploitation of the peasantry. While it is true that in eighteenth century France the peasants were as a rule free men who owned or rented their land, it remained the theory of French law that there was no land without its lord. The majority of the peasants lived still on great manors, many of which were owned by the nobility. Their relations to their lordly pro- prietors were apt to be such that they remained in effect subject to a variety of the ancient manorial obligations. Even the peasant who owned a bit of ground was likely to be held, under one form or another, for varied payments or services. A third privilege comprised a virtual monopoly of the offices and honors of state, including places of command in the army, posts in the diplomatic service, and positions of authority in the Church. Finally, there was the opportunity which, save for the higher clergy, the nobility possessed ex- clusively, of residing at, or in close touch with, the court and of basking in the effulgence of the royal presence. This was of very great consequence, for it meant not only influence and honors and splendid surroundings, but pensions and sine- cure appointments and sundry marks of royal favor. While many of the smaller nobility contented themselves as best they might with the life of the landed proprietor or of the townsman, the greater members of the order, and not a few of the lesser ones, were unable to resist the fascination of the capital. "Sire," said a French courtier upon one occasion to Louis XIV., "to be away from your Majesty is not merely to be unhappy; it is to be ridiculous." And that was the nobleman's point of view as long as the Bourbon monarchy lasted. "Exile alone," observed Arthur Young, immediately prior to the Revolution, "forces the French nobility to do THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 21 what the English do by preference : to reside upon their estates to improve them." The Church in France in the eighteenth century occupied the position virtually of a state within a state. Its supreme authority in all matters of religion was stipulated by law, and the prerogatives which it had enjoyed in the Middle Ages continued, except upon the purely political side, substantially unimpaired. Its control of education and of charity was still unshaken. A fifth of the land of the country belonged to it, and its revenues in a single year are estimated all the way from 250,000,000 to 350,000,000 francs. Within the Church, however, there were sharp distinctions of status and of con- dition. Five-sixths of the income that has been mentioned went to the support of the bishops and archbishops, whose position in the nation approximated closely that of the greater nobles, and who not infrequently resigned the actual per- formance of their functions to subordinates, to the end that they themselves might spend their days at the court. The remaining one-sixth of the revenues was expected to sup- port the 60,000 parish priests and other minor clergy — men often of splendid integrity and devotion, but half- starved and unable to meet the needs of the wretched society about them. The abbot of Sainte-Croix de Bernay, in Nor- mandy, enjoying an income of 57,000 francs a year, lived in Paris and employed a curate at 1050 francs a year to minister to a parish of 4000 communicants. The Cardinal de Rohan had an income of 1,000,000 francs a year, upon which he maintained a palace in which he could entertain at one time 200 guests with their retinues. The average income of the bishops and archbishops was between 50,000 and 100,000 francs; that of the curates, when conditions were at their best, was 700 francs. In addition to income from land, the revenues of the Church were derived principally from fees exacted for services performed and from the tithe, which alone in 1789 yielded a total of 183,000,000 francs. 22 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Making allowance for some differences arising from the peculiar nature of their office, the clergy as a class possessed privileges which were substantially identical with those possessed by the nobility. In point of fact, of course, these privileges meant nothing to the great body of lower ecclesias- tics, save, as has been mentioned, the shouldering of burdens which ought to have been borne by their superiors. The privilege which meant most to the higher clergy was that of exemption from taxation. Being an organized body, the clergy had been able, first, to procure an arrangement under which they should contribute their share of the public taxes in an occasional lump sum, under the name of a don graluit, or "free gift" ; then, to arrange that they should pay smaller and smaller amounts, or even that the payment should be omitted altogether. In 1788 they paid only 1,800,000 francs, and in 1789 they paid nothing at all. Occasionally it hap- pened that, far from voting a don gratuit, the clergy, who as an order were in debt, actually persuaded the king to grant them a subsidy from the public treasury. It is customary to employ the term "Third Estate" to designate the entire mass of French people prior to the Revo- lution, exclusive of the nobility and the clergy. The term is useful, but if it is interpreted to imply any considerable measure of homogeneity or of class consciousness among the twenty-four and a half millions of non-noble, non-clerical inhabitants of France in 1789, it is misleading. These in- habitants comprised at the same moment, as one writer puts it, "the rich banker and the beggar at his gate, the learned encyclopaedist and the water-carrier who could not spell his name. " 1 They were of all occupations, grades of intelligence, and manner of living. For present purposes it is sufficient to group them in two principal categories — the bourgeoisie and the peasantry. But it must be borne in mind that if the nobles and clergy differed among themselves in both theoreti- 1 Lowell, "Eve of the French Revolution," 154. THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 23 cal and actual position, so likewise did the bourgeoisie, and still more did the peasants. The bourgeoisie was the French middle class. It was com- posed chiefly of lawyers, judges, physicians, capitalists, bankers, merchants, contractors, and high-grade craftsmen, and was distinctly unlike the English middle class, composed of yeomen and tenant farmers, in that it was almost exclu- sively urban. The French burghers possessed little land, but they controlled much the largest portion of the nation's working capital. They were, as a rule, intelligent, industri- ous, and frugal, and it is to be observed that, with the ex- ception of Mirabeau, Lafayette, and a few others, the leaders of the Revolution sprang almost entirely from this class, and that the Revolution itself is to be thought of as a bourgeois, rather than a peasant, movement. The bourgeoisie was well- read and patriotic. It resented the discriminations con- stantly brought to bear against it in favor of the privileged orders, and it proposed to win for itself public recognition and power commensurate with its intelligence, wealth, and num- bers. But for bourgeois leadership, the Revolution might well have been in effect nothing more than a sporadic and hopeless revolt of the proletariat, similar to other uprisings by which the peace of France many times had been inter- rupted. France in the eighteenth century was still predominantly an agricultural country. It is estimated that, after deduct- ing the nobles, the clergy, the townspeople, and the profes- sional men who dwelt in the rural districts, fully 20,000,000 of her people lived directly from tilling the soil. In Nor- mandy, Flanders, Picardy, and some of the other northwest- ern provinces, where the great proprietors were accustomed to let their land in considerable areas, there may be said to have been in some measure an agricultural middle class ; but in all other parts of the kingdom the cultivators of the soil were exclusively peasants. Although the course of the Revo- 24 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE lution was shaped principally by the burghers and artisans of Paris and other cities, one prime cause of the uprising was very clearly the distress of the peasantry. Precisely what the peasant condition was, however, in 1789 is difficult to deter- mine. Not that there is any lack of testimony. The letters, diaries, books, and public documents of the eighteenth century, both French and non-French, abound in allusions to the sub- ject. The difficulty arises from two facts — fi st, the partial, haphazard, and sometimes prejudiced character of much of this contemporary descriptive literature, and, second, the fundamental consideration that conditions varied enormously from province to province, and even from community to com- munity, so that no single description which will be universally accurate, or even approximately so, can possibly be made up. The best account that has come down to us from a first-hand authority is that given by Arthur Young, an enterprising English gentleman farmer, who, during the years 1787-89, travelled extensively in France, and who subsequently (in 1792) published his observations in a volume of "Travels." But even Young did not visit all portions of the country, and the conclusions at which he arrived assume too frequently the character of doubtful generalizations. Emphasizing the fact that allowance must be made con- stantly for exceptions, there may be brought together, in conclusion of this survey, a few of the more noteworthy as- pects of the peasant situation. In the first place, the mass of the French peasants were legally free. It is estimated that at the accession of Louis XVI., in 1774, the number of persons in the kingdom who were in law more or less unfree did not exceed 15,000; and the number was further reduced before 1789. In the second place, a very considerable number of peasants had become landholders. What this number was no one can say, but good authorities accept the estimate that two-fifths of the soil of France belonged in 1789 to the so- called Third Estate — which means, in effect, very largely THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 25 to the peasantry. The quantity of land owned and occupied by the peasants was tending constantly to be increased, and some writers have gone so far as to maintain that by the time of the outbreak of the Revolution France was in reality hardly less notable for the number of its petty proprietorships than it is to-day. Of the great body of peasant non-land- holders, the majority were metayers, i.e., tenants on the estates of the crown, of the nobles, and of the clergy, while some were ordinary hired laborers. The last-mentioned class appears to have been as well off as its counterpart in any country of Europe, even England. But the mass of the small proprietors and metayers, while individuals of both groups were prosperous and contented, was heavily burdened and, by 1789, ripe for rebellion. In point of fact, it should be observed that the difference between the small proprietor and the metayer was less considerable than might be supposed. Most of the little proprietors were what the lawyers would call copyholders, not freeholders ; that is to say, they had acquired their bits of land, not by purchasing them outright from the former owner but by agreeing to render to him perpetually certain rent- charges and services. The original owner had been commonly a noble ; so that the average petty proprietor found himself in 1789 scarcely freer from the exactions of the great lord of the community than did the actual tenant upon that lord's remaining estates. The burdens by which the lot of the peasant was apt to be embittered fall into three principal groups. The first and least considerable was that of enforced contribution to the support of the Church, through the medium chiefly of fees and of the tithe. The second was taxation at the hand of the state. The third and most vexatious of all was the obliga- tions and restrictions imposed by the privileged orders. Taxes were both direct and indirect. Of the direct, there were two of principal importance — the tattle and the corvee. The taille, or land tax, was of feudal origin, and in the Middle Ages it 26 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE was paid by the tenant to the lord of the manor. In the fifteenth century, however, its yield was diverted to the treas- ury of the state, to be devoted to the maintenance of the national troops. In its eighteenth century form the taille was imposed upon the profits arising not only from land, but from all manner of industry. The corvee likewise was of manorial origin, and it continued in the eighteenth century to be exacted in many instances by the great proprietors ; but from the period of Louis XIV. it was made use of exten- sively also by the state, taking the forms chiefly of the con- struction of highways and canals and the transportation of the baggage of the soldiery. The burden imposed immedi- ately by these and kindred obligations was augmented by the arbitrariness with which both taille and corvee were assessed, 1 the unfairness with which they were administered, the fact that the nobles and clergy were exempted from them, and the notorious extravagance by which the revenues were con- sumed at court. It was a cruel aggravation of the misery of the poor, says Arthur Young, to see those who could best afford to pay exempted because they were able; but it was "still more exasperating to observe that the wealth and posi- tion of the privileged depended mainly on the diversion of the tax receipts from worthy national enterprises to the purses of private individuals who rendered absolutely no return." Of indirect taxes there were many, and the conditions under which they were imposed and collected rendered them still more obnoxious than the taille and the corvee. They con- sisted chiefly in the forced purchase of salt, imposts on the production of wine and other commodities, and tolls and tariffs imposed upon goods carried from one portion of the country to another. The viciousness of the system was at its maximum in the gabelle, or salt tax. Every householder 1 "The people of this village," a royal inspector is reputed to have written regarding a certain community, "are stouter, and there are chicken feathers before the doors; the taxes here should be greatly increased next year." THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 2^ in most parts of France was compelled to purchase every year at a state warehouse seven pounds of salt for each mem- ber of his family beyond the age of seven, and to pay for the commodity at whatsoever rate custom or arbitrary decree should fix in any given district. The prices asked varied so enormously that people in one town might be required to pay thirty times as much for a given quantity as their neighbors in an adjacent region. And the seven pounds mentioned must be reserved for table consumption alone. If a pig was slaughtered and the flesh was to be salted, the head of the household must make a special purchase for the purpose. To prevent the smuggling of so precious a commodity penalties were laid, comprising fines, flogging, condemnation to the galleys, and death. The state maintained likewise a monop- oly of the sale of tobacco, and the excises on wine and cider were not only heavy but so administered as to inflict upon both consumer and producer a maximum of annoyance. The obligations which were due from the peasant to the noble or great churchman upon whose lands he lived, or from whom he had acquired a copyhold, were of the most varied sorts. As a rule, there was the corvee seigneuriale, or require- ment of unpaid manual labor, not unlikely to be called for precisely when the peasant desired to sow his own seed or harvest his own crops. There were generally, too, the various banalites, by which the peasant was compelled to have his grain ground at the seigneur's mill, his bread baked at the seigneur's oven, and his wine made at the seigneur's wine-press, giving over a goodly proportion of the product in payment for the service rendered. Tolls there were, likewise, which the peasant must pay for the carrying of his marketable goods on the highways or rivers. And, as a rule, when the petty proprietor proposed to sell or otherwise alienate his bit of land, he must procure the seigneur's permission and share with him the proceeds. More obnoxious still was the droit de chasse, in respect of which every kind of game was reserved for the 28 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE seigneur's use and amusement. Droves of wild boars and deer wandered at will, and the peasant who was so presumptuous as to attempt to protect his crops made himself liable to con- demnation to the galleys for breach of seigneurial privilege. His growing grain might at any time be trampled under foot with impunity by lordly hunting parties. Edicts prohibited weeding and hoeing, lest the young partridges be disturbed ; the steeping of seed, lest after it were planted the pigeons should eat it and suffer ; the taking of stubble from meadows which might afford the small game shelter. Even when the peasant was lucky enough to secure a permit to fence his land, he must leave open spaces through which the huntsman's horses might gallop. "In passing through many of the French provinces," Arthur Young tells us, "I was struck with the various and heavy complaints of the farmers and little proprietors of the feudal grievances with the weight of which their industry was burdened; but I could not then conceive the multiplicity of the shackles which kept them poor and depressed. I understood it better afterwards from the conversation and complaints of some grand seigneurs, as the Revolution ad- vanced ; and I then learned that the principal rental of many estates consisted of services and feudal tenures, by the bane- ful influences of which the industry of the people was almost exterminated." De Tocqueville, whose description of pre- revolutionary France has never been wholly superseded, has a passage in which the essential helplessness of the eighteenth century peasant is described with vividness and substantial accuracy. "Picture to yourself," he says, "a French peasant of the eighteenth century, so enamored of the soil that he will spend all his savings to purchase it, and to purchase it at any price. To complete this purchase he must first pay a tax, not to the government but to other landowners of the neigh- borhood, as unconnected as himself with the administration of public affairs and hardly more influential than he is. He THE OLD REGIME IN FRANCE 2g possesses it at last ; his heart is buried in it with the seed he sows. This little nook of ground, which is his own in this vast universe, fills him with pride and independence. But again these neighbors call him from the furrow, and compel him to come to work for them without wages. He tries to defend his young crop from their game ; again they prevent him. As he crosses the river they wait for his passage to levy a toll. He finds them at the market, where they sell him the right of selling his own produce; and when on his return home he wants to use the remainder of his wheat for his own subsistence, he cannot touch it till he has ground it at the mill and baked it at the bakehouse of these same men. A portion of the income of his little property is paid away in quit-rents to them also, and these dues can neither be extinguished nor redeemed. Whatever he does, these troublesome neighbors are everywhere on his path to disturb his happiness, to inter- fere with his labor, to consume his profits ; and when these are dismissed, others in the black garb of the Church present themselves to carry off the clearest profit of the harvest. Picture to yourself the condition, the wants, the character, the passion of this man, and compute, if you are able, the stores of hatred and envy which are accumulated in his heart." 1 1 De Tocqueville, " State of Society in France before the Revolution of 1789," 5S-56. CHAPTER IV THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE In a characteristic vein of flamboyancy Disraeli once de- clared that there are only two events in history — the siege of Troy and the French Revolution. No assertion, of course, could well be more absurd, but underlying the remark is at least this truth, that from no enumeration of really great historical occurrences, it matters not how restricted it may be, can the French Revolution by any possibility be omitted. By the phrase "French Revolution," however, must be under- stood, not the carnival of license and disorder through which France, between the storming of the Bastile and the fall of Robespierre, was called upon to pass, but rather the funda- mental transformation which, between the assembling of the States General in 1789 and the establishment of the Consti- tution of the Year III in 1795, was wrought in the political, social, and economic texture of the French nation. The im- portance of the Revolution arises, first, from the far-reaching effects of the movement upon the development of modern France, and, second, from the stimulating and re-creating influences which it exerted in some measure upon all of the states of western Europe. Within France its full conse- quences were by no means realized within the space of the years that have been mentioned. As will be pointed out, the era of Napoleon's domination witnessed a remarkable ampli- fication and adaptation of the Revolution's essential accom- plishments. And beyond France it was not until after the opening of the nineteenth century that, largely again in the course of the Napoleonic ascendancy, the transforming in- fluence of the French overturn began on a considerable scale 3° THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 31 to produce practical effects. "The nineteenth century," says Mr. Frederic Harrison in one of his suggestive essays, "is precisely the history of the work which the French Revolu- tion left. The Revolution was a creating force even more than a destroying one ; it was an inexhaustible source of fer- tile influences ; it not only cleared the ground of the old society, but it manifested all of the elements of the new society." More immediately, the assertion applies to France; but, in the stretch of time, it expresses not inaptly the significance of the Revolution for the whole of Europe. The question may well be asked why the overturning of the ancien regime should have come first in France rather than in Germany, in Italy, or in Austria. In the first place, it was not because conditions were less favorable in France than elsewhere. If they were worse than in England, the Neth- erlands, northern Italy, and a few favored portions of Ger- many, they were indubitably better, on the whole, than in Spain, Austria, southern Italy, Ireland, Russia, and most of the German states. In the second place, it was not be- cause conditions in France toward the close of the eighteenth century were actually worse than they had been at earlier periods of the nation's history. Conditions were bad enough, but if we are to credit the statements of Arthur Young, and likewise those of Thomas Jefferson, who, in 1787, made some- what extended observations, considerable portions of the French people, even of the peasantry, were, on the eve of the Revolution, quite as prosperous as their ancestors seem ever to have been. Finally, the revolutionizing of France is not to be explained by any sheer assumption of inherent instabil- ity or fickleness on the part of the French people. Precisely why the revolution came first in France is one of those questions to which a positive and conclusive answer can hardly be expected. It is easy to see that certain cir- cumstances were favorable. The impending bankruptcy of the state compelled resort to heroic measures, involving the 32 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE summons of the States General, and thus afforded peculiar opportunity for a rupture between the people and the con- stituted authorities. The concentration of population — particularly the discontented elements — at the capital ac- centuated the inflammable character of the situation. The fact that France was one nation, with consciousness of com- munity of interest, rather than a mere congeries of essentially independent states, as were Germany and Italy, favored likewise the chances that any general uprising would assume such proportions as virtually to insure some substantial measure of success. But much the most important considera- tion arises from the superior enlightenment of the French people, especially the middle classes, in the later eighteenth century. The man who is oppressed but supposes that all men everywhere, at least of his station, are oppressed, is likely to plod on stolidly and without hope. The man who is oppressed and feels his oppression, but has not the percep- tion or breadth of view to comprehend the illogical and un- natural aspect of his position, will be discontented, but is likely to accept what he regards as the inevitable. The man, on the other hand, who is oppressed, who knows how superior is the lot of other men who in capacity and in industry are his equals, and who recognizes in the conditions by which he is kept down perversions of natural or practicable conditions in the interest of a favored, unproductive, and unapprecia- tive class, is certain not only to be discontented but to be open to inducement to strike in behalf of his rights. Therein lies no small part of the philosophy of the Revolution in France. Among European countries the wonderfully stimulating intellectual movement of the eighteenth century worked itself out more completely in France than in any other. Many, as Spain and Austria, were hardly touched by it at all. At the hands of the philosophers, essayists, and publicists of the age of Louis XV. and Louis XVI., the French nation THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 33 received a veritable education in human liberty, and this fresh enlightenment was not without both immediateness and power of appeal. When, for example, Voltaire proclaimed the doctrine that men should rely unceasingly upon reason, it was inevitable enough that sharp-witted Frenchmen should arrive at the conclusion that, the peculiar privileges of the nobility and the clergy being essentially unreasonable, those privileges ought to be swept away. When the same critic affirmed squarely that the clergy ought to be made to pay taxes upon their property precisely as did the burghers and the peasantry, the argument was not difficult to drive home. When Montesquieu expounded the advantages of the limited monarchy of Great Britain, and Rousseau gave the appear- ance at least of demonstrating that, no man ever having been given a right to rule over other men in opposition to their will, the real sovereign is the people and law is but the ex- pression of the popular will, the conclusion did not fail to burn itself into the consciousness of intelligent men that the eighteenth century Bourbon absolutism, by which were bolstered up both privilege and oppression, ought to be tem- pered in the interest of common justice. The Norman or Gascon peasant may never so much as have heard of the "Handy Philosophic Dictionary" or of the "Social Contract," but the merchant, the banker, the lawyer, the physician, the student — in short, the bourgeoisie — heard and were moved ; and, as has been pointed out, the Revolution was in large part the work of this same well-informed, ambitious, capable, and discontented burgher class. The intelligent perception which lay thus at the basis of the Revolution was responsible for much of the remarkable en- thusiasm with which the movement in its earlier stages was attended. "The French people," says De Tocqueville, "made in 1789 the greatest effort which was ever undertaken by any nation to cut, so to speak, its destiny in halves, and to sepa- rate by an abyss that which it had hitherto been from that 34 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE which it sought to become thereafter." The statement is hardly too strong. Once aroused, the revolutionists ad- vanced from pinnacle to pinnacle of radicalism, deliberately seeking to detach the nation from its past by a chasm im- possible to be bridged. The havoc which, within two years from the meeting of the States General, was made of the an- cient institutions of France, in part by legislative action and in part by popular violence, has never been equalled in the history of any civilized people. "In order to regret the past," wrote a French publicist in 1772, "one must be ignorant of what it was." The men by whom France was transformed in 1789-94 knew only too well what the past had been, and in divorcing themselves from it they cherished no misgivings. "We had no regret for the past," wrote Louis XVI. 's former war minister Segur in his "Memoires," "and no inquietude for the future. What was ancient appeared to us wearisome and ridiculous. We believed that we were entering a golden age of which past centuries gave no idea, and in the future we saw only the good that could be secured for humanity by the reign of reason. We were disciples of new doctrines; the prejudices and pedantry of old customs seemed absurd. It was impossible that we should not receive with enthu- siasm the hopes which men of genius held out to us of a future where humanity, tolerance, and liberty should reign instead of the errors, follies, and prejudices which had so long enslaved and embittered the world. We were soothed by the seductive dreams of a philosophy that sought to assure the happiness of the race. Voltaire charmed our intelligence, and Rousseau touched our hearts." "The chiefs of the Revo- lution," another contemporary tells us, "imagined that they were assembled to retrieve every fault of the past, to correct every error of the human mind, and to secure the happiness of future generations ; doubt had no place in their minds and infallibility presided perpetually over all of their contradic- tory decrees." The idea was dominant, too, that what was THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 35 being done for France was done not for France alone, but for the world. "France," declared the father of Mirabeau, thirty years before the fall of the Bastile, "must become the arbiter of the world, that she may insure the happiness of all people ; she must destroy exclusive privileges, and leave nature and honest toil to bring felicity." The task to which the enthusiasts of 1789 addressed themselves was nothing less than the regeneration of a continent; and the most remarkable aspect of the Revolution lies in the very great measure in which, more slowly than was hoped and in ways largely unforeseen, this gigantic task was accomplished. For the purposes in hand there is no need to review here the history, military, diplomatic, or political, of the Revolu- tion. Our interest lies rather in the changes of a permanent character which were wrought by the movement, immediately and ultimately, in the status of the individual Frenchman and in that of the men of other nationalities who, especially in the era of Napoleon, were brought under French revolution- izing influence. The Revolution proper began with the con- stitution of the National Assembly, in June, 1789, and closed with the fall of Robespierre, in July, 1794, or perhaps better with the establishment of the government of the Directory, under the Constitution of the Year III, in November, 1795. Most of its permanently important achievements, however, fell within the first twelve months of this period. It but remained for the revolutionists later, and subsequently Napoleon, to coordinate, amplify, and readjust the modifica- tions of the social order for which the National Assembly was in the first instance responsible. The National Assembly was constituted by representatives of the Third Estate who gathered at Versailles in May, 1789, in response to a summons of the ancient States General. The intention of the king and of his chief minister, Necker, was that the three estates should proceed in the traditional manner, deliberating and voting separately, to take under 36 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE consideration the perilous condition of the country. When, however, the members assembled, the deputies of the Third Estate, recognizing that under the customary procedure they would be outvoted by the privileged orders, refused to organize as a separate chamber. Instead, they invited re- peatedly the clergy and nobility to join them in the forma- tion of one great deliberative body in which votes should be cast, not by orders, but by individuals. When the various quotas entitled to be present upon this occasion were complete, the nobles numbered 285 and the clergy 308 ; but the com- moners numbered 621 ; and, furthermore, fully two-thirds of the clerical members were cures, who were generally ill- disposed toward the privileged classes and were likely to cast in their influence with the Third Estate. Preservation of the balance of power on the part of the nobility and clergy demanded, therefore, that the separateness of the three orders be continued. Rebuffed but unyielding, the deputies of the people, June 17, declared themselves a National Assembly; and when the king sought to compel an abandonment of the position that had been taken, they entered into a solemn compact — the "tennis-court oath" of June 20 — never to separate until "the constitution of the kingdom should be established and placed upon a firm foundation." At an early stage of the controversy more than half of the deputies of the clergy formally joined the Assembly, and eventually, when no other course was open, and at the command of the king, the nobles and remaining clergy did the same. Thus, by the boldness of the popular leaders an antiquated organiza- tion of feudal estates was converted into the first modern national representative assembly on the continent of Europe. It was through the instrumentality of this assembly, domi- nated by the intelligent, progressive, enthusiastic bour- geoisie, that, in the main, the real work of revolution was accomplished. The most comprehensive and authoritative statement of the THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 37 principles underlying the Revolution is comprised in a memo- able instrument adopted by the Assembly, August 26, 1789, and entitled "A Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen." In many of the cahiers (lists of grievances and of suggested reforms drawn up throughout the country, at the request of the king, when the members of the States General were being elected) demand was made that there be framed a systematic enumeration of the rights of the individual citizen, and it was in compliance with this demand, as well as for the guidance of its own deliberations, that the Assembly promulgated the Declaration. The instrument comprised from the outset the working program of revolution in France, and in subsequent times it became a touchstone of liberalism in numerous other nations. Portions of it are embodied to-day in not a few European constitutions. Assuming that "ignorance, neglect, or contempt of the rights of man are the sole cause of public calamities and of the corruption of governments," the authors of the document proceeded, first, to define what seemed to them the fundamental principles of society and, second, to enumerate more specifically the "natural, inalienable, and sacred" rights arising inevitably from those principles. The principles may best be stated in the language of the Declaration. "Men," it is affirmed, "are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good. The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance to oppression. The prin- ciple of all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation. No body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation. Liberty consists in the freedom to do everything which injures no one else ; hence the exercise of the natural rights of each man has no limits except those which assure to the other members of the society the enjoyment of the same rights. These limits can be deter- 38 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE mined only by law. Law can prohibit only such actions as are hurtful to society. Nothing may be prevented which is not forbidden by law, and no one may be forced to do any- thing not provided for by law. Law is the expression of the public will. Every citizen has a right to participate person- ally, or through his representative, in its formation. It must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes." From these general principles the framers of the Declara- tion advanced to an enumeration of specific rights. The rights which they named were naturally those, for the larger part, that had most commonly been ignored or violated in the days of the Old Regime. Some pertained to the status of the individual and some to property. "No person," it was as- serted, "shall be accused, arrested, or imprisoned, except in the cases and according to the forms prescribed by law. . . . The law shall provide for such punishments only as are strictly and obviously necessary, and no one shall suffer punishment except it be legally inflicted in virtue of a law passed and pro- mulgated before the commission of the offence. . . . No one shall be disquieted on account of his opinions, including his religious views, provided their manifestation does not disturb the public order established by law. The free communica- tion of ideas and opinions is one of the most precious of the rights of man. Every citizen may, accordingly, speak, write, and print with freedom, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law. ... All the citizens have a right to decide, either personally or by their representatives, as to the necessity of the public contri- bution [i.e., taxes]; to grant this freely; to know to what uses it is put ; and to fix the proportion, the mode of assess- ment and of collection, and the duration of the taxes." With respect to the rights of property it was declared that "since property is an inviolable and sacred right, no one shall be deprived thereof except where public necessity, legally determined, shall clearly demand it, and then only on condi- THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 39 tion that the owner shall have been previously and equitably indemnified." 1 It must not be imagined that at any time, even during the briefest period, the system of perfect democracy, justice, and order outlined in the Declaration was anywhere carried into operation. For example, despite all of the theories which the Assembly avowed respecting the right of every citizen to participate, "personally or through his representative," in the making of law and the levying of taxes, when the body came to frame a new constitution for the kingdom it excluded from the franchise all citizens who did not pay a direct tax to the state equivalent to at least the value of three days' labor. None the less, large portions of the Declaration were realized in effect, and many of the principles enunciated in it have lain continuously at the basis of French law and polity to our own day. Of changes actually wrought between 1789 and 1794 in the fundamentals of French society, three are of principal impor- tance. The first was the abolition of privilege ; the second, the reconstitution of the Church; the third, the remodelling of the state. These changes were accomplished formally by legislation, but to a large degree practically by popular vio- lence. After the nation-wide insurrection which followed, in July, 1789, the destruction of the Bastile, the ancient admin- istrative, military, and agrarian systems of the kingdom were speedily involved in utter destruction. In the cities and towns generally the municipal authorities were overthrown, and new ones elected by the people were set up. Intend- ants, subdelegates, police, royal and feudal courts of justice disappeared, and the collection of revenue was all but termi- nated. The standing army, honeycombed with insubordina- tion, became unreliable, and eventually broke up utterly. In its place appeared innumerable militia devoted to the cause of the Revolution. Throughout the provinces the ex- 1 Translated in Robinson, " Readings in European History," II., 409-411. 40 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE cited peasantry rose against their oppressors, burned manor- houses, destroyed manorial records, slaughtered some seign- eurs and drove others by the thousands into the towns or across the borders, and threw off entirely the fiscal and other obligations which had been imposed upon them by the Church. So thoroughgoing was this work of destruction that in the reconstitution of French society it became necessary for the central governing organs merely to legalize and perpetuate what had been done and to build upon ground already largely cleared by popular initiative. The formal abolition of privilege, which from the point of view of the average man was the achievement of largest moment, was accomplished by a series of measures passed chiefly during a frenzied session of the Assembly on the night of August 4-5, 1789. Amidst what Mirabeau termed "an orgy of sacrifice," the aristocrats of the body literally vied with one another in the surrender of peculiar rights which through hundreds of years had been preserved with the most uncompromising tenacity. All survivals of the feudal sys- tem were entirely abolished. All rights and dues originating in or incident to serfdom were likewise abolished without in- demnification, and all other dues were declared "redeemable." Manorial courts were ordered to be suppressed universally as soon as a new judicial system could be provided. Taxes were to be collected "from all citizens and upon all property" in the same form ; and with the understanding that some other means should be found for the support of the clergy and the maintenance of charity, the eventual abolition of all tithes was decreed. The exclusive right of the lords to main- tain pigeon-houses and dove-cotes was swept away, and there- after the peasant might drive off or kill with impunity the game that sought to prey upon his growing crops. In legal status, in public obligation, and in public and private right 5 the principle of thoroughgoing equality was effectually in- troduced, never thereafter to be wholly subverted. THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 41 A notable bulwark of privilege remained, however, in the Church, and against the prevailing ecclesiastical system the Assembly levelled a determined and irresistible attack. As has been pointed out, the law by which were abolished the survivals of feudalism and serfdom contemplated the with- drawal from the Church of the revenue from which perhaps two-fifths of the aggregate ecclesiastical income arose, i.e., the tithe. Swiftly the idea grew that the state ought to take over and administer the vast accumulation of property in the possession of the Church, not only because as the Church was constituted it comprised virtually a state within a state, but because the ecclesiastical organization, as was charged, had failed to perform its proper work and to re- ward such of its own servants as had been faithful to their trusts. November 2, 1789, the Assembly decreed that "all ecclesiastical possessions are at the disposal of the nation on condition that it shall provide properly for the expenses of maintaining religious services, for the support of those who conduct them, and for the succor of the poor." By a stroke the Church was shorn of its property and the clergy was con- verted into a state-employed, salaried body of functionaries. The revenues, lands, and other belongings of bishops, priests, and monks were inventoried, and, under law of December 19, the larger portion of what was salable was put on the market. By a measure of February, 1790, monastic vows were re- lieved of their binding character, and the inmates of religious houses were left free to return to the world, existing religious orders were abolished and the introduction of new ones was prohibited, and all remaining monastic property was made available for secular purposes. Orders engaged in charity or education, and likewise convents of women, however, were undisturbed, and provision was made that monks who should desire to continue their former mode of life should be sup- ported by pensions paid by the state. Subsequently (July 12, 1790) there was promulgated a 42 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE notable instrument, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, whereby the entire organization of the Church was overhauled, simplified, and systematized. The 134 ancient bishoprics were abolished, and in their stead were established 83 new ones, each coterminous with one of the departments into which, for purposes of administration, the country had lately been divided. The 83 bishoprics were grouped in ten dis- tricts, each presided over by a "metropolitan." All bishops and parish priests, after the manner of civil officials, were to be elected by the people, and all were to look entirely to the state for their means of support. Every clergyman, prior to assuming the duties of his position, must take oath "to be loyal to the nation, the law, and the king, and to sup- port with all his power the constitution decreed by the Na- tional Assembly and accepted by the king." To avert the abuses of absenteeism, which prior to 1789 had been so much complained of, it was enjoined by law that ecclesiastics without exception should reside within the districts under their charge. Save in the case of urgent necessity, and with the consent of the directory of the department in which his diocese lay, a bishop might not lawfully absent himself from his field of labor during more than two weeks consecutively in the course of a year. On the part of the more conservative of the ecclesiastics the changes thus introduced were opposed with the utmost vigor, and it cannot be said that the system contemplated in the Civil Constitution was ever fully in effect. With the kaleidoscopic changes through which the state itself passed during the ensuing decade came frequent alterations in the status of the Church and of the relations sustained between church and state. Eventually, in Napoleon's famous treaty with the papacy (the Concordat of 1801), it was arranged that the French bishoprics should be reconstituted, that the bishops should be appointed by the head of the state and confirmed by the pope, that the parish priests should be ap- THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 43 pointed by the bishops, that both bishops and priests should receive compensation from the state, and that clerical officials should continue to take oath to the state. But the Church as it was in the eighteenth century, with its lands and its feudal authority, its courts and its tithes, its independence and its privileges, had disappeared forever. Its abolition was the work of but a few months, and the newly constituted Church, whose principal aspects have just been noted, was destined to continue substantially unchanged throughout the nineteenth century. Of the political transformations wrought by the Revolution it is impossible to speak at length. Two were of fundamental importance — the legal and administrative unification of the state and the introduction of the principle of constitutional- ism. It has been pointed out that, despite the centraliza- tion which in some regards had reached so advanced a stage prior to 1789, the French nation was strikingly lacking in many of the most essential elements of unity. Even in matters of law and government local custom preponderated and variation was the rule. Not until the Revolution did France achieve that solidarity and uniformity of institutional life which to-day is borne in upon the observer at every turn. From the principles of equal civic rights and obligations laid down by the National Assembly in its Declaration of 1789 it followed that not only inequalities arising from clerical and aristocratic privilege should be abolished, but likewise in- equalities arising from heterogeneity of law, local custom, and administrative practice. And, logically enough, both sorts of inequality were overthrown by the same public act. "In- asmuch," says the final decree of August 11, 1789, by which feudalism was abolished, "as a national constitution and public liberty are of more advantage to the provinces than the privileges which some of these enjoy, and inasmuch as the surrender of such privileges is essential to the intimate union of all parts of the realm, it is decreed that all of the peculiar 44 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE privileges, pecuniary or otherwise, of the provinces, princi- palities, districts, cantons, cities, and communes, are once for all abolished and are absorbed into the laws common to all Frenchmen." The constitutional status of France throughout the ensuing century fluctuated more widely than did that of any contemporary European state, but from the fundamental principle of this decree no departure was ever made. Since 1789 what has been law in one portion of the country has been, excepting, of course, purely local regula- tions, law in every other. The agencies and methods of government have been made everywhere the same. Even the eighteenth century provinces, inseparably associated as they were with traditions of feudal disunion, were obliterated, and in the place of them were erected the substantially equal and essentially artificial departments of the present day, whose names, even, possess no historical significance, being appropriated as a rule from rivers, mountains, or other adja- cent physical features. So far, indeed, was the idea of uni- formity carried by the revolutionists, and by their successors, that the principle, as at present applied, is sometimes ad- judged almost as disadvantageous on the one side as was the former heterogeneity on the other. Yet it is of importance in any well-ordered state that a citizen of one section shall entertain confidence that the law under which he is judged is the law under which his fellow-citizens everywhere are judged, and that the public burdens which he is required to bear are being borne in the same amount, in proportion to wealth or other condition, by every man who shares with him the benefits of a common political system. That confidence it was the fortune of the Revolution to inspire for the first time in the mind of the citizen of France. The second great achievement of the Revolution on the political side was the overthrow of absolute monarchy; and although, as will appear, the Napoleonic era witnessed a vir- tual reestablishment of autocracy, the reversion was but THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE 45 temporary, and eventually France was destined not only to dispense completely with absolutism, but to go over definitely, after many vicissitudes, to the side of republicanism. From 1789 to 1 791 the ruling power in the state was the extra-legal National Assembly, through whose instrumentality largely, as has been emphasized, the real revolution was wrought. From September 3, 1791, to August 10, 1792, there was in operation a constitution under which the crown was shorn of most of its powers and the management of public affairs was committed essentially to a one-house Corps Legislatif, or legislative body, elected indirectly by the taxpayers of the country. September 21, 1792, the Convention, whose elec- tion had been ordered by the expiring legislative body, de- creed the abolition of monarchy and the establishment of a republic. A republican constitution drawn up in 1793 was never put in operation, but another — the so-called Consti- tution of the Year III — was promulgated September 23, 1795, and it was continued in effect somewhat more than four years. Under it the executive power was vested in a Direc- tory of five members and the legislative in two popularly elected chambers, the Council of Elders and the Council of Five Hundred. Napoleon's coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire of the Year VIII (November 9, 1799) terminated this regime, and almost at once there was put in operation the so-called Constitution of the Year VIII, under which the Corsican governed France until his abdication in 18 14. With the ele- vation of Napoleon to the supreme direction of French affairs the revolutionizing of France entered upon a new phase and that of adjacent countries was begun. CHAPTER V NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME At an early stage of the Revolution Edmund Burke ex- pressed the opinion that if the republican experiment in France should fail, it would be followed by the rise of the most completely arbitrary power that had ever appeared on earth. In the career of Napoleon the prophecy reached substan- tial fulfilment. From absolute monarchy France passed, in 1789-91, to constitutional monarchy; from constitutional monarchy, in 1792, to republicanism ; from republicanism, in 1799, to veiled monarchy; and from veiled monarchy, in 1804, to monarchy avowed and once more essentially absolute. From 18 Brumaire (November 9, 1799), when the Directory was overthrown and the executive powers of the state were vested in the three consuls, Bonaparte, Ducos, and Sieyes, until the assumption of the Imperial title in May, 1804, Napoleon was actually, though not nominally, the sovereign of France ; from the establishment of the Empire until the first abdication, in April, 1814, he was the arbiter of French destinies in both fact and form. The coins of the tradesman continued until 1808 to carry the legend of the republic. Aside from this, however, there was, after 1799, little or nothing which might bear witness officially to the fact that the republic had ever been. With the establishment of the Consulate, and still more with that of the Empire, the era of French revolutionary idealism was left behind and that of practical, constructive, militant statesmanship was inaugurated. "We have done with the romance of the Revolution," declared the First Consul to his Council of State at one of its earlier sessions. 46 NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME 47 "We must have eyes only for what is real and practicable in the application of principles, and not for the speculative and hypothetical." Napoleon had passed through the Revo- lution without entertaining a shred of sympathy with its ultimate ideal. The thing of principal value which he saw in it was the opening which by it was created for men of talents such as himself — the carrier e ouverte aux talents which he conceived to be the basal principle of all properly constituted society. In the "idle vaporings" of philosophy he saw small value. He called Rousseau a madman and was quit of him. The rallying cry of liberty, equality, and fraternity made no appeal to him, for he did not believe human society capable of being constructed upon these principles, and he had no hesitation in avowing the opinion that the French in reality loved neither liberty nor equality. During a decade the idealists had occupied the seats of authority. If their assump- tions were warranted, Napoleon was wont to reason, the fruits of ten years of power ought to be expected to demonstrate the fact. The France, however, whose government fell to the First Consul in 1799 was disorganized, disheartened, and seemingly helpless. The first enthusiasm of innovation had worn off, and what the ultimate state of the nation would be nobody could so much as predict. One thing was clear, namely, that for stability and reassurance there was a yearning which was both real and deep. By no one was this aspect of the national temper better understood than by Napoleon, and it was a matter of no great difficulty for him to turn it directly to account. For the sake of France, so ran his logic, the theorizers and experimenters must at last be made to give place to the administrators and the builders; and that he was himself the agency through which the need of the nation at this point was to be met he cherished never a doubt. "I swear," he avowed upon one occasion, "that I do nothing except for France ; I have nothing in view but her advantage." It was not theories of government, as he saw it, that France 48 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE at the beginning of the nineteenth century stood in need of, but simply government. There was, of course, on the part of Napoleon, no tinge of regret that the Revolution had occurred, or that it had taken the course that has been described. By the overturn the way had been prepared for his own ascendancy, first, by sweeping the field clear for the establishment of a new mon- archy, and, second, by introducing modifications in the social order of which he fully approved but for which he was willing enough not to be obliged to shoulder responsibility. Much less did he contemplate a restoration — save at one point only, i.e., the revival of strong monarchy — of the ancien regime. The basis upon which he proposed to build was not the institutions of the eighteenth century, but the new order of things established by his despised " philosophers." No one understood better than he that a nation cannot perma- nently be strong unless its citizens are contented and their industries are productive ; and this, he was well aware, means equality before the law and equality of economic opportunity. The equality in which Napoleon believed bore no relation to the philosophic query as to whether men are born free and equal. It meant simply that political and economic distinc- tions of class should not be permitted, and that there should be a free and general competition among citizens of all ranks for offices, honors, wealth, and success. There would still be rich and poor, learned and ignorant, industrious and shift- less, good and bad. But these inevitable differences should not be allowed to work any cleavage in the essential solidarity of the state. Public burdens should fall upon all, public rewards be open to all, public protection be guaranteed to all. Thus it came about that most of the positive achievements of the Revolution in France — a secular state based upon a large peasant proprietary, a civil law emancipated from ecclesiastical influences, a system of land-tenure devised to secure the maximum of equality, a law of persons which pro- NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME 49 claimed that all men have equal rights — were faithfully conserved throughout the Napoleonic domination and were wrought still more deeply into the new social and industrial economy of the nation. No vestige of serfdom was permitted to be restored; the nobility and the clergy were allowed to regain no part of their ancient privileges; the new land- settlement was carefully secured; against the tradition of ancient "customs" and "ordinances" public trial, the jury, and the new justices of the peace were rigidly maintained; the restrictions which prior to 1789 had operated to keep men perpetually in a given status were in no case allowed to be revived. And at a number of points — especially, as will be explained, in relation to taxation, law, education, and the Church — the work of reform was carried far beyond the stage which it had attained during the revolutionary period. There is, of course, this thing to be observed: the Napo- leonic system, while resting ostensibly upon the popular will as expressed through successive plebiscites, was essentially autocratic. To one of his councillors the First Consul de- clared in 1800 that it was his policy to govern men as the majority wished to be governed; that "if he governed a people of Jews, he would rebuild the temple of Solomon ! " But it was a firm conviction with him that the French people of his day cared much less that they be permitted to take part in their own government than that justice and fairness be maintained in the social order; and there is ample evidence that in this conclusion he was substantially correct. Despite the fine-sounding phrases of the Revolutionary declarations of rights, the framers of even the constitutions of 1791 and 1795 shrank from the establishment of suffrage systems which went the full length of democracy; and after Napoleon's own public career was terminated the French people accepted almost without a murmur a franchise arrangement which was among the most illiberal in history. In the Empire there was elaborate popular electoral machinery, and four great 50 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE consultative and deliberative assemblies lent the govern- mental system the appearance of possessing a broad, and even democratic, basis. In point of fact, however, the central government was conducted upon lines that were no less auto- cratic (though considerably less irresponsible) than those customarily followed in Bourbon days, and the centralized control of local governmental affairs was carried much be- yond anything that the Old Regime had witnessed. Weary of the local elective bodies of Revolutionary origin, which seemed to do little but squander the peoples' taxes, France acquiesced without much protest in the drawing of all governmental powers into the hands of the First Consul and his agents ; and it is at this point that there was inaugurated definitely that symmetrical and highly centralized governmental order which, combined ingeniously with a revived democracy, is so conspicuous a feature of the France of our own day. The peculiar position which Napoleon occupied and the increasing difficulties of this position in the later years of the Empire led inevitably to the adoption of policies which were not only autocratic but harsh and tyrannical. One illustration only which can be mentioned is the extinction of the freedom of the press. Almost immediately upon his accession to power Napoleon suppressed a considerable number of political newspapers and prohibited the establish- ment of new ones. As Emperor his policy in this regard tended to become more rather than less illiberal. Such journals as were allowed to continue publication were ordered to suppress all news or other matter which might be disad- vantageous or disagreeable to France. "If I were to re- establish the liberty of the press," he declared to those who besought him to inaugurate a milder policy, " I should im- mediately have thirty Royalist journals and as many Jacobin, and I should have to govern with a minority." In 1810 the number of newspapers outside Paris was limited to one in each department, and each journal was placed under the NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME 51 control of the centrally appointed departmental prefect After October, 1810, there were but four newspapers left in the capital, and by a decree of September 17, 181 1, the three of these which at that time survived were confiscated, where- upon the press became for all practical purposes extinct. The censorship was extended to books, plays, and pamphlets, and every publication adjudged to be "contrary to the duties of subjects toward the Sovereign and the security of the State" were promptly suppressed. In a number of very important respects, however, the re- forms of the Revolution were carried — albeit by autocratic methods — toward fuller realization. In the first place, the burden of taxation, already alleviated by the fresh distribu- tion which had followed the abolition of privilege, was mate- rially reduced. It is estimated that whereas the ordinary peasant prior to the Revolution paid as high as 81 per cent of his income in the form of taxes and manorial dues, in the era of Napoleon he paid but 21 per cent; and there was the fur- ther advantage that now the imposts were gathered by methods which imposed upon the payer a minimum of embarrassment and hardship. In the second place, the great body of the French law was reduced to comprehensive and uniform codes and published for the general information and use of the nation. The work of codification had been begun by the Revolutionary assemblies, but under the direction of Napoleon it was carried through with such effectiveness that all of the greater codes which date from the period — the Code Napo- leon of 1804-07 (since 1870 the Code Civil), the Code of Com- merce of 1807, the Code of Criminal Instruction of 1808, and the Penal Code of 18 10 — continue at the present time in operation. The task of codification was enormous, for the ancient French law had been an inextricable labyrinth of customs, statutes, rights, and privileges, varying from dis* trict to district ; and by the mass of decrees emanating from the various national assemblies after 1789 confusion had but 52 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE been made twice confounded. So admirably, however, were the difficulties overcome that the law codes became not merely the most durable product of Napoleonic statesman- ship but the bases, with appropriate modifications, of the legal systems of Italy, Holland, Belgium, Bavaria, Baden, Rhenish Prussia, and even the state of Louisiana. The re- forms of the Revolution whereby was abolished the employ- ment of torture and of other inquisitorial practices in the criminal courts were extended, and jury trial, established first in France in 1789, was retained in virtually all criminal cases, although jurors were required to be selected only from edu- cated and competent citizens, and the system could at any time be suspended by decree of the Senate. A third phase of Napoleon's constructive work was his encouragement of public education. By the Convention, in 1792-95, there had been projected an ambitious scheme for the establishment of primary, secondary, and advanced schools, but war and lack of funds had prevented the carrying of any considerable portion of the plan into effect. In 1799 there were but twenty-four elementary schools in Paris, with an aggregate attendance of fewer than 1000 pupils, and throughout the provinces conditions were proportionally worse. Napoleon believed firmly in the value of popular education and welcomed the change by which the adminis- tration of public instruction, like that of public charity, had been transferred from the ecclesiastical to the secular authori- ties. The two great educational measures of Napoleon's government were (1) the law of May 1, 1802, regulating the organization and functions of the ordinary primary and secondary schools, of the lycees, and of the ecoles speciales, and (2) the institution, March 17, 1808, of the University of France, which was not a local seat of learning of the familiar type, but represented rather the sum total of all the public teaching bodies of the Empire absorbed in and controlled by one vast instructional corporation. Both the mechanism NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME 53 of education and the numbers of pupils under instruction were greatly increased. As to the proper nature and end of public instruction, however, Napoleon had very definite ideas, and it cannot be said that the application of those ideas operated to stimulate, or even to allow, the unfolding of the mental and moral faculties of the individual. "In the establishment of a teaching body," he declared in 1805, "my principal aim is to procure a means of directing political and moral opinions ; for so long as people are not taught from their childhood whether they are to be republicans or mon- archists, Catholics or freethinkers, the state will not form a nation; it will rest on vague and uncertain bases, and will be subject constantly to change and disorder." In 1808 it was enjoined that all the schools of the University should " take as the basis of their instruction fidelity to the Emperor, to the Imperial monarchy, the guardian of the happiness of the nation, and to the Napoleonic dynasty, the preserver of the unity of France and of all the liberal ideas proclaimed by the constitutions." The aim of this education was not to awaken ideas or to develop mental capacity, but to produce self-supporting subjects, obedient citizens, and loyal soldiers. The studies upon which emphasis was placed were those of a utilitarian and non-speculative character; discipline and public spirit were given precedence over culture; lessons began and ended regularly with the roll of drums. None the less, the contribution of the Napoleonic regime to the development of the educational facilities of France was very great. On the side of machinery, if not on that of educational content, much of the Napoleonic system has survived to our own day. The University of France, altered but yet recog- nizable, still exists. Finally, it was under Napoleon that there was put in effect a body of regulations governing the relation of church and state which was subverted only in the course of the ecclesias- tical overturn in France in 1901-06. Following Hebert's 54 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE attempt to substitute for Christianity the worship of Reason, and that of Robespierre to establish a new deistic worship of the Supreme Being, the Convention, by a decree of February 21, 1795, had pronounced an absolute separation of church and state. The government was no more to concern itself with religious matters, whether to support churches or to control beliefs. Under the Directory, however, oaths of loyalty to the republic were required of the clergy, and reli- gious persecution was far from uncommon. In 1799 Napo- leon found the French Church in chaos and the ecclesiasti- cal difficulties among the most serious which had to be faced. Napoleon was himself a deist, but he well understood the conserving influence of Catholic Christianity, and from the outset he made it a part of his policy to win the support of the clergy and of the papacy. Church officials who had been banished were recalled, others who had been imprisoned were released, the observance of Sunday was restored, and, finally, in September, 1801, there was concluded with the pope a formal treaty, the Concordat, in which the precise status of the Church in France was carefully denned. The terms of the Concordat were distinctly the product of compromise. The demand of the papacy for the reestablishment of the tithe, the restoration to the clergy of the lands of which they had been deprived since 1789, and the retention by the clergy of the offices at present possessed was flatly refused. But Roman Catholicism was declared to be, if not the "state religion," at least the religion of the great majority of French people ; and it was stipulated that the pope and the govern- ment should redivide France into bishoprics ; that the bishop should be appointed by the head of the state and confirmed by the pope, and the priests should be placed in charge of the various parishes by the bishops; that bishops and priests should take oath to support the government; that, in lieu of tithes and lands, the clergy should be supported by subsidies accorded by the state; and that no papal bull or NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME 55 decree might be published in France without the govern- ment's permission. The relation between the Church and the state was thus made very close — closer than modern Frenchmen have been willing to allow it to continue. But from the arrangement both church and state, through a con- siderable period, profited enormously, and to Napoleon must at least be allowed credit for bringing to an end one of the most distressing chapters in French ecclesiastical history. The ultimate importance of the Revolutionary and Napo- leonic era arises scarcely less from the changes which that eventful epoch brought beyond the French borders than from the reconstruction which it witnessed in the society of France itself. Aside from the arousing of discussion and the starting of fresh trains of thought, the Revolution proper during its years of progress in France (1789-94) can hardly be said to have been carried over into any non-French portion of Europe, save to some extent into the Austrian Netherlands. For the time the efforts of the enthusiasts at Paris to insti- gate the peoples of Spain, of Italy, of Austria, and of Prussia to overturn their absolutist governments and to set up a new order of freedom and equality were futile. In England a movement in behalf of governmental liberalization, which was already under way in 1789, was first stimulated, but later checked, by the events which took place on the opposite side of the Channel. In Germany the French uprising was hailed with delight by many of the leading minds of the day — by von Humboldt, by Klopstock, by Herder, by Richter, by Hegel, by Kant, by Fichte, though not by Goethe, Schiller, or the publicist von Gentz. But only in the Rhenish dis- tricts did it inspire popular agitation or produce results in any- wise tangible. In the dominions of the Hapsburgs there was some unrest, but no uprising. The early stages of the French movement were welcomed by the more enlightened men of Italy, but not until after the invasion of 1796-97 did the liberal spirit lay hold upon any considerable portion of the 56 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE masses of the Italian people. In Spain and Portugal the num- ber influenced by French ideas was insignificant. Prior to Napoleon's accession to power in 1799, however, three portions of Europe outside of France had undergone, at the hands of French conquerors, distinctly important change. The provinces comprising the Austrian Netherlands (the Belgium of later days) were overrun by a French army as early as 1793, and by decree of October 1, 1795, they were incorporated in the French Republic. During the winter of 1794-95 Holland was similarly overrun, although annexa- tion to France was postponed until 1806, and during the inter- vening decade the Dutch provinces were organized as the Batavian Republic. In both Belgium and Holland French dominance meant the assimilation of social and political institutions to those which represented the product of the Revolution in France. In 1798 the Directory took it upon itself to revolutionize Switzerland, in the majority of whose thirteen cantons large elements of medievalism yet survived. The loosely organized confederation was converted into a centralized republic, tributary to France, under a constitu- tion which was virtually a reproduction of the French in- strument of 1795. Privileges were abolished, feudal burdens were swept away, and, although the intervention, and still more the subsequent policy of the French, was without justification, there resulted a certain liberalizing of institu- tions which proved permanent. The changes wrought throughout western Europe during the years of Napoleon's dominance were of fundamental importance. In part they related to the international situa- tion, in part to the framework and policies of governments, and in part to the social and economic condition of various peoples. Many of the innovations which were made did not achieve permanence, but others proved not only lasting but of the utmost consequence in the shaping of the Europe of the present day. Outside of France, no portion of Europe NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME 57 was more profoundly affected by the developments of the Napoleonic period than was Germany. The transformations wrought to the east of the Rhine between 1801 and 18 14 were threefold. In the first place, after more than a thousand years of existence, the Holy Roman Empire was, in 1806, brought to an end and Germany was left — until the forma- tion of the German Confederation of 18 15 under the auspices of the Congress of Vienna — without even the semblance of national unity. In the second place, there was within the period a thoroughgoing readjustment of the political struc- ture of the German world, the outcome of which was the reduction of the number of German states from above three hundred to thirty-eight. Finally, in several of the states the overturn occasioned by the Napoleonic domination prompted heroic attempts at reform, with the consequence of a revolutionizing modernization of social and economic conditions comparable with that which within the genera- tion had been effected in France. The most notable transformation was that which took place in the kingdom of Prussia. During the eighteenth century Prussia had been made, by the thrifty policies of Frederick William I. and by the wars and statecraft of Frederick the Great, one of the principal powers of Europe. Not only, however, was the governmental system of the kingdom an autocracy; the state of society was antiquated and that of industry hopelessly illiberal. Serfdom was so widely prevalent that upwards of two-thirds of the popula- tion was to some extent unfree. The law recognized three classes of men — peasants, citizens, and nobles — and made it substantially impossible for an individual to pass from one class into another. The system of land tenure was regulated rigidly with reference to this social hierarchy, and the transfer of land from members of one class to those of another could be legalized only by special dispensation of the crown. The noble was forbidden to take up an occupation recognized by 58 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE law to be vested in the citizen class, and the citizen might not perform any work performed ordinarily by the peasantry. Social status, landholding, occupations, were held fast in a mesh of feudal law and custom. The dominion of Napoleon in southern and western Ger- many was borne apathetically through a number of years, but the insolent conduct of the conqueror served gradually to arouse that patriotic feeling which eventually was to make possible the expulsion of the foreigner from German soil and the building of a united German nation. By the defeat near Jena (October 14, 1806), and by the treaty of Tilsit (June 25, 1807), in which the Tsar consented to the dismem- berment of Prussia, the Prussian nation was plunged in the depths of humiliation. Out of despair, however, arose hope and a determination to redeem the kingdom from its disas- ters by an overhauling of its social and economic condition. The first step was taken, under the immediate direction of Stein, by the issue of the memorable Edict of Emancipation of October 9, 1807. l The object of this measure was declared to be the removal of every obstacle that hitherto had pre- vented the individual from attaining such a measure of pros- perity as he was capable of realizing. The principal changes introduced may be summarized as follows: (1) new relations of serfdom might no longer be entered into, and on and after October 8, 18 10, serfdom throughout all portions of the realm was entirely abolished; (2) all restrictions upon landhold- ing and upon the buying, leasing, and selling of land were rescinded; (3) to nobles it was permitted to engage in citi- zen occupations, and to citizens to perform peasant labor ; and (4) the caste system was so far abolished that peasants were to be permitted to rise to the citizen, or even to the noble, 1 It should be noted that while Stein bore official responsibility for the meas- ure, the substance of the reforms proposed had been agreed upon by the king, Frederick William, and his enlightened advisers before Stein's accession to office (October 4, 1807). NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME 59 class. By a drastic decree of September 14, 181 1, carried by Stein's successor, Hardenberg, but initiated by the king, farmers and peasants on feudal lands were given complete possession of their farms or holdings on condition only that the lord should receive one-third of the land in lieu of his former agrarian rights and claims to personal service. Thus was accomplished in Prussia at the instigation, not of a rebellious peasantry, but of the authorities of state, that same general transition from dependent tenure to free- hold which in France had comprised one of the principal practical consequences of the Revolution. The radical changes introduced by these measures, to- gether with the rapidly reviving spirit of the nation, prompted important reforms in other directions. Beginning even be- fore the appointment in 1809 of Wilhelm von Humboldt to the Ministry of Public Instruction, the educational system of the kingdom was regenerated and extended and a new spirit of thoroughness of work was inculcated. The found- ing, in 1810, of the University of Berlin, and, in 181 1, of that of Breslau, were but phases of the reforms which in this period were undertaken in behalf of public intelligence and training. Closely paralleling the legislation by which the social, economic, and educational life of the kingdom was regenerated was that whereby there was called into exist- ence a military system destined profoundly to influence the fortunes not alone of Prussia but of other European states. The reform of the army, the essence of which was the trans- formation of a body of spiritless soldiery kept in order by fear into "a union of all the moral and physical energies of the nation," was instigated by the king and executed by a commission presided over by Scharnhorst. Finally, the period was in Prussia one of distinct advance in respect to local self-government. Prior to the nineteenth century there had been a tendency to draw the control of local affairs ever more closely into the hands of the central authorities, with 60 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the consequence that the vigorous civic life which once had characterized the German free cities became almost extinct. Under the influence of Stein there was promulgated, Novem- ber 19, 1808, an elaborate decree whereby, while the state was yet to maintain a general supervision of municipal affairs, large powers were intrusted to the burghers and the rights of lords of manors over towns and over villages of more than eight hundred inhabitants were terminated. By this decree was laid the foundation of modern local self-government in Prussia, and although Stein was unable to carry into execu- tion his plan to extend to the country districts the principles which had been applied to the towns, the importance of what was done can hardly be exaggerated. In Prussia the liberalizing changes that have been men- tioned were introduced, of course, not by Napoleon, but by the Prussian authorities; although but for the defeats visited upon the Prussians by Napoleon, and but for the conqueror's clearly understood purpose to compass the utter ruin of the kingdom, much of what was done could not have been done. In numerous other portions of Europe, however, important transformations were accomplished immediately under Napoleon's guiding hand. This was true in the Ger- man territories erected into the kingdom of Westphalia and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, in Italy, in Spain, in Switzer- land, and in Holland. On the side of political arrangements these transformations were, in most instances, not enduring. Accomplished by force, they came to an end with the down- fall of their author. On the side of legal, social, and economic affairs, however, the changes wrought were in several coun- tries in an appreciable degree permanent. Especially were they so in the Low Countries, in southern Germany, and in Switzerland. These changes consisted, broadly, in the ex- tension of institutions and of principles which were prevalent at the day in France : the law codes, jury trial, civil equality, state control of the clergy, practical education, centraliza- NAPOLEON AND THE NEW REGIME 6 1 tion of governing agencies, and liberal provision for public works. When, near the close of 1808, he invaded Spain and occupied Madrid, Napoleon issued a decree by which all feudal rights and manorial obligations were swept away, the tribunal of the Inquisition was abolished, the number of monasteries and convents was reduced by two-thirds, renun- ciation of monastic vows was authorized, and the interior customs lines by which the freedom of trade had been ham- pered were suppressed. This is but an illustration of the kind of thing that the spread of the Napoleonic dominion involved. Neither in Spain nor elsewhere were all the projects of reform which were undertaken carried to completion, but even where specific changes fell short, or were undone, the experience which men derived from the efforts that were made proved often of the greatest value. No country that had been touched by French influence became ever again quite what it had been before. CHAPTER VI THE TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE During the later eighteenth century and the earlier nine- teenth England underwent a social and economic readjust- ment which in importance is easily comparable with that which took place during the same generations in France, Prussia, and other continental countries. In England, how- ever, the changes which came were not, as were those of the period in France, the product of popular and violent uprising. Nor were they, as in Prussia, the handiwork of a benevolently paternal government. In contrast with the transformations of France, furthermore, they were essentially non-political. The democratization of England, involving principally the extension of the franchise and the reconstitution of the House of Commons, was delayed until the second and third quarters of the nineteenth century. The changes by which the England of 1750 was converted into the England of 1825 were essentially industrial and social. For present purposes they may be grouped with convenience under two heads : (1) the transformation of agriculture, and (2) the revolution in industry. Eventually, as will appear, the progress of political democracy was destined to be profoundly influenced by these changes; but the changes themselves came about by natural economic development, quite apart from political conditions or policies. The two groups that have been men- tioned, the agricultural and the industrial, are intimately related, and neither can be considered wholly apart from the other. None the less, they are sufficiently distinct to enable it to be said that either might well have appeared without the other. 62 TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 63 The phrase "industrial revolution," it must be noted, has a somewhat technical signification, both in England and on the continent. It must not be taken so broadly as to be the equivalent of "economic transformation." The revolu- tion in France in 1789-94, and that in Prussia in 1807-12 consisted largely in changes that were economic in character. The industrial revolution, however, did not take place in France before the second quarter, and in Prussia before the third quarter, of the nineteenth century. Properly consid- ered, the industrial revolution was the transformation which came about in the processes and conditions of manufacture in consequence of the invention of machinery, especially machinery which involved the application of steam-power. Its most notable manifestations were the rise of the factory system and the growth of urban populations. No fixed dates can be assigned for it anywhere, but in England it may be said to have begun shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century and to have been largely completed by 1825. The "agricultural revolution" meant different things in different parts of Europe. What it meant on the continent will ap- pear in a subsequent chapter. What it meant in England was, in brief, the concentration of the ownership and control of land in the hands of a decreasing body of proprietors, the enclosure of the common lands upon the use of which the cottager class had been largely dependent, the reduction of many men to the status of wage-earning agricultural laborers, and the driving of many from agricultural employment alto- gether. It began toward the close of the eighteenth century and had run its course practically by 1845. In order to understand the nature and extent of the changes wrought by the agricultural-industrial revolution it is neces- sary to bear in mind certain facts regarding the economic situ- ation in England before the transformation came about. In the first place, England was still predominantly an agricul- tural country. Not until 1792 did the production of British 64 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE grain fall below the volume of home consumption, so that it began to be necessary for the nation to rely regularly in some degree upon imported foodstuffs. Long past the middle of the eighteenth century the tilling of the soil was the standard occupation of the laboring masses. Cities were few and small, and city life played a minor part in the economy of the nation. In the second place, it is to be noted that the condi- tions of land tenure were still largely mediaeval. In portions of the country where the manorial system had never been established, land was possessed outright by individual pro- prietors, but in more than half of the kingdom at the close of the eighteenth century the forms of tenure were governed by survivals of the manorial regime. Even in communities of this type there were, of course, no serfs, and the numerous and varied mediaeval obligations of tenant to proprietor had long since been replaced by the payment of a money rental. Cultivators held their land by one of several tenures known to lawyers as leasehold, copyhold, or freehold. Freeholders were largely independent, but leaseholders and copyholders, being but tenants, were in no small measure under the proprietor's control. It was the proprietor who owned the land ; the ten- ants were owners only of certain "rights" and "interests" which the proprietor vested in them. On the manors gen- erally the ancient methods of administration — the assign- ment to the tenants of scattered strips of arable ground in unenclosed fields, the non-cultivation of a given field every third year, and the vesting in the cultivators of common rights in the waste-lands and meadows — still prevailed. The third point of importance is the inseparable associa- tion in the eighteenth century of the cultivation of land and the domestic system of industry. The ordinary rural family derived its support at the same time from agriculture and manufacture. The industrial output of England in the earlier eighteenth century was large, but it was the output, not of factories, but of the numerous and widely scattered TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 65 "little industries" of the kingdom. And these little indus- ries were, in the main, not urban, but rural. In the towns the ancient craft-guilds were prone to maintain a policy of exclusion so rigid as to preclude absolutely the growth of large manufacturing populations, even if the necessary con- ditions of large-scale manufacture had been at hand. The monopolies of the guilds were based upon chartered rights and were defensible at law. But in the country districts the guilds possessed no authority, and the result was that many forms of industry which we instinctively associate with the city came to be carried on very commonly by the rural populations who were without the pale of guild regulations. In days when the processes of manufacture involved simple handicraft, not the use of complicated and costly machines, this was perfectly practicable. One of the most widespread forms of domestic industry was the making of woollen cloth. In the manufacture of this commodity virtually every process involved could be, and was, carried on under the roof of the humblest cottager. The head of the household purchased the necessary wool, carded it, spun it, wove it, dyed it, car- ried it to the neighboring fulling-mill, stretched and roush-fin- ished it, and transported the product to the nearest market. Woollen fabrics commanded a ready sale, usually at a good price, and the petty agriculturist who would have found it difficult enough to support his family solely from the product of his bits of ground had in the woollen and other industries a welcome opportunity to supplement his scant means of livelihood. It was possible to utilize in profitable labor inclem- ent days and the winter months, and the women and chil- dren were enabled to assist in the support of the household by participating in work which, as a rule, was neither unhealth- ful nor unpleasant. For the operation of such simple imple- ments as were employed patience rather than skill was the qualification most needful. In his " Tour through Great Britain," written at the end 66 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE of the first quarter of the eighteenth century, Daniel Defoe affords an interesting glimpse of domestic manufacturing as he found it in the region of Halifax, in Yorkshire. "The land," he says, "was divided into small enclosures from two acres to six or seven each, seldom more, every three or four pieces of land having a house belonging to them; hardly a house standing out of speaking distance with another. At every considerable house there was a manufactory. Every clothier keeps one horse at least to carry his manufactures to the market ; and every one generally keeps a cow or two, or more, for his family. By this means the small pieces of enclosed land about each house are occupied, for they scarce sow corn enough to feed their poultry. The houses are full of lusty fellows, some at dye-vat, some at the looms, others dressing the cloths, the women and children carding or spin- ning ; being all employed, from the youngest to the oldest." l It is but fair to observe that the conditions of domestic manufacture varied widely in different regions, and that they were distinctly more favorable in Yorkshire than in southern and southwestern England. Even in the north there was a certain amount of capitalistic control, for the producers were absolutely dependent for a market upon the purchases of large exporting merchants, especially those at Leeds. But in the south the independence of the cottage workman was still less. He, as a rule, did not buy his raw materials; they were but intrusted to him by a "merchant manufacturer," or clothier, to be worked up, and he likewise seldom owned even the tools of his trade. From the capitalist-controlled domes- tic industry of the south the transition to the factory system became, with the introduction of machinery, very natural and easy. Even where the measure of industrial independ- ence was largest, the domestic system operated unques- tionably in the eighteenth century to the deterioration at 1 [Daniel DeFoe.] "A Tour through the Whole Island of Great Britain" By a Gentleman. 4 vols. London, 1724-27. TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 6) some points of the working population. Competition grew keener; wages fell; child labor became more common; workmen were led to dispose of their lands because they had ceased to be able to find time to cultivate them. None the less, it is obvious that the domestic system every- where possessed some real advantages over the factory regime of to-day. An able English writer on industrial subjects has put the matter as follows: "They [the laborers] still lived more or less in the country and were not crowded together in stifling alleys and courts, or long rows of bare, smoke- begrimed streets in houses like so many dirty rabbit-hutches. Even if the artisan did live in a town at that time, the town was very different from the abodes of smoke and dirt which now prevail in the manufacturing districts. There were no tall chimneys, belching forth clouds of evil smoke; no huge, hot factories with their hundreds of windows blazing forth a lurid light in the darkness, and rattling with the whir and din of ceaseless machinery by day and night. There were no gigantic blast furnaces rising amid blackened heaps of cinders, or chemical works poisoning the fields and trees for miles around. These were yet to come. The factory and the furnace were almost unknown. Work was carried on by the artisan in his little stone or brick house, with the workshop inside, where the wool for the weft was carded and spun by his wife and daughters, and the cloth was woven by himself and his sons. He had also, in nearly all cases, his plot of land near the house, which provided him both with food and recreation, for he could relieve the monotony of weaving by cultivating his little patch of ground, or feeding his pigs and poultry." 1 All in all, judged by eighteenth century standards, the con- dition of the laboring classes under the domestic system of manu- facture was far from bad. Arthur Young, to whose writings upon the social situation in France reference has been made, tells us that among English workingmen in both country and 1 Gibbins, "Industrial History of England," 148. 68 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE town in the later portion of the century wheat bread had en- tirely displaced rye bread, that the consumption of meat and cheese was larger than at any previous time, and that every family now drank tea, formerly considered a luxury. "In- deed," he says, "the laborers, by their large wages and the cheapness of all necessities, enjoy better dwellings, diet, and apparel in England than the husbandmen or farmers in other countries." " Not only has grain become somewhat cheaper," testifies Adam Smith in his "Wealth of Nations" (1776), "but many <)ther things from which the industrious poor derive an agreeable and wholesome variety of food have be- come a great deal cheaper." When, in 1763, the Seven Years' War was terminated, more than a hundred thousand soldiers were thrown upon the country to find employment and sustenance; yet, as Adam Smith further testifies, social conditions were so favorable that, "not only no great con- vulsion, but no sensible disorder, arose." To judge aright the English revolution in agriculture and industry, it is essential that these favorable aspects of eigh- teenth century society be borne in mind. As has been inti- mated, the tremendous readjustment by which the life of the nation was turned into channels that were altogether new was totally unlike the revolutionizing of France, not only in its methods, but also in the fact that it came in response to no recognized needs or definite desires of the lower social classes. It was not the fruit of a sudden uprising — a strik- ing away of the foundations of an old regime and the instant substitution of a newly devised social structure. And it came in response to a broadening of the social ideal and a quickening of the inventive spirit which manifested them- selves quite as much among the well-to-do and the influential as among the laboring masses. There were not a few re- spects in which the revolution operated disadvantageously for the common man. For a time at least it was not unlikely to throw him out of employment, to drive him to the verge of TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 69 destitution. The revolution was not of his making. It was accomplished over his head, and in no small measure in contravention of his immediate interests and wishes. The twin agencies of the revolution were capitalism and invention. The growth of capitalism in the eighteenth cen- tury is a fundamental economic fact; and not merely the growth of capitalism in itself, but the development of the social and political power of capital. Not until the period mentioned did industrial or commercial achievement begin to be regarded as a legitimate basis of political preferment and of social distinction. During centuries the holding of land had constituted the one dependable means of acquiring a place of influence in English society. The merchant or manufacturer, no matter how clever he might be or how wealthy he might become, was somehow held to be distinctly inferior to the great landed proprietor. To be known as an artisan or a trader, or to have descended immediately from such a person, constituted a social stigma. By the consider- able expansion of English industrialism between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries this exclusive social principle was put sharply to the test, and already by the close of the reign of Queen Anne it was showing signs of giving way. Defoe announced the startling fact that trade was not inconsistent with the estate of a gentleman, and that indeed it might prove the making of him; and Dean Swift testifies that in his day the social prestige which once had attached to land- holding exclusively was fast being transferred to any sort of successful money-making. By sheer force of achievement and social power the capitalist of the eighteenth century forced himself up to the level of the landholder, although he was very likely to seek to clinch his hard-won status by becoming himself a landed proprietor. By the opening of the nine- teenth century the rich mill-owner or iron-master was not infrequently quite as important socially, if not politically, as the great landlord. 70 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE It was with this new capitalist class that the industrial future of England lay. The guilds had served their day, and indeed had far outlived their usefulness. By the last quarter of the eighteenth century they had shrunk up into narrow corporations whose grasp upon industry was fast being relaxed. As yet the independent capitalists were as a rule only small master-manufacturers, giving out pieces of work to be done by their employes in their own homes. These employes were still apt to be small farmers, and it was not unusual for the master-manufacturer also to combine agriculture with industrial enterprise. The day was coming, however, when the workmen would be gathered under a common roof, when the master-manufacturer would assume the position of an industrial magnate, and when industry would be divorced all but completely from country life and agricultural occupation. The formative period of the factory system was the period also in England of the beginnings of the revolutionizing of agriculture. Of the two things each served in part both as cause and as effect. The rise of the factory was facilitated by the dislodgement of large numbers of people who had been accustomed to live by agriculture and domestic manu- facturing conjointly. Conversely, the alteration of agri- cultural economy was stimulated by the drawing off to the towns of the surplus rural population and by the greatly increased demand for foodstuffs for the support of the in- dustrial and trading classes. This relationship must not be over-emphasized, and neither revolution must be under- stood to have been dependent upon the other. But the England of to-day is the product largely of the interaction of the two. The revolution in agriculture worked itself out in a variety of directions, but the principal elements in it were (i) a marked improvement in the technique of husbandry; (2) a greatly increased application of capital to agricultural operations; TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 71 (3) the concentration of land in great estates owned by a small body of aristocratic proprietors and operated under the immediate direction of capitalistic entrepreneurs known techni- cally as "farmers"; and (4) the virtual disappearance of the cottager class by which formerly the tilling of the soil had been carried on in connection with domestic industry. The stimulus came originally from the steady rise after 1760 in the price of agricultural produce, occasioned by the in- crease of population and of wealth derived from manufac- tures and commerce. With the growth, especially after 1775, of the factory system, great industrial centres appeared, whence came ever increasing demand for food, and it was in no small measure to meet this demand that farms, instead of continuing small self-sufficing holdings, were enlarged and converted into manufactories of grain and meat. Within the domain of agriculture, as in that of industry, science and skill were brought to bear, to the end that the product might be greater and the cost of production less. Rational schemes of cropping replaced antiquated ones, the art of cattle- breeding was given fresh attention, and agricultural machin- ery, which called for considerable initial outlays, was widely introduced. The husbandry of the new type involved the employment of capital and the carrying on of farming opera- tions upon a large scale. The average English husbandman of the eighteenth century, however, possessed no capital and had very little land. With the capitalistic agriculturists of the later decades he found it more and more difficult to com- pete, and the consequence was that gradually but inevitably he was forced into an entirely novel economic position. Through the revival of enclosures he lost his rights in the common lands of his parish; the land which he had owned or held individually he was compelled to sell or otherwise alienate ; while he himself either went off to become a work- man in a factory town or sank to the status of a wage-earning agricultural laborer. 72 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Gradually from the readjustment emerged the three great classes of men concerned in the English agriculture of latei times, and of to-day: (i) the landed proprietors, who let out their land in large quantities to farmers in return for as con- siderable a rental as they can obtain ; (2) the farmers, who, possessing no proprietary interest in the soil and no direct community of interest with either landlords or laborers, carry on agricultural operations upon these rented lands as capitalistic, profit-making enterprises; (3) the agricultural laborers who neither own land nor manage it, but simply work under orders for weekly wages, as do the operatives in the factories. It is in consequence of this great transfor- mation that it has been brought about that among western European nations to-day it is Great Britain which has the largest average holding, the smallest proportion of cultiva- tors who own their holdings, and the smallest acreage owned by its cultivators. In 1876 there was published in England a body of land statistics commonly designated the New Domes- day Book. By this return it was shown that the aggregate number of landowners in England (outside London) was 966,175, of which number only 262,886 possessed more than one acre. At the same time France, with a population only a third larger, had some 5,600,000 landed proprietors, and Belgium, with a population of but 7,000,000, had as many as 1,000,000. From the return it further appeared that 28 English dukes held estates aggregating nearly 4,000,000 acres; 33 marquises, 1,500,000 acres; 194 earls, 5,862,000 acres; and 270 viscounts and barons, 3,785,000 acres. Nearly one-half of the enclosed land of England and Wales was owned by 2250 persons; while at the same time nine- tenths of Scotland was owned by 1700, and two-thirds of Ireland by 1942. The divorce of the agricultural laborer from proprietary interest in the soil, which was the outcome of the capitalistic, concentrating transformation of agriculture between 1775 and 1850, is above all other things the distinc- TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 73 tive feature of British agricultural economy in the last two generations. By the break-up of the domestic system of industry, occa- sioned by the development of large-scale manufacturing and of factory methods, the position of the small-farming popula- tion must in any case have been altered profoundly for the worse. The process was vastly accelerated, however, by the widespread revival in the later eighteenth and earlier nine- teenth centuries of the enclosure of common lands. As has been pointed out, the soil of England was cultivated in the eighteenth century largely by copyhold and leasehold vil- lagers, to whom were assigned scattered plots of unfenced ground, together with common rights in the waste-land, woodland, and meadows of the parish. The fundamentals of this system had survived essentially unchanged from the Middle Ages. In the fourteenth century, and again in the days of the early Tudors, there was a pronounced movement in the direction of the enclosure of common lands for private use, mainly for purposes of sheep-raising, but by legislation intended to encourage arable farming, and by the eventual satisfaction of the market for wool, the movement had been held reasonably in check. At the middle of the eighteenth century, however, when three-fifths of the cultivated land of the kingdom was still unenclosed, there set in a fresh enclos- ure movement by which, in the course of a hundred years and less, the status of English agriculture was very distinctly modified. The argument for enclosure, as advanced, for example, by Arthur Young, was principally that the sub- divided and open-field system of cultivation was uneconomi- cal, that it prevented the application of scientific methods and the realizing of full returns from the land, and that the feeding of England's fast-growing industrial population necessitated an improved utilization of the country's agricul- tural resources. The land was everywhere intersected by pathways. Much time must be consumed by the cultivator 74 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE in going back and forth among his scattered holdings. The individual cultivator had small inducement or opportunity to improve his methods of tillage. Neighbors lived in con- stant fear lest their bits of ground should be encroached upon by the unscrupulous. To "enclose" a parish meant to redistribute its open fields, its waste-land, and its meadows among all those who possessed land rights within the parish in such manner that each of these persons should obtain one continuous and enclosed holding which would be equivalent to his former scattered holdings in the open fields plus the rights in meadow and waste appurtenant to these holdings. The processes by which enclosure was effected were various. Where it was possible to secure the unanimous consent of the holders of rights and interests of all kinds within the parish, the change might be carried through by the authorities of the parish them- selves. Unanimous consent, however, was not likely to be ob- tained and in practice the process was pretty certain to involve two stages — first, the procuring of the assent of the posses- sors of four-fifths of the aggregate value of the land involved and, second, the passage of a special act by Parliament authorizing the enclosure and compelling the dissenting mi- nority to acquiesce. As a rule enclosure measures, in which were stipulated the necessary arrangements for surveys, compensation, and redistribution, were actually drawn by the large landholders and other persons of influence in the parishes concerned. In 1801 a statute was enacted to make easier the passage of private bills for enclosure. An act of 1836 went further and made it possible, with the consent of two-thirds of the persons interested, to enclose certain kinds of common lands without specific authorization of Parlia- ment. And a general enclosure act of 1845 created a board of Enclosure Commissioners authorized to decide upon the expediency of projected enclosures and to carry them into execution if approved. TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 75 During the period 1 760-1830 enclosures were especially numerous, and after 1850 little open land remained. 1 The lands enclosed, unlike those enclosed in the fourteenth, hi- teenth, and sixteenth centuries, were intended for cultiva- tion, and care was taken, as a rule, furthermore, that every possessor be compensated, either in land or in money, for all of the common rights of which he was deprived. None the less, the effects of enclosure upon the average small holder were likely to be disadvantageous. Heretofore the tenant had been accustomed to utilize his own allotments of land entirely for the growing of crops. His cow, his donkey, his flock of geese, found such sustenance as they could on the common lands of the parish. Now the common lands dis- appeared and the cottager must not only grow foodstuffs for his family upon his bit of ground, but must also provide upon it pasturage and meadow for his live stock. To share in the use of an open common might be, and generally was, more desirable than to occupy exclusively a petty enclosed holding. Not infrequently the compensation which the individual cottager obtained for the common rights which he yielded, took the form of money. Such sums, however, were easily expended, and the cottager was apt to find him- self without anything to show for the valuable rights which once he had possessed. To his difficulties was added the fact 1 The number of enclosure acts passed by Parliament between 1700 and 1850 and the approximate area of the lands enclosed were as follows : No. of enclosure acta Acres enclosed 1700-59 244 337,877 1760-69 385 704,550 1770-79 660 1,207,800 1780-89 246 450,180 1790-99 469 858,270 1800-09 847 1,550,010 1810-19 853 1,560,990 1820-29 205 375.150 1830-39 136 248,880 1840-40 66 394,747 76 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE that the application of capital to agriculture on the part oi the large landholders, and the introduction of methods of cultivation which were for him impracticable, placed him at a distinct disadvantage in the growing of marketable produce. At the same time, the ruin of the domestic system of indus- try deprived him of a supplementary means of livelihood. Against the spread of enclosures there was much protest. The point of view of the small holder is represented in a bit of current doggerel : " The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the commorv ; But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose." Protest, however, was unavailing. With the growth of population, the increase of demand for agricultural products, and the introduction of capitalistic and scientific methods of agriculture, the pressure for the close utilization of the whole of the arable land of the kingdom was irresistible. What happened can be stated briefly. Finding themselves unable, under the changed conditions, to gain a livelihood on their enclosures, the cottagers turned to one or the other of alternative expedients. Great numbers of them, attracted by the new opportunities offered by factory employment, drifted to the towns and became factory wage-earners. Many others remained on the land, but sank to the status of hired laborers. The small-cultivator class to which they had belonged decayed and all but disappeared. As one after another the enclosed holdings were abandoned they were added to other holdings, or, more likely, to the holding of the lord of the old manor, and in this fashion was carried forward the gradual consolidation of the great holdings of our own day. The process was supplemented by the very general purchase by industrial capitalists of lands owned by the smaller freeholders or yeomen. During the Napoleonic wars prices were high and land rose to a value forty times its TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 77 rent. Even under such conditions the new industrial leaders, desirous of acquiring the social and political status still in a measure associated with the ownership of land, were willing to purchase freely. But in the great era of agricultural distress which followed the establishment of peace in 18 15 the desire on the part of the yeomanry to sell became almost universal, and the number of sales rose to astonishing propor- tions. Small freeholders very generally gave way to capital- ist landlords, and by numerous intermarriages between the new capitalist and the old landowning families the consolida- tion of estates was carried still farther. By 1845 the process of concentration may be said to have passed through its most important stages. To understand the full significance of the revolution wrought by this consolidation it is necessary to take into account a fundamental principle of English law by which the system of great estates is bolstered up and a reversion to more numerous and smaller holdings is rendered more than ordinarily difficult. This is the principle of entail, or "land settlement." Throughout the course of English history there has been a pronounced disposition to regard the un- broken transmission of landed estates from generation to generation as an essential guarantee of social stability, and much of the time there have been positive laws rendering such transmission obligatory and irrevocable. Through two centuries prior to 1472 great landowners were forbidden by statute to alienate any portion of their estates or to bar the succession of their nearest heirs. In 1472 a method was de- vised whereby the holder could obtain sufficiently complete power over his land to divide it or sell it, and the great body of smaller freeholders who formed the backbone of the royal- ist cause in the seventeenth century sprang largely from the operation of this device. Not until 1834 was the alienation of estates again forbidden ; but long ere this there grew up a custom whereby the same end was largely attained. This 78 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE custom was the so-called "family settlement," through which the present holder and his heir settle the estate upon the eldest son of the heir, giving the heir himself only a life in- terest when he succeeds. Family interests and sentiments have operated to perpetuate this custom, and at the present day full two-thirds of the great estates of England are held in accordance with the settlement principle. Ownership is vested regularly in a person who stands two generations removed from the present possessor. In this manner the great estates are prevented from being thrown readily upon the market. Failure of heirs is virtually the only contin- gency in which there is any chance of alienation. To indus- trialism and enclosure must, therefore, be added entail as an agency by which the small landholding class in England not merely has been reduced to the most meagre proportions, but has been prevented from being revived. As will appear elsewhere, the situation of England in this respect is totally unlike that of France, Belgium, Denmark, and other con- tinental countries, where holdings of land must be divided among all the children of the owner, and where the obstacles to the acquisition of land in small quantities by any person are kept at a minimum. From the pronounced agricultural depression of the period following the Napoleonic wars England gradually recovered during the decade 1840-50, and during the third quarter of the century landholding interests were distinctly prosper- ous. The scientific and mechanical improvements of earlier decades were widely adopted, and the effect of intensive cultivation was to force the wheat yield per acre to a higher figure than that in any other country of the world save Belgium. Beginning with 1874 and 1875, however, there set in a new era of depression which in a considerable measure has continued to our own day. A parliamentary commission of 1879 reported that the distress of agriculture was attrib- utable in part to bad seasons and the prevalence of the cattle TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 79 plague, but chiefly to the corr petition of foreign-grown grain, made possible by good harvests abroad and by the improve- ment and cheapening of freight transportation from the out- lying portions of the world. The persistence of the depres- sion forced the land question again to the front, and in 1885 the Liberals made land reform an important part of their program. In 1882, 1887, and 1890 allotment acts were passed by Parliament to facilitate the rental of land by the local authorities to persons who should apply for it. The effect of these measures was slight, and in 1890 a parliamen- tary committee, whose chairman was Joseph Chamberlain, brought in a report recommending specific steps for the encouragement of small holdings, as distinguished from mere allotments. In 1892 there was passed a Small Holdings Act whereby the county councils were authorized to borrow money from the Public Works Loan Commission, to buy land, and to let it in parcels not exceeding fifty acres, one- fifth of the purchase money being paid at once and the re- mainder within fifty years, unless the council should decree that one-fourth should remain as a permanent rent due from the land. In 1894 district and parish councils were created, and upon the parish councils was conferred the power to rent land compulsorily for allotment purposes. The act of 1892, from which much was expected, failed to yield results. In- deed, during fifteen years it remained practically inoperative, prior to 1908 only 850 acres having been purchased under it. In 1896, in accordance with the suggestion of a parliamentary commission appointed in 1893, an Agricultural Rates Act relieved the tension somewhat by freeing agricultural land from one-half the current rates, and in 1900 the benefits of the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1897 were extended to agricultural laborers. The most momentous piece of land legislation in Great Britain during recent years is the Small Holdings and Allot- ments Act of 1907, amending the Allotment Acts of 1887 and 80 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE 1890 and the Small Holdings Act of 1892. As denned by this measure, a "small holding" is an agricultural holding which exceeds one acre and either does not exceed 50 acres or, if exceeding 50 acres, is of an annual value not exceeding £50. By the terms of the Act the county councils are authorized (as previously they were not) to acquire land compulsorily for the purpose of establishing small holdings to be let to applicants. After due notification and an inquiry conducted by the Small Holdings Commissioners, the council may take land at the current market price from the large landholders, even contrary to their will. The duty of providing allot- ments remains with the parish councils, though if these bodies fail to act the duty devolves upon the county organizations. The Board of Agriculture, furthermore, is empowered to compel local rural authorities to meet all legitimate demands for holdings. Unlike all earlier measures of the kind, the Act of 1907 has proved productive of important results. Prior to January, 191 1, there had been allotted, or arrangements had been effected for the allotment of, an aggregate of 96,180 acres, providing for over 8000 applicants, aside from 2000 other applicants provided for in the same period by holdings granted by private owners direct, under stimulus imparted by the county councils. 1 It is to be noted, however, that those who obtain holdings become all but universally ten- ants, not owners. Of the total number of applicants referred to, only 2.3 per cent expressed willingness to purchase the land assigned them. The small holder is poor ; such capital as he has he needs to invest in live stock, machinery, and the development of his land ; and from the " misery of mortgage " he instinctively shrinks. Upon the public-owned land his tenancy is secure, and should he be compelled to give up his holding he is certain of fair compensation for improvements into which he has put labor and perhaps money. In view 1 Alden, "Democratic England," 250. TRANSFORMATION OF ENGLISH AGRICULTURE 8 1 of these things it seems not improbable that the Act of 1907 will operate long to increase the amount of land which is purchased and held by the public authorities, rather than to distribute its ownership more generally among individuals. Tenancies of the sort that are being established, however, possess some distinct advantages for the cautious and the inexperienced, and with the further working out of the sys- tem purchases may well become relatively more numerous. Through the establishment of agricultural cooperative societies, and the subsidizing of agricultural education pro- vided for in the Development Act of 1909, conditions requi- site to the rehabilitation of a substantial small farmer class in the United Kingdom seem in a fair way to be supplied. It is easy to cite statistics from which it can be made to appear that the condition of English agriculture is well-nigh hopeless. Between 185 1 and 1901 the total number of per- sons engaged in agricultural operations in the United King- dom fell from 3,453,500 to 2,262,600. Between 1881 and 1910 the quantity of cultivated land in England alone was diminished by some 3,000,000 acres. Since 1870 the aggre- gate value of land has declined by £20,000,000 per annum. Still more ominous, perhaps, is the fact that, although the competition of the United States, whose exports of grain are now irregular and uncertain, is being reduced, there remain vast over-sea fields of foodstuffs production, notably Canada, South America, and Australia, whose output of meats and cereals, and even of dairy and garden produce, will continue to afford the British husbandman the severest sort of competi- tion. None the less, the prospect of an agricultural revival, gradual but substantial, is at least promising. If the aristo- cratic monopoly of land still largely persists, the nation has been brought to recognize the seriousness of the situation and to support radical measures looking toward reform. It is a certainty that the owners of land have increased consid- erably in number ; and, as has been pointed out, the Holding 82 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Act of 1907 seems to have inaugurated a new era in land dis- tribution. From the mediaeval peasant cultivating his strips of ground and sharing in the use of the common fields of the manor to the landless laborer of the nineteenth century the transition was slow and painful. From the landless prole- tariat to a nation of small farmers the transition can scarcely be expected to be speedier or less arduous. But it is impor- tant to observe that the trend to-day is distinctly in that direction. CHAPTER VII THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND The transformation in English agriculture which took place between 1775 and 1850 was paralleled, and in some measure affected, by fundamental changes within the domain of industry. These changes, as has been explained, consisted broadly in the decay of the domestic system of manufactur- ing and the rise of the factory system, involving the concen- tration of industrial operations and a very notable growth of towns. The causes of the revolution in industry, and the reasons why the revolution came first in England rather than on the continent, are numerous, complex, and in a consider- able measure elusive. Three favoring conditions, however, are obvious. The first was the relative abundance in Eng- land of capital and of skilled labor. The second was the extension of the control of domestic industry by merchant- manufacturers, rendering easier the transition to the factory. The third was the early and rapid progress of mechanical invention. Upon neither the volume nor the employment of capital in the eighteenth century have we statistics of value for England or for any other country. All known facts, however, indicate that England offered larger opportunities and higher rewards for the accumulation of capital than did any other portion of Europe. Political and religious conditions were more favorable than in France or Germany, and the degree of economic liberty enjoyed was distinctly larger. The supply, too, of skilled or easily trained labor was superior. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries England attracted, especially from the Netherlands and from France, many of 83 84 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the best artisans of Europe (notably those who withdrew from France following the revocation, in 1685, of the Edict of Nantes), and in this manner the industrial energy and in- telligence of the working classes were materially augmented. In the next place, it is to be observed that coordination of industry upon a considerable scale did not originate with the factory system. Even prior to the eighteenth century the advantages of the concentration of labor and of materials under the immediate supervision of an employer or manager did not escape comment, and in some degree the principle had been put in operation in the small metal and other indus- tries. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries the woollen industry, especially in southern England, was brought under the control largely of merchant-manufacturers who owned the raw material, and often the tools of the trade, and who employed combers, weavers, dyers, fullers, and other work- men whose services from time to time were needed. These workmen lived still apart and carried on their labor in their own homes or shops. From this arrangement it was, how- ever, but a step to the gathering of the materials and pro- cesses of manufacture under a single roof and the settlement of the laborers in the immediate vicinity of factory or mill. But factory labor, to be profitable, required the im- provement and increased utilization of machinery; and the third favoring circumstance of the industrial transformation became the early and remarkable development in England of invention. There has been no small amount of specula- tion as to why England should have produced the unrivalled galaxy of inventors — Kay, Hargreaves, Arkwright, Cromp- ton, Cartwright, Radcliffe, Horrocks, Newcomen, Watt, Cort, and a host of others — by whom in the eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries the industrial leadership of the king- dom was so firmly established. It was not because the need of improved mechanical appliances was more keenly felt than in France, Germany, Switzerland, and other countries. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 85 It was not because England was a leader in pure science. It seems to have been primarily because of two things, — first the fact that the need was as keenly felt as elsewhere, and second the pronounced tendency of English genius, at any rate in the period mentioned, in the direction of practical, applied science, rather than in that of pure science. While continental savants prosecuted their researches in light, electricity, and chemical reactions, Englishmen of scientific interests busied themselves with the application of knowledge already avail- able. With but an exception or two, the English inventors were men of very ordinary education, and several of them were but tinkers and jacks-of -all-trades. Through an infinite amount of patient experimentation they contrived to bring to bear upon the problems of everyday industry the discover- ies of their more brilliant continental contemporaries. Watt, for example, made practical use of the expansive power of heat, and the result was the steam-engine ; but the idea that such a thing could be done seems to have originated with a physicist of Marburg. The steam-engine came in response to a very definite need — the need, that is, of pumps of greater power in mines which were reaching levels where the old hand-power or horse-power pumps could not be made to serve. Here and in scores of other cases the principle that necessity precedes invention was abundantly illustrated, even though continental experience demonstrated that necessity does not always produce invention. The historical importance of the mechanical inventions of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries can hardly be exagger- ated. "They serve," says a recent writer, "to explain the world in which we live, with its busy cities, its gigantic facto- ries filled with complicated machinery, its commerce and vast fortunes, its trade unions and labor parties, its bewildering variety of plans for bettering the lot of the great mass of the people. The story of the substitution for the distaff of the marvellous spinning-machine with its swiftly flying fingers, of 86 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the development of the locomotive and the ocean steamer which bind together the uttermost parts of the earth, of the perfecting press, producing a hundred thousand newspapers an hour, of the marvels of the telegraph and the telephone, — this story of mechanical invention is in no way inferior in fascination and importance to the more familiar history of kings, parliaments, wars, treaties, and constitutions." 1 The long series of inventions by which English industry, and eventually the industry of the world, was transformed had its beginning prior to the middle of the eighteenth century, and, naturally enough, in the staple English industry of modern times, cloth-making. Its effects first assumed im- portance in the manufacture of cottons, and only later in that of woollens. The woollen industry was of much greater an- tiquity than the cotton, and its methods and traditions were more firmly fixed. In the eighteenth century the cotton industry was but beginning to rival the woollen, and it was not until 1802 that the exports of cottons became equal to those of woollens. Under these circumstances it was but natural that innovations should find broadest scope in cotton manufacture. From early times a principal difficulty in the manufacture of cotton, and in a measure also of woollen, cloth was that of preserving some sort of balance between the two fundamen- tal processes of spinning and weaving. Both processes, of course, were carried on by hand ; but of the two, spinning was so much the slower that from five to ten spinners were re- quired to keep one weaver occupied. Under the domestic form of industry the weaving was likely to be done by the head of the household, aided by grown sons or hired work- men, while the women and children, with such outside help as might be obtained, produced as best they could the nec- essary yarn. In 1738 John Kay, of Bury in Lancashire, patented a device known as the "flying shuttle" by means 1 Robinson and Beard, "Development of Modern Europe," II., 31. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 87 of which, regardless of the breadth of the cloth being woven, a weaver was able to propel without assistance the shuttle by which the cotton weft was carried back and forth through the threads composing the linen warp. By this invention the speed and product of the weavers and the spinners was made still more disproportionate. One man could operate a loom that formerly had required the attention of two, and at the same time the machine's productive capacity was doubled. The demand for cotton thread and for yarn outran more than ever the supply, and in 1761 the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts and Manufactures offered two prizes for inventions which would enable the spinning-wheel to produce more than one thread at a time. The desired end was almost immediately attained. In 1764 James Hargreaves, a Lancashire weaver, brought to completion his " spinning- jenny " which carried at first eight threads, then sixteen, then twenty, and within the inventor's own lifetime eighty — a machine, furthermore, which could be operated by a child. The thread spun by the Kay machine, however, was that to be employed in the weft alone. The full results of the improvement could not be realized until the requisite thread for the warp could be similarly increased. This need, too, was promptly supplied. In 1771 Richard Arkwright, a travelling peddler, set up a mill at Cromford, in Derbyshire, in which he brought into use his newly patented "water-frame," a machine which by the peculiar firmness which it imparted to the thread it spun made it possible for the first time to dispense with linen in cotton manufacture and to produce cloth wholly of cotton. Arkwright was in reality no inventor. At the most, he but combined ingen- iously devices appropriated from other people. But the introduction of the water-frame was an event of prime im- portance in the history of textile manufacture, not only because the "water-twist" demonstrated the practicability of all-cotton cloth, but because the cumbrousness of the 88 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE mechanism involved and the necessity of water-power ab- solutely precluded the use of the machine in cottages, and accordingly stimulated powerfully the growth of the factory principle. In 1779 Samuel Crompton, of Lancashire, brought together the best features of the Hargreaves and Arkwright machines in what came to be known commonly as the " mule," or the "mule-jenny," a remarkable mechanism which has been improved until it to-day carries two thousand spindles and calls for so little attention that several machines can be operated by one person. It was by Crompton 's improve- ments that the spinning of very fine and soft cotton thread was first made possible, a consequence of which was the starting in England of the manufacture of muslins. The inventions of Hargreaves, Arkwright, and Crompton im- parted to English textile industries a stimulus that was truly remarkable. Not only was the manufacture of woollens, silks, and linens increased in ease, speed, and amount, but the production of cottons was brought into the forefront of profitable industries. By Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton-gin, in 1792, the American stock of raw material was put in the way of indefinite increase, and thereafter the pro- duction of cotton thread in England was limited only by the demand of the cotton weavers. In point of fact, the improvements that have been men- tioned quite reversed the traditional relations between the spinners and the weavers. It was now the weavers who lagged behind, for in weaving there had been no advance since the introduction of the Kay shuttle. Until near the close of the century the best looms in existence were operated by hand and were of severely limited productive capacity. From 1784 onward a Kentish clergyman, Dr. Edward Cart- wright, the inventor of a machine for wool-combing, gradually worked out the principles of the first power-loom, to be oper- ated by water. In 1791 a Manchester firm contracted to take four hundred of the Cartwright looms. Not much was THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 89 made of the invention, however, until the close of the first decade of the nineteenth century, and in the meantime, while the spinning industry had been taken largely out of the hands of the domestic workmen and concentrated in mills, hand-loom weaving in the homes of the working-men con- tinued much as before. In 1809 Parliament voted Cart- wright a subsidy of £10,000 in recognition of his services to industry. At the hands of Radcliffe, Horrocks, and other inventors the Cartwright loom was so improved that it could produce finer grades of cloth than was originally possible, and by 181 5 the machine was coming into common use and was enabling the weavers in their turn to catch up with the spinners. The delay in the power-loom's adoption is to be explained in part by the lack of speed and other defects of the mechanism itself and in part by the opposition of the weavers as a class, but perhaps principally by the unsatisfactory nature of water-power. By the introduction of steam the last-mentioned difficulty was removed, and after the close of the Napoleonic wars the weaving industry began rapidly to be concentrated in factories, just as had the spin- ning industry a generation earlier. The widespread adop- tion of the steam-power loom was the last blow by which the destruction of the domestic system of industry was largely accomplished. In 1813 there were but 2300 power-looms in operation ; in 1833 there were 100,000. It cannot be too strongly emphasized that the vital ele- ments in the industrialism of the new era were power and combination. Machinery presupposes power and necessi- tates concentration of capital and effort, and a fundamen- tal aspect of the revolutionizing of eighteenth century in- dustry was the introduction of new agencies of power, notably steam, no less than the transferring of labor from the homes of the people to the mill and factory. The steam-engine, than which no mechanical device has wrought greater changes in the economy of the world, is the product of inventions 90 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE covering a long range of time. The expansive power of steam was well enough understood by the ancients, but never until the beginning of the eighteenth century were means devised by which this power could be put to practical use. About 1705 Newcomen introduced the principle of the cyl- inder and piston and produced an engine which was of con- siderable service in pumping. In 1763 James Watt set himself the task of improving Newcomen's engine and of rendering it more widely available for the purposes of manu- facture. In 1768 Watt formed a partnership with a Bir- mingham capitalist, Matthew Bolton, and in 1769 he took out his first patent. By closing both ends of the cyclinder and arranging for the driving of the piston back and forth entirely by steam, by introducing the revolving balls, or "governor," to impart regularity of motion, and by perfect- ing an arrangement of rod and crank permitting the driving of a wheel connected by a belt with the machinery to be run, Watt brought the steam-engine to a form such that it was adaptable for the first time to the operation of spinning machines, power-looms, and other mechanical devices. Steam was first employed to run spinning machines in 1785 at Papplewick, in Nottinghamshire, and by 1800 there were eleven of Watt's engines in use in Birmingham, twenty in Leeds, thirty-two in Manchester, and many in other in- dustrial centres throughout the kingdom. At the same time that machines for the enlargement of the industrial output and for the application of steam-power were being perfected, a revolution was under way in the manufacture of machinery, and likewise in the obtaining of fuel requisite for the carrying on of this, and of every other, kind of large-scale manufacture. Northern and north cen- tral England were underlaid with invaluable deposits of iron ore and coal, but it was not until after 1750 that the proper modes of utilizing these resources came to be at all understood. As late as the date mentioned, the amount of THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 91 pig-iron imported into England was increasing year by year, for the reason, principally, that the English iron-masters were unable to obtain for their furnaces the fuel which they needed. The fuel used was charcoal, and a charcoal furnace yielded but three hundred tons of iron a year. During the course of the seventeenth century effort was made to utilize coal in smelting, but chemical properties which there were no known means of overcoming thwarted all attempts. In 1735 suc- cess was attained in smelting with coke, though the value of the discovery was lessened by the fact that the product did not possess the desired quality of malleability. In 1760 the crude bellows employed to supply the necessary blast was replaced by Smeaton's cyclinder-blowing apparatus, and in 1790 steam was first utilized in this connection as a motor force. By these improvements the output of a furnace was quintupled. At last, in 1784, Cort discovered a process, known as "puddling," by which malleable iron could be made with coal quite as satisfactorily as with charcoal. 1 This discovery, together with the substitution of rollers for the hammer, revolutionized the malleable industry as com- pletely as the use of coke and coal had revolutionized the production of pig-iron. In 1789 Cort's patent was annulled and the puddling process was made available for iron-workers everywhere. Between 1770 and 1790 the price of iron im- ported from Sweden was increased by upwards of a third, by which fact the production of iron in Great Britain was further stimulated. By the close of the century gigantic iron-works were springing up throughout the northern coun- ties, and by 1815 the kingdom, far from importing iron, was exporting 91,000 tons a year. The supply of machinery was limited only by the demand; while for the operating of machinery in factories and mills there were at hand supplies of coal which were seemingly inexhaustible. 1 The essential aspect of the process is the purification of the raw iron through the injection of oxygen. 92 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Thus were brought together, from diverse sources and by men often who, like Cort, derived no pecuniary advantage from their labors and ideas, all of the elements which are necessarily involved in the operation of modern industry : devices for speed and technique of manufacture; materials for the production of the requisite machinery; abundant fuel for the generation of power; and, finally, through the employment of steam, unlimited possibilities for the increase and adaptation of that power. The result was the rise of the factory system. It is true that factories in England far antedate the eighteenth century. The first of which mention is made existed as early as the days of Henry VIII., and one of the interesting, though minor, phases of English economic history is the development of these pre-revolutionary manu- facturing establishments. Not until the later eighteenth century, however (perhaps better, the early nineteenth) , can there be said to have been in England a factory system. "What the great inventions did for the factory," says one writer, "was to change the relation of hand work to mechani- cal assistance. The tool and the machine tool are under the government of the hand. It is the worker who supplies the force and the tool which obeys ; but after the great inventions the position of the worker in the modern factory came to be that of assisting the machine rather than that of supplying the energy to the hand or machine tool. There were factories before the inventions of Watt and Crompton and Cort, but the 'factory system' of the nineteenth century implies spe- cially a subordination of the worker to the machine, which justifies us, if we look at the change over a long period, in speaking of the effect as a revolution." 1 The factory grew up alongside the domestic system of industry, and, in truth, the one never wholly displaced the other. To this day there are communities in England in which the processes of manu- facture are carried on extensively under the forms of the old 1 Macgregor, "The Evolution of Industry," 40. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 93 domestic system. A familiar instance is the manufacture of small articles of hardware in the villages that cluster about Birmingham. The domestic system, however, has quite lost its hold upon the nation, and the emphasis of nineteenth and twentieth century industrialism is distinctly upon the factory. The fundamental feature of the factory system is the bringing together of large numbers of wage-earning workmen in capitalist-owned establishments where more or less costly and elaborate machinery is operated by water or steam power. Why the invention and improvement of spinning and weaving apparatus, for example, should have induced the growth of textile factories requires but a word of explanation. In the first place, the new machines were, as a rule, too expensive to be bought and used by the cottage workman. The old spinning-wheel and hand-loom had been so simple in con- struction, so easily repaired, and so easily obtained that no laborer need be embarrassed by the cost of the tools of his trade. Crompton's "mule" and Cartwright's power-loom, however, were costly, even in their rudimentary forms, and for the first time in English history capital became a requisite in textile manufacture. In the second place, it was all but impossible to operate the new appliances within the home. The machines were large, heavy-running, and built for great output. They called for the application of water-power or, better still, of steam. The former could be had only in cer- tain localities, and the latter entailed the purchase of expen- sive machinery in addition to that employed directly in manu- facture. Where either sort of power was utilized at all, there was certain to be enough of it to run many machines, af- fording employment for numbers of workmen. Such an enlargement of the scale of industry within the home was obviously impracticable. The consequence was that the cot- tager abandoned home manufacture and became an employe in some centralized establishment where bodies of laborers 94 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE worked regular hours under the control of their employers in buildings in which the requisite machinery was set up and the necessary power was provided. The introduction of machinery and of power rendered it a matter of economy, furthermore, to concentrate under a single roof, or at least in a single establishment, the various branches of an industry. In the cotton manufacture, for example, there was no reason why the carders and the spinners, or the spinners and the weavers, should not carry on their respective processes within close reach and by means of a common supply of power. Such, then, were some of the considerations and conditions which underlay the factory regime as it developed, first, in the manufacture of cottons, then in that of woollens and of other textiles, and ultimately in that of metal, wooden, leather, and almost every other kind of goods. "The typical unit of production," says an English writer, "comes to be no longer a single family or group of persons working with a few cheap, simple tools upon small quantities of raw material, but a compact and closely organized mass of labor composed of hundreds or thousands of individuals cooperating with large quantities of expensive and intricate machinery through which passes a continuous and mighty volume of raw material on its way to the consuming public." This new unit is the nineteenth century factory. By the transformation that has been described the social condition of the mass of the English people was profoundly modified. Every device by which a machine was made to do the work of a man, or of a score of men, involved a dis- location of industry and the throwing of numbers of people out of employment. Although there are those who main- tain the contrary, it may be assumed that in the long run the introduction of machinery enlarged the sphere of labor and tended to improve the condition of the laborer. But at the time virtually every invention of importance brought down upon the head of the inventor the maledictions of the laboring THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 95 masses. Hargreaves met with mob violence and was com- pelled to remove to Nottinghamshire in quest of an oppor- tunity to set up in safety his spinning-jenny. In 1779 there was a series of outbreaks in Lancashire in the course of which machines of various sorts were broken in pieces by the angry populace, and scores of similar demonstrations in all portions of the country might be cited. But the trend toward the substitution of machine for hand labor was too strong to be stayed by men who had no resource but violence. Slowly and painfully the laboring population of the kingdom re- signed itself to the inevitable. The most striking aspect of this adaptation was a general shifting of population, first, from the southern to the north- ern counties and, second, from the rural districts to the towns. The migration to the more sparsely populated north began be- fore the revolution was far advanced, and, indeed somewhat independently ; but the stimulus which was responsible for the enormous proportions it assumed was imparted very clearly by the industrial change. It was in the north that there lay those remarkable deposits of coal and iron whose utilization, as has appeared, was essential to large-scale industrial devel- opment ; and by this consideration was determined princi- pally the location of the new factories and mills. From all portions of the country working people flocked to the cities (many of them essentially new foundations) of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Lancashire, and Derbyshire, and these cities, notably Leeds, Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Bir- mingham, Glasgow, and Newcastle, became now the most populous and flourishing, with the exception of London, in all England. In these centres were set up mills about which people who had abandoned their rural homes gathered by hundreds of thousands in quest of work and wages. Cottagers who with their families had been accustomed to eke out by household manufacture a scant living derived from the soil found to their dismay that they were able neither 96 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE to produce goods which would any longer command a market nor to provide themselves with the machinery necessary for the production of such goods. They were, as an American writer has stated it, "devoting themselves to two inferior forms of industry." * In so far as they were handicraftsmen, they were competing with a vastly cheaper and better form of manufacture ; in so far as they were tillers of the soil, they were doing the same thing in the domain of agriculture. Under these circumstances their one resource was to abandon their homes, yield their heritage of economic independence, and become either employes in the new factory towns or non- landholding agricultural laborers. Many did the one thing, many the other. The consequences of the changed conditions of industry were neither immediately nor ultimately altogether whole- some. For one thing, the development of the factory sys- tem produced for the first time in industrial history a thor- oughgoing differentiation of capital and labor. The guilds- man of mediaeval and earlier modern days was at the same time an employer and a laborer. He gave employment to journeymen and apprentices, but he worked along with his employes, and in his interests and daily life he had much in common with them. The same thing was true of the rela- tion existing between the domestic manufacturer and the little group by which he was assisted. Under the factory system, however, the line was sharply drawn between the employer and the employed. The one owned the buildings in which manufacture was carried on and the machinery used; the other merely worked for wages. Under these conditions the interests of the two tended to grow apart, and to become at times irreconcilable. Superabundance of workmen meant inevitably low wages and long hours, and opportunity to rise from the laboring to the employing class was virtually non-existent. 1 Cheyney, "Industrial and Social History of England," 221. THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 97 Another effect of the new system was to throw upon women and children an unprecedented industrial burden. Machines imposed a discount upon muscle and skill. In consequence of the inventions, particularly those applicable to the textile industries, it became possible for women and children to do much of the work that formerly had fallen to men ; and since the labor of women and children could generally be had at less cost than that of men, the tendency was for men in large numbers to be thrown out of employment entirely. It came about that not infrequently the normal relations of the home were reversed, wives and children becoming breadwinners, while grown men vainly sought employment or sank into contented idleness. Under the domestic system, as has appeared, women and children performed no inconsiderable share of the work done in the home, and we are not to sup- pose that the idyllic conditions described by Goldsmith in his lament upon the social transformations of his day x were really very common. None the less, it is incontestable that the entering of the factory meant as a rule no improvement, but distinctly the reverse, for both woman and child. 2 The most lamentable aspect, indeed, of the new regime was the physical and moral disadvantages to which the working classes under it were almost inevitably subjected. During the first half of the nineteenth century conditions of labor and of living became in many parts of England the worst the kingdom had ever known. Men, women, and children were thrown to- gether in great establishments with few facilities for the pres- ervation of health and comfort and none whatever for the 1 In "The Deserted Village," published in 1770. 2 From the point of view of womenkind generally there is, of course, this fact on the other side, namely, that as a result of factory development "thou- sands of women belonging to the more fortunate classes have been relieved of many of the duties which devolved upon the housewife in the eighteenth century when many things were made at home which can now be better and more cheaply produced on a large scale." Robinson and Beard, "Development of Modern Europe," II., 48. H 98 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE exercise of moral control. Not all factory owners were men of an avaricious and morally indifferent character, but the proportion was beyond a doubt larger than it is to-day. Such was the zest attending the operation of the first great factories that small regard was apt to be paid to the welfare of employes. Fifteen, and even eighteen, hours became a not uncommon working-day. Unwholesome as conditions were apt to be in the factory, the state of the working peoples' homes was often worse. Whereas formerly the mass of laborers had lived in humble but not unhealthful country dwellings and had worked largely in family groups, now they were gathered in congested districts in the great mill centres where housing accommodations were much of the time hope- lessly inadequate. As late as the accession of Queen Victoria it appears that not less than one-tenth of the population of the great city of Manchester lived in cellars, which reeked commonly with filth and bred perennial pestilence. Com- pared with the lot of the English factory workman of seventy years ago, that of the American negro slave in the same period was in many respects preferable. The slave had at least an abundance of fresh air, substantial food, and hours for rest and recreation. The factory employe had none of these. Even the forms of slavery did not lack par- allels in the traffic in orphans and pauper children by which the operators contrived, in connivance with the parish authorities, to keep up the supply of cheap labor for their establishments. The unfortunate developments that have been mentioned represent, of course, but one side of the case. It is not to be forgotten that the rise of the factory system contributed enormously to the increase of the national wealth and pro- vided employment, though ill-adjusted, for masses of people who were losing their grip upon the soil. It is a fact, too, that the growth of the northern industrial populations had more to do than any other one thing with the triumph in THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION IN ENGLAND 99 England during the nineteenth century of the essential principles of democratic government. Finally, it is to be observed that the untoward conditions which were fostered by the factory were not allowed to be prolonged indefinitely without the making of determined and at least partially suc- cessful attempt at their remedy. In subsequent chapters some note will be taken of the efforts put forth in this direc- tion through (1) the intervention of the state in the laborer's behalf and (2) the organization of the laboring elements for their own protection. 1 1 Chapters XV and XIX. CHAPTER VIII ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT A principle which was woven deeply into the American national system at its beginning is that of full and free indus- trial opportunity. For an American, therefore, it is difficult to conceive how completely the agriculture, the manufac- tures, and the trade of France, Germany, and other conti- nental European countries were shackled but four or five generations ago by status, by custom, and by contractual arrangements. The guild, the manor, the state, and even the Church, imposed each its peculiar restrictions, and the industrial status and prospect of the individual were deter- mined quite as largely by agencies beyond his power to con- trol as by his own habits of enterprise and thrift. It is only within decades comparatively recent that the mass of men in Europe have acquired substantial freedom of industrial initiative and achievement. If the key-note of the economic history of the United States since 1789 has been expansion, that of the economic development of continental Europe during the same period has been liberation. Speaking broadly, one may say that the first great advance in the direction of libera- tion was accomplished by the Revolution in France in 1789- 94; that a second was realized under Napoleon, though accompanied by a certain amount of retrogression; that the period 1815-45 witnessed small progress, except on the side of industrial technique; but that after 1845-50 the triumph of the liberalizing principle was rapid and thorough- going. The transformations by means of which liberation has been wrought took place within all of the three principal fields of economic activity, — agriculture, manufacturing, and trade; and in any attempt to measure the progress of the 100 ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT ioi average man during the period in hand the nature and extent of the changes in these three fields must continually be taken into account. A few facts may here be set down with respect to each of the three, in the order named. Since 1789 the acreage of land cultivated in most continen- tal countries has been enormously extended and new appli- ances and methods have been introduced, with the result of an increase that is remarkable in the yield both of food- stuffs and of materials for manufacture. Even more impor- tant, however, has been the sweeping readjustment of the position occupied by the tillers of the soil themselves. Eman- cipated from oppressive dues and services to landlord and state, and enabled to acquire land of their own, the rural inhabitants of almost every continental country have been brought up to a status vastly superior to that which their ancestors occupied a century and a half ago. The first na- tion within which the agricultural liberation took place was France. As has been indicated, one of the earliest decisive achievements of the Revolution in France was the abolition of all survivals of feudalism and serfdom; and this reform was accompanied by the conversion of numerous tenants, dependent cultivators, and ordinary laborers into independ- ent, self-sustaining landholders. It used to be supposed that the multiplicity of little proprietorships which lends distinc- tion to France to-day was wholly a consequence of the Revolu- tion. Research has shown that this is not true — that, in fact, the breaking up of the agricultural lands of France into petty holdings was already under way long before 1789. Some students of the subject have gone so far as to maintain, indeed, that the number of landed proprietorships in France was scarcely smaller prior to 1789 than it is to-day. 1 There can be no question, however, that during the Revolution the growth of little holdings was greatly accelerated, notably 1 Notably the Russian scholar Loutchisky. See Johnson, "The Disappear* ance of the Small Landowner," 155. 102 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE through the sale of estates confiscated from the crown, the nobility, and the Church; nor that the general effect of the Revolution was to enhance the agricultural prosperity of France. Between 1789 and 1848 the production of wheat rose from 93,000,000 bushels to 152,000,000; that of potatoes from 5,000,000 bushels to 275,000,000; that of wine from 374,- 000,000 gallons to 924,000,000. In 1865, when the total population was somewhat under 37,000,000, nearly 20,000,000 people lived entirely by agriculture. In 1862 upwards of 57 per cent of all landhol dings did not exceed five hectares (a little less than 12^ acres), and about 87 per cent did not exceed twenty. In proportion of small holdings France was exceeded only by Belgium, whose percentage of pro- prietorships under five hectares was approximately 86. After 1848 the reclaiming of waste land set in upon a large scale, and likewise the introduction of agricultural machinery. An English observer relates that in 1840 it was quite common to see horses used for treading out grain, but an official report of 1862 showed that France then possessed more than 100,000 threshing-machines, nearly 3000 of which were operated by steam. Between 181 8 and 1889 the average yield of wheat per acre was raised from 11 bushels to 17I; between 1825 and 1875 that of barley was increased by 8 bushels, and that of oats by 10. Between 181 2 and 1888 the number of cattle kept was more than doubled. Throughout modern times France has been preeminently an agricultural country, and to this day the nation's enormous wealth is derived principally from the products of the soil rather than from manufactures and trade. Nearly one-half of the population of the republic to-day is employed upon the land, whereas in England and Wales the proportion is but one-tenth. No business has come to be better understood than hus- bandry, and the nation not only is entirely self-supporting in the matter of foodstuffs, such as cereals, meat, and dairy ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 103 produce, but exports these articles heavily to other portions of the world. The great mass of cultivators are proprietors of little estates ranging in area from five to fifty acres. Three million proprietors occupy holdings of less than twenty-five acres apiece. Of waste land very little remains. In considerable portions of Germany agricultural advance in the earlier nineteenth century followed a course roughly analogous to that observed in France, although the remark- able expansion in Germany since 1871 of industry and ot trade has brought that nation into an economic position fundamentally unlike that which France now occupies. At the beginning of the century Germany was even more purely agricultural than was France. In 1804, 73 per cent of the population of Prussia was rural, and throughout Germany as a whole the proportion of the population engaged in agriculture was not less than 80 per cent. The natural resources of the country were then, as they are now, less favorable for agriculture than those of France, and agri- cultural methods were very poorly developed, with the consequence that the product was inferior and agricultural wealth meagre. Advance in technique, even past the middle of the nineteenth century, was distinctly slower than in France, but the changes wrought in the status of the agricultural laborer were in no small measure the same. How the Napoleonic era became in Prussia a period of economic transformation, involving the abolition of serfdom has been related elsewhere. Throughout other portions of Germany serfdom had all but disappeared prior to the close of the eighteenth century, the serfs having obtained their freedom in some instances by purchase, but more frequently through the simple evaporation by imperceptible degrees of the traditional seigneurial rights. In Bavaria the non-existence of serfdom was recognized officially in 1808, and in all of the remaining states the same tiling took place by 1820. In Germany, as in France, the beginnings of petty peasant 104 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE holdings antedate the nineteenth century, but by the rise of the agricultural population from dependency to freedom the tendency toward the multiplication of these holdings was greatly accentuated. Just as in France, however, the small-holding idea did not work out everywhere alike, so that the holdings of the northwest became, on the average, considerably larger than those of the south, so in Germany the principle was very variously applied, and, in truth, in some important portions of the country was not applied at all. In the northeast, beyond the Elbe, the same thing happened that happened in the England of the eighteenth century, namely, the concentration of land in estates even larger than those which had prevailed in earlier days. But in both the northwest and southwest the number of holdings was increased and their average size decreased, the principal difference being that in the north the holdings were as a rule larger than in the south. In the northeast, especially in Mecklenburg and Silesia, such small holders as there were fell pretty generally, by 1850, to the status of landless agri- cultural laborers, and their holdings were absorbed in the large estates, the consequence being that sharp differentia- tion of landlords and rural wage-earners which to the present day has comprised one of the principal problems of the east Prussian provinces. 1 1 The following statistics, drawn from the German industrial census of 1895, illustrate the status of landholding in three typical portions of the Empire at the date mentioned — Pomerania (northeast), Hanover (northwest), and Baden (southwest) : Per Cent of Total Holdings Hectares Pomerania Hanover Baden 2.97 344 15.64 22.82 55-13 6.61 11.83 32.01 42.41 7.14 13.23 29.04 41.18 12.56 3.99 ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 105 Agricultural development in Germany during the course of the nineteenth century was notably inferior to that which took place in France, and the state of German agriculture to-day is by no means wholly satisfactory. Between 18 16 and 1887 the acreage under tillage was increased from 23,- 000,000 to 44,000,000, and in the same period the production of grain was more than doubled. The three decades from 1840 to 1870 were, on the whole, an era of rural prosperity, marked by an increased price of products and a decreased cost of production, arising principally from the introduction of agricultural machinery and of scientific methods of culti- vation. About 1874-75, however, there set in, as at the same time in England, a pronounced agricultural depression, from which there has never as yet been any considerable recovery. The fundamental cause of depression, as also largely in England, was the decline in the price of agricultural products arising from the competition of American grains and meats. Despite tariffs designed to counteract competi- tion, the price of wheat and of rye fell between 1876 and 1898 by 14 per cent and that of barley by n. Other contributing causes, however, have been the scarcity and irregularity of labor, the necessity of paying increased wages, the heavy mortgages which to-day encumber half of the agricultural land of the country, and the unbusinesslike methods which long operated to impede the conduct of agricultural opera- tions. Through the spread of education among the agrarian classes and the establishment of cooperative societies, the state of agriculture is tending somewhat to be improved, but it is still by no means favorable. In 1900 only 47.6 per cent of the area of the country was under cultivation, as compared with upwards of 80 per cent in France. In respect to foodstuffs the nation is not self-sufficing, and there is every reason to suppose that its dependence upon supplies obtained from the outlying world will tend steadily to be increased. Since 1900 the importation of cereals alone 106 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE has averaged from 4,500,000 to 6,000,000 tons a year. In view of the remarkable development to-day of German manufactures and trade, this situation is not so serious as it otherwise would be. But it is a fact of prime importance in the economy both of Germany and of the world at large. Peculiarly unfortunate is the incessant strife which has been engendered between the protection-seeking agrarian inter- ests, represented chiefly by the great proprietors of the east Prussian provinces, and the industrial and popular interests of the nation, to whom tariffs upon foodstuffs mean only increased cost of living and diminished industrial opportunity. A third continental country in which the status of the agricultural classes underwent important change in the nineteenth century is Russia. The population of Russia a hundred years ago consisted, even more largely than it to-day consists, of two classes — the nobility and the peasan- try. A middle class of well-to-do and intelligent bourgeoisie, such as comprises the backbone of many western nations, was virtually non-existent. The nobility in 18 15 numbered some 140,000 families, by whom, together with the crown and royal princes, nine-tenths of the land in the European portion of the Empire was owned. Of the peasantry, the greater part were serfs who lived and labored upon the estates of the royal family and of the nobles. Their condi- tion was at least as unfavorable as was that of the serfs of Prussia prior to 1807, and was distinctly worse than that of such serfs as there were in France in 1789. The number of serfs upon the crown domains alone in 1815 was 16,000,000. Each great estate, as a rule, was divided into two portions, one of which was reserved for the immediate use of the owner, the other being allotted to his serfs. The serfs lived in little village communities, known as mirs, and each village regu- lated the cultivation of the land assigned to its inhabit- ants, paying the proprietor each year a stipulated sum as a collective obligation of the village group. The serfs, of ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 107 course, were but tenants, and their only means of livelihood was such product of their bits of ground as remained after the dues to the landlord had been met. As was true of western serfs, they were subject to the obligation of the corvee, and the amount of time they were bound to give in labor upon the lord's demesne rose to the enormous average of three days a week. The landlord, furthermore, possessed powers of discipline and punishment which, though nominally regulated by law, were in practice absolute. No serf might leave the estate upon which he was born, and when the estate was sold or otherwise alienated, he passed with it to the new proprietor. That the problem created by the unhappy lot of the serfs was one of great seriousness was recognized in high quarters even before the end of the eighteenth century. At the close of the Napoleonic wars, Tsar Alexander I. (1801-1825), as yet inclined to liberal-mindedness, gave the subject much thought and even projected schemes for emancipation. But the magnitude of the task and the sovereign's waver- ing disposition prevented the taking of any positive steps. His successor, Nicholas I. (1825-55), was a reactionary of the most thoroughgoing type, yet even he was frank to admit that serfdom as it existed throughout the Empire was both indefensible and inimical to the national interests. "I do not understand," he at one time declared, "how man came to be a thing, and I can explain the fact only by decep- tion on one side and ignorance on the other. We must make an end to this. It is better we should give up, of our own account, that which otherwise might be wrested from us." But, despite the fact that during the three decades of the reign no fewer than six commissions were appointed to investigate the subject, the influence of the landholding official class was sufficient to dissuade the sovereign from action. The reign of the "Tsar Liberator," Alexander II. (1855- 108 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE 1881), brought results. At the middle of the century the total number of serfs in the Empire was not far short of 40,000,000, divided approximately equally between the estates of the crown and those of the nobility. The libera- tion of the crown serfs was the easier part of the problem. Their position, as a rule, was better already than that of the serfs on the estates of the nobles, and all that was neces- sary was for the crown to grant them personal freedom and to recognize them as owners of the parcels of ground which they had been accustomed to cultivate. In 1859 this change was initiated, and thereafter it progressed until in 1866 the last of the serfs of the crown had been accorded independence. But the purposes of the Tsar extended further than this. In the midst of reforms of the press laws, the judicial system, local government, and education there was promulgated, March 3, 1861, 1 a decree unsurpassed in importance by any liberating measure in the history of modern Europe. The edict accomplished the emancipation of not fewer than 23,000,000 people attached to the estates of the nation's nobility. It did, however, still more. The Tsar understood that provision must be made whereby the personal independence that had been granted might be safeguarded and some real measure of economic independence might be attained. He understood this, indeed, considerably more clearly than a good many people of the day in our own country understood that it was not enough merely to liberate the negro from the ownership of his master. Accordingly there was included in the emancipation edict a carefully considered provision in accordance with which personal freedom might be sup- plemented by the possession of land. The problem was simplified by the fact that almost universally the serfs lived, as has been indicated, in villages, each family having a cottage and a surrounding plot of garden land. The solution hit 1 February 19, according to the Russian calendar. ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 109 upon was that, after a portion of an estate should have been set apart to be retained by the landlord, the peasants should be recognized as personal owners of their houses and garden plots, and the remaining lands surrounding the village should become the collective property of the village, to be divided every three to twelve years by lot among the village inhabitants. Neither the privately nor the collectively owned property was, however, to be bestowed gratis. For everything that was taken from him the landlord was to be compensated. The peasantry, of course, had no means with which to pay, so that there was instituted an arrange- ment whereby the requisite funds were to be supplied by the state and the loan was to be repaid by the peasants in instalments covering a period of forty-nine years. It cannot be said that the settlement thus effected produced results which were altogether happy, or even that, taken all in all, it can be adjudged a success. The moral advantage of the emancipation is beyond question, but the economic gain involved has proved somewhat illusory. The peasant was relieved from obligation to the landlord, but for this was substituted an almost equally galling obliga- tion, through the mir, to the state. Upon the mir was imposed the task of reimbursing the Imperial treasury for funds advanced, and to fulfil the task meant inevitably to regulate closely and to tax unsparingly the economic activ- ities of the villager. Even the newly won freedom of the individual to go where he liked proved unsubstantial, be- cause to prevent the depopulation of heavily indebted mirs, and hence the repudiation of their obligations, it was deemed necessary to restrict the liberty of migration very nearly as rigidly as previously it had been. The peasant became, for all practical purposes, the "serf of the state." By reason of the generosity exhibited by the government toward the great proprietors, the readjustment, curiously enough, left the peasantry with less land than formerly it had been ac- HO SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE customed to receive in allotments from the nobles ; and Math the growth of population and successive re-divisions of the soil it has come about that in our day the peasant has at his disposal, on an average, not more than half as much land as was assigned to him under the old regime. Failure of crops and the prevalence of poverty operated constantly to throw the mirs in arrears, and in 1904 Nicholas II. was obliged to cancel heavy arrearages which, indeed, were certain in any case never to be paid. By the emancipation there was some real gain in personal status, and the scope of local autonomy was considerably broadened; but the land question, far from being settled, was but given a new and in some regards more serious aspect. Not until very recently has substantial effort been made toward an ultimate solution of this problem. In 1909 the Third Duma enacted, at the behest of the government, an agrarian law under whose operation it is intended that the village community as constituted in 1861 shall be broken up and collective ownership of land by the peasantry shall be replaced entirely by individual proprietorship. The consequences of this measure, and even the probability of its execution, cannot as yet be foretold. Within the domain of industry the principal changes wrought in continental countries during the nineteenth century were (1) the abolition, or re-adaptation, of the guild and (2) the growth of the use of machinery and the rise of the factory system. One of the questions that most perplexed the French National Assembly of 1789-91 was that of the disposition of the guilds. There is abundant evidence that the guild system in France had broken down in some measure during the eighteenth century and that guild regulations, even in the capital, were not infrequently evaded. None the less, every important branch of labor was organized and controlled in accordance with the guild principle, and monopoly rather than freedom was the normal ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT m industrial condition. From domestic workmen in the coun- try districts and the suburbs of the towns arose insistent demand that the guild system be abolished absolutely, while from the towns themselves, in which sentiment was inspired by the guildsmen, came vigorous defence of the system. In 1791 the Assembly enacted an important measure in accordance with which every individual was made free to exercise any craft or profession whatsoever, provided only he equip himself with the requisite license or patent of the public authorities and engage to comply with the police regulations, one of which in effect prohibited all combinations of workingmen. The guilds were not thus abolished, but their monopoly of industry was effectually terminated. During the era of Napoleon the industrial freedom conferred by the act of 1791 was infringed at a number of points and, with the ostensible purpose of regulat- ing prices and the quality of goods and of safeguarding in- dustrial peace, the monopolistic guild was in part reestab- lished. To facilitate the control of the press the printing trade was subjected once more to guild restrictions. In 1801 the guild of bakers was revived, and likewise that of butchers. The guild system as a whole, however, never again took root in France, and it was no part of the plan of Napoleon that it should do so. After 181 5 the majority of trades were open to all, though some guilds persisted until well past the middle of the century. The butchers' guild, for example, came to an end only in 1858, the bakers' in 1863, and the printers' in 1870. In Germany the later phases of guild history paralleled with some closeness those that have been described in France. From the fifteenth century onwards there was complaint of the fossilizing tendencies of the guild, but efforts both of the shadowy Imperial power and of the territorial authorities to remedy the evils of the institution proved totally unavailing. The general overturn, however, which came in Prussia at 112 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the close of the first decade of the nineteenth century was made the occasion of breaking the hold which the guild had acquired. Instructions of 1808, an edict of 1810, and a stat- ute of 181 1 introduced in Prussia the essentials of the license system inaugurated in France twenty years before. The guilds were not abolished, but their monopolies and other privileges were swept away, and with them the ultimate reasons for their existence. Many guilds disbanded entirely, though some continued as "free associations." In non- Prussian portions of Germany, alco, as in Italy, Belgium, and other countries which fell under French control, the French system was very generally put in operation. With the collapse of the Napoleonic regime the new industrial order was in part revoked, but almost invariably it left be- hind important traces of the liberation that had taken place, and in some quarters, as in Westphalia, it persisted almost unimpaired. Prussia, after the annexations sanctioned by the Congress of Vienna, found within her borders a multitude of inconsistent systems. Following prolonged deliberation, there was enacted in 1845 an elaborate law designed to retain some of the supposed advantages of the guild system, yet to extend throughout the whole of the kingdom a liberal measure of industrial freedom. A commercial panic of 1846-47, followed by the revolution of 1848, frustrated the successful operation of the law, and a congress of handicraft workmen in 1848 demanded, in part as a check upon the rising factory system, the virtual reestablishment of the ancient guild monopolies. The demand was met by a measure enacted within the same year, by whose terms the industrial liberties conferred by the act of 1845 were sharply curtailed. But for the fact that the new law was very indifferently enforced, the progress of German industry might have been much impeded by the seeming triumph of the reactionary forces. Through- out the German states generally there was little further liberalizing legislation prior to i860. After that date, how- ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 113 ever, the surviving vestiges of the guild regime were fast swept away; and finally, in 1869, an important measure of the North German Federation recognized legally throughout all of the affiliated states a status of industrial liberty which in effect had come already to be very generally existent. The breaking down of the guild system upon the continent was accompanied, and in a measure influenced, by the trans- formation incident to what, in continental countries as in England, is known technically as the industrial revolution. Sooner or later during the course of the nineteenth century, every important continental state was reached and more or less profoundly affected by those industrial changes — the intro- duction of machinery, the decay of the domestic system, the rise of the factory — by which, as has been pointed out, the economic complexion of England between 1760 and 1825 was reconstituted. It will be sufficient here to allude briefly to the changes that came in three countries typical of the various parts of the European world — France, Germany, and Russia. The first, in point of time, to be affected, was France. De- spite the fact that the commerce of France increased more rapidly during the eighteenth century than did that of Eng- land and at the close of the century surpassed that of England in volume, France not only failed to achieve in the eighteenth century that revolutionizing of manufactures which lent distinction to England, but did not experience even the beginnings of the transformation until the following century was somewhat advanced. The advantage in respect to available capital, skilled labor, fuel supply, legal freedom, and stability of political conditions lay wholly with England. The first cotton mill, it is true, was set up in France in 1785, and during the Consulate and the Empire persistent attempt was made to extend the utilization of spinning and weaving machinery ; but much the larger portion of textile manufac- turing prior to 1825 was carried on under the ancient handi- craft, domestic system. In 1834 there were only 5000 me- 114 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE chanical looms in all France. But thereafter advance was rapid, and in 1846 the number was 31,000. Similarly, in the metal industries there was some attempt at modernization in the days of Napoleon, but the first rolled iron plates were not produced in France until 1819, and it was only after 1830 that coke-smelting, puddling, and other improvements in iron manufacture were widely introduced. In 1830 there were in the country 29 blast furnaces employing coke and 379 employing charcoal. Not until 1864 did the number of coke furnaces (220) surpass that of charcoal (210). In 1 8 10 there were in France only some fifteen or sixteen steam- engines, all employed in pumping. In 1830 there were 625 ; in 1839, 2 45°> m J 85o, 5322; in i860, 14,513. The general application of steam-power came first in mining and in metal works, and only very slowly in the manufacture of textiles. Against the introduction of machinery substantially the same sort of protest was made that had been voiced in England, but with scarcely more effect. After 1825-30 the transition set in upon an extended scale, and if the French industrial revolution can be dated from any fairly specific point, the years mentioned would probably be as serviceable as any that could be indicated. An important factor in the ushering in of the new era was the removal, in 1825, of the prohibition upon the export of machinery from England, with the result that French manufacturers after that date were able more readily to obtain mechanical appliances from England and to copy them for their own use. French industry tended always, and does to-day, toward the production of articles of luxury, rather than of cheap and convenient articles for mass consumption, but the results of the revolution — the depression of handicraft industry, the lowering of wages, the cheapening of manufactured commodi- ties, the differentiation of capital and labor, and the instiga- tion of organization on the part of the laboring classes — ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 115 followed substantially the lines already marked out in Eng< land. Since the establishment of the Third Republic, in 1870, the advance of industry has been enormous. In the year men- tioned the aggregate produce of French industries, including those of Alsace-Lorraine, was 5,000,000,000 francs; in 1897, exclusive of the industries of Alsace, it was 15,000,000,000. In textile manufacturing the power-loom has replaced entirely the hand-loom (save in the weaving of samples or of very small orders), and the power employed is not infrequently electricity. Between 1890 and 1902 alone the number of horse-power employed in the textile industries rose from 172,999 to 434,529. In 1870 the quantity of coal mined was 13,000,000 tons; in 1905 it was 38,000,000. Between 1891 and 1906 the number of steam-engines employed rose from 26,000, with 316,000 horse-power, to 79,000 with 2,232,000 horse-power. During the same years the production of iron was increased by 71 per cent in quantity and 73 per cent in value. In 1870 the number of patents granted to inventors was 2,782; in 1905 it was 12,953. An important factor in the industrial progress of France, as in that of all other countries, has been the development of the railroad. The first French railway of consequence was an English-built line from Paris to Rouen, opened for traffic in 1843. Already, in 1842, there had been projected a scheme of railroad construction, the principal feature of which was a series of nine trunk-lines radiating from the capital to the borders of the country, and in a considerable measure this plan was subsequently carried into effect. After 1850 construction proceeded with fair rapidity. With the aid of subventions and profit guarantees from the state, roads were built as a rule by private corporations, although it became necessary for the state to take over sooner or later a large body of lines. By 1885 the total mileage of the country was 18,650; in 1904 it was 24,755. Within recent Il6 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE years a definite program has been adopted in accordance with which all of the great privately owned and managed systems will be acquired eventually by the state. The most notable step taken recently in this direction has been the acquisition, under law of July 13, 1908, of the 3690 miles of tine belonging to the great Western Company. In Germany the revolution in industry came approximately two decades later than in France; in other words, it began about 1845-50. Its lateness is to be explained in part by the innate conservatism of the mass of the German people, but principally by the lack of markets for German-made goods. Want of colonies and inferiority in shipping facilities kept Germany long in a position utterly different from that occupied by Great Britain, and even that occupied by France. In the textile industry the transition from domestic to factory spinning and weaving was very slow. As late as 1846 there were in all Prussia only 136 cotton mills, the crude machinery in which was operated very rarely by steam, generally by horse or water power, and not infrequently by hand. Improvements which in England were common in 1830 were but being introduced in Germany in i860. In the iron industry coke-smelting was barely begun prior to 1840, and in 1846, of the more than 300 furnaces in Upper Silesia, in only nine was coke employed. In 1850 the con- sumption of pig-iron was but 10.6 kilograms per capita of population, as compared with 85 in England and 30 in the United States. The great era of industrial advance was inaugurated only after the creation, in 1871, of the present Empire. At the same time, it is to be observed that the foundations of the new order were laid with security during the quarter-century following the revolution of 1848. Eng- lish machinery was at this time imported, and in some in- stances improved upon, while English factory workers were attracted by high wages to Silesia, Saxony, and other manu- facturing districts, where they taught the German workman ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 117 how to compete successfully with the English and the French. Especially important was the rise in this period of the capi- talistic system of production, made possible by the extension of market areas through the breaking down of tariff walls and the development of railways. A single significant fact which may be cited is the increase in the annual consumption of raw cotton from 18,500,000 pounds in 1836-40 to 97,565,- 100 in 1861-65. The progress of German industry since 187 1 is one of the principal economic phenomena of modern times. Its initial impetus arose from the final unification of the German people in the Empire, rendering possible for the first time in Ger- man history the inauguration of a vast, coordinated, national industrial policy. The enormous indemnity, 5,000,000,000 francs, received from France supplied ready capital for indus- trial expansion, and the highly developed industries of the conquered provinces of Alsace-Lorraine both added to the new Empire's productivity and served as a spur to kindred enterprise within the older German territories. The peculiar shrewdness and adaptability displayed nowadays by the German manufacturer began to tell in the competition for markets, and the entering of the Empire, during the eighties, upon her role of colonizer and world-power had a further stimulating effect. The remarkable outburst of industrial enterprise by which the war with France was followed cul- minated in 1874 in a gigantic crash, and from 1874 to about 1890 the nation was occupied chiefly in recovering equilib- rium and in building more solidly the foundations of its changed economic existence. After 1890, however, expansion of industry set in once more upon an enormous scale, and with the final triumph of capitalism and of concentration in manufacturing and trade the old Agrar-Staat, as the Germans call it, was converted definitely into the Industrie-Staat of the present day. Be- tween 1887-89 and 1889-1900 the average yearly con- Il8 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE sumption of raw cotton was increased from 410,000,000 pounds to 626,000,000; and in value of cottons produced, the nation already in 1895 was surpassed only by the United Kingdom and the United States, and in that of woollens by the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. Between 1890 and 1903 the production of pig-iron was in- creased from 4,626,000 tons to 10,000,018, which amount — as also the production in 1903 of 6,646,869 tons of steel — was surpassed by the production of the United States only. Between 1890 and 1902 the yearly output of the mining in- dustries of the Empire (in which one-fifth of the industrial population is employed) was increased from 104,000,000 tons to 174,000,000, and the value of this output from 725,000,000 marks to 1,235,000,000. Between 1890 and 1900 the number of establishments manufacturing electrical machinery was increased from 189 to 580, and the value of the output from 76,800,000 marks to 368,000,000. Similarly imposing statis- tics could be cited for the chemical industry, in which Ger- many easily leads the world, and for a long list of other branches of industrial enterprise. In no country has the advance of industry been affected more profoundly by the development of transportation than in Germany. German railway construction began with the building of a line four miles in length from Nuremberg to Fiirth in 1835, followed by the opening of a line between Leipsic and Dresden in 1839. The growth of mileage was thereafter fairly rapid, and by the middle of the century an aggregate of 3633 miles had been constructed. In many of the states, especially in the south, railway building was re- garded as exclusively a public function, and such roads as were constructed were from the beginning the property of the state. In Prussia lines were built both by the state and by private capitalists, but after 1848 state control was grad- ually extended, and after 1881 all remaining privately owned roads were brought under government control. Through- ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 119 out the Empire as a whole there were in use in 1906 34,470 miles of railway. Of this number, only 2579 were privately owned; and some 150 miles of this quota were publicly operated. The railway system of Germany is to-day one of the best in the world and, supplemented as it is by an elaborately developed and state-controlled system of internal waterways, and by a transoceanic shipping closely rivalling that of Great Britain, it affords the industry of the nation every possible facility for the attainment of market outlets. The effects of the past four decades of industrial change upon population, occupation, and wealth in Germany can hardly be exaggerated. The aggregate population of the Em- pire in 1871 was 41,058,792. In 1905 it was 60,641,278, and to-day it is not far from 64,000,000. In 1871 there were only eight cities having a population of more than 100,000, and only 36.1 per cent of the people lived in urban centres of 2000 inhabitants ; in 1905 there were forty-one cities of more than 100,000, and by 1900 the percentage of urban popula- tion had risen to 54.3. The occupations census of 1907 showed that the percentage of the population engaged in agricultural pursuits, which fell from 42.5 in 1882 to 35.7 in 1895, stood at 28.6, giving the industrial and commercial classes a pre- ponderance of almost three to one. Between 187 1 and the present day both exports and imports have been tripled. Recent estimates place the wealth of the Empire at the stupendous figure of 350,000,000,000 marks. In Russia there has taken place during the past generation a revolutionizing of industrial conditions comparable in kind, if not yet in degree, with that which has been noted in Eng- land, France, and Germany. It is interesting to observe that Russia has had factories since the era of Peter the Great, and that as early as 1765 there were in the Empire no fewer than 262 such establishments, employing 37,862 laborers. Some were maintained directly by the state, others by the nobles, and their output consisted principally in sail-cloth, 120 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE linen, silks, arms, and ammunition. Work, however, was generally unskilled, unwilling, and unproductive. It was not until after the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 that, by reason of the substitution of voluntary wage-earning labor for compulsory labor, conditions became at all favorable for the advancement of industrial technique. By this same event many noble proprietors were both freed from galling obligations to the state and supplied with ready capital, and the consequence was that many of them became leaders in large-scale industrial enterprises. Through the maintenance of a rigid tariff system the manufactures of the country were afforded protection against outside competition, and gradu- ally there was introduced the use of the various sorts of machinery by which the industrial life of western states had been transformed. The era of great industrial advance began with the appoint- ment of Count Witte in 1891 to the ministry of finance and commerce. Witte's policy, based upon the doctrine that agriculture alone cannot make a nation strong, embraced the persistent encouragement of the investment of foreign capital in Russia, to the end that railways might be built, factories established, mines developed, and the nation made so far as possible independent economically of the remainder of the world. The policy met with no small amount of oppo- sition, but it was so far carried out as to be productive of remarkable results. Railway building, first undertaken with earnestness in Russia following the misfortunes of the Crimean War, was prosecuted with vigor, culminating in 1900 in the opening of the great Trans-Siberian highway from St. Petersburg to the Pacific. Between 18S5 and 1905 the railway mileage of the Empire was raised from 16,155 to 40,500. Between 1887 and 1897 the output of textiles, of mineral and metallic products, and of chemicals, paper, and a variety of other commodities was doubled. The number of people employed in these manufactures was increased from ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 121 1,318,048 to 2,098,262. In 1904 it was estimated that there were in operation in the cotton industry 6,500,000 spindles and 200,000 looms ; in the woollen industry, 700,000 spindles and 45,000 looms ; in the linen industry, 300,000 spindles and 15,000 looms. In 1898 Russia passed France into fourth place among the nations of the world in the production of pig-iron. Throughout the European portions of the Empire the factory system is thoroughly established, and there are employed to-day in factories of all kinds a total of 3,000,000 to 4,000,000 laborers. On the other hand, the domestic system of manufacturing persists, and is likely long to persist, on a very extended scale. The holdings of the peasantry have come to be so minutely subdivided that their yield is frequently too meagre for the independent support of a household. The consequence is that the peasant is driven to eke out his family's sustenance from agriculture by the income of industrial pursuits engaged in during the winter months. In thousands of communities the villagers have entered into cooperative associations for the production of every sort of commodity for the manufac- ture of which the requisite raw or partly manufactured material can be procured. The number of peasants engaged in these kustari, or cottage industries, in 1904 was estimated at between 7,000,000 and 8,000,000. The trades carried on include every kind of spinning and weaving, metal work, and the production of articles fashioned from wood, bone, leather, and fur. Sometimes the cottage industry is subsidiary to a factory, but more frequently it is entirely independent. Within the domain of trade, as within that of agriculture and that of manufacturing, there has taken place in the past century and a quarter a notable liberation, although the changes wrought have been less decisive and less enduring than those that have been carried into effect in the other spheres mentioned. One may say, perhaps, that the general trend of the past four or five generations in respect to liberty 122 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE of trade has been away from a system of rigid tariff restric- tion toward a free-trade regime, followed by a protectionist reaction which, however, may or may not prove permanent. During the earlier part of the nineteenth century protective tariffs were all but universal, and not until the century was well advanced were important steps taken anywhere in the direction of trade liberation. In England there set in after 1830 a free- trade movement, led by Richard Cobden and John Bright, which had as its immediate objective the repeal of the Corn Laws, but whose ultimate aim was the overthrow of the protectionist regime in all of its phases. In 1842 the first triumph was won with the repeal of all remaining duties upon exports and the re- duction of import duties upon no fewer than 750 articles of consumption. In 1846 the Corn Laws were repealed, and in 1853 Gladstone succeeded in having the duties removed from 123 commodities and reduced on 133 others. In i860 Cobden procured a treaty with France in accordance with which that nation undertook to reduce her duties upon all articles of British manufacture, in return for the reduction of British duties on French wines and spirits. Under the direction of Gladstone, however, the scheme in so far as Great Britain was concerned, was materially broadened. Whereas the treaty committed the nation to reduced tariffs upon French goods only, the reduction was made universal, and what had been a specific measure of reciprocity was con- verted into a general measure of free trade. After i860 there remained in England but forty-eight commodities which were subject to any sort of tariff duties at all. This number was reduced subsequently, and while Great Britain maintains to this day a tariff system, it is of very limited scope and is kept up for revenue purposes solely. The principal articles upon which duties are at present collected are tobacco, tea, spirits, wine, and sugar. The "tariff reform," i.e., protec- tionist, campaign inaugurated by Joseph Chamberlain in ECONOMIC CHANGES ON THE CONTINENT 123 1903 has placed the British free trade system on the defensive, but it has not as yet wrought any change in the economic practice of the nation. In France a protectionist policy was adopted at the close of the Napoleonic wars, for reasons not unlike those by which the United States was influenced at the same time to take a similar step. A series of measures culminated in the high tariff of 1826, which was continued through the Orleanist period and in 1841 was made still more stringent. After the establishment of the Second Empire, in 1852, however, there took place several irregular reductions of tariff rates, and in i860, as has been pointed out, the Cobden treaty in effect established freedom of trade with Great Britain. In 1861 all export duties on grain were abolished, and duties on imports were placed very low. After 1862 treaties analogous to that of i860 with Great Britain were concluded with vari- ous nations, and at the fall of the Empire, in 1870, France was distinctly a low tariff country. The first decade of the republic, however, was a period of economic stress and of reaction toward protectionism, and by the great tariff measures of 1881 and 1892 the nation was put once more upon a thoroughly protectionist basis; and from the posi- tion here assumed there has been in later times no substan- tial departure. Germany entered the nineteenth century with a multiplic- ity and confusion of tariff arrangements. Prussia is said to have had in 1800 as many as sixty-seven different tariffs, covering an aggregate of three thousand articles. By meas- ures of 1818 and 1822 this state of things was remedied and the Prussian tariff was made not only uniform but the most liberal of its day in Europe. In 1833 a long step in the direc- tion of internal freedom of trade in Germany was taken by the establishment of the Zollverein, or Customs Union, to which at the outset seventeen states adhered, and to which others subsequently gave their allegiance. All tariffs be- 124 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE tween members of the Union were abolished, and with the gradual expansion of the affiliation the range of accessible markets commanded by German industries was materially increased. In 1870 the territory covered by the Zollverein was nearly, though not altogether, coterminous with that which was brought within the limits of the new Empire. From 187 1 to 1879 the policy of the Empire inclined strongly to freedom of trade. But the economic crisis of 1873-74 created new conditions and lent impetus to a protectionist reaction which reached its culmination, beginning in 1879, in an abandonment of low tariffs and the adoption of a system of thoroughgoing protection. The change was the achievement principally of Bismarck, whose avowed purposes were the increase of the Empire's revenue and the encourage- ment of German industries. The new system met with oppo- sition and had to be imposed gradually; but its eventual adoption was complete and, although Germans are by no means united upon the desirability of the policy, the Em- pire continues to-day one of the arch-protectionist nations of the world. Of remaining continental states, it may be added, only a few — principally Denmark, Holland, and Belgium — ad- here to-day to free-trade principles, and even they have been obliged to yield at some points. Russia, in modern times, has never been anything other than protectionist. Austria- Hungary, after a period forty years ago of almost absolute free trade, swung back after 1878 to protection. Italy inaugurated her new nationality under the low tariff of 1861, but by acts of 1877 and 1887 became highly protectionist. Spain has been protectionist since 1877 ; Sweden and Norway, since 1888; Switzerland, mildly so since 1887-91. CHAPTER IX POLITICAL REFORM IN ENGLAND TO 1 83 2 Despite her parliamentary institutions, her traditional principles of local self-government, and her sweeping guaran- tees of individual liberty, England in the eighteenth century was in no proper sense a democratic country. Not only was society organized, as indeed is English society to-day, upon a basis that was essentially aristocratic, but government like- wise was controlled by, and largely in the interest of, the few of higher station. One branch of Parliament was composed entirely of clerical and hereditary members ; the other, of members elected at best upon the basis of an extremely re- stricted franchise or appointed outright by closed corpora- tions or by individual magnates. Not only the men who made the laws, but the officers who executed them, and the judges in whose tribunals they were applied, were selected by processes with which the mass of the nation had nothing to do. The agencies of local government, whether in county or in borough, were as a rule exclusive, and throughout the whole of the political system privilege and class distinction were clearly preponderant. The ordinary man was called upon to obey laws and to pay taxes voted without his direct or indirect assent, to submit to industrial, social, and ecclesi- astical regulations whose repeal or amendment he had no effective means of influencing, to support a government which was beyond his power to control. Although the Stuart doc- trine of divine right had been ejected utterly from English political philosophy, and the crown had been reduced to a wholly subordinate position in the state, England was still, politically as well as industrially, a land of the ancien regime. 125 126 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE On the one side of the Channel, as on the other, there was discontent. If economic and governmental abuses were in England less flagrant than in France, they were not less real; and long before 1789 there was in the island a growth of re- form sentiment comparable with that which at the same time was under way in France. In 1780 a group of public-spirited men established a Society for Constitutional Information which during the ensuing decade carried on an active propa- ganda in behalf of reform. Pamphlets were published direct- ing attention to the need of a liberalizing of Parliament; and at a meeting presided over by the great Whig orator, Charles James Fox, a program was drawn up which included such advanced demands as universal suffrage, equal electoral dis- tricts, abolition of property qualifications for members of the Commons, payment of members, and vote by ballot at parlia- mentary elections. Every one of these demands was des- tined to reappear half a century later in the program of the Chartists. It is of interest to observe that their origin ante- dates the nineteenth century. In Parliament this first phase of reform propaganda produced no results, but throughout the country it had an effect that was considerable in the education of the public mind. The outbreak of revolution in France in 1789 served to reveal the hold which democratic principles had acquired in England. The doctrines of liberty and equality which were enumerated in the National Assembly's Declaration of Rights were accorded widespread approval, and in many quarters there was expressed the hope that they might be brought to bear in the regeneration of Britain's aristocratic governmental system. In 1890 societies modelled on the Parisian Jacobin Club, and scarcely more respectful of venerable institutions than was that iconoclastic organiza- tion, began to be formed by the scores. Public meetings in the interest of reform were held, and propagandist literature was circulated with the purpose of inciting England to an up- POLITICAL REFORM IN ENGLAND TO 1832 127 rising, less violent perhaps, but not necessarily less far-reach- ing in its consequences, than that by which the transforma- tion of France was being accomplished. From the outset the reform movement was discounte- nanced by the government, and after, in 1791, the outbreak of the French war, strong measures were employed to bring it to an end. In part by reason of the firm attitude of the authorities, and in part by reason of revulsion aroused by the excesses of the later revolutionary period in France, all public manifestation of sympathy with the continental move- ment ceased after 1794. Throughout the prolonged period of the Napoleonic wars there continued to be discontent, but it was generally recognized that the nation was engaged in a contest which might mean life or death, and the desire for reform was so far held in check that it did not, during these years, take expression in organized political propaganda. By the Tory party, which continued in power throughout the larger part of the war period, the abuses by which the revolu- tion in France was accompanied were maintained to be the inevitable consequences of innovation, and proposals of change were systematically resisted. The Whigs, cleft asunder by the schism between Burke and Fox, were reduced to im- potence, and while some were moderately favorable to reform, most were indifferent or frankly apprehensive. The restoration of peace following Waterloo brought an almost instant renewal of agitation. "Never," says an English scholar, "has a nation been more perplexed and dismayed by the sudden drop from glory to misery, from national exultation to civil discord, than the people of Eng- land in 1815"; x and it may be added that no equal period in the history of modern England has been filled with distress and unrest comparable with that which prevailed between 1815 and 1830. Crops were poor and agriculture was de- pressed, the dislocation of industry incident to the rise of 1 Rose, "The Rise of Democracy," 15. 128 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the factory system was still in evidence, prices were high, employment was irregular, and wages were low. Especially exasperating, from the point of view of the laboring masses, were the measures enacted in 1815 and after for the regulation of the importation of foreign-grown grain. In the interest of the landholding aristocracy the Corn Law of 1815 prescribed that no grain might be imported into England when the price of the home-grown commodity should fall below eighty shillings per quarter. 1 The Corn Laws comprised, and were understood at the time to comprise, legislation in the interests of a class. By their enactment Parliament deliberately shifted the burden of the prevailing hard times from the social group most able to bear it, the landed proprietors, to that least able, the farm and factory laborers. Under the operation of the measures the lot of the common man grew distinctly worse, for while employment was as uncertain as before and wages no higher, the cost of food- stuffs was perceptibly increased. Against the laws, and against the system which rendered such laws possible, popu- lar protest was unmistakable. Ordinary protest, indeed, not infrequently gave place to violence, mobs of farm hands burning the hoarded grain of the landlord, while other mobs of factory workers demolished machines and wrecked in- dustrial establishments. Fiery agitators inflamed the masses against the government and against the capitalist and pro- prietary classes, and schemes were entertained for marching upon London and forcing Parliament to redress the public grievances. Through several years the Tory administration was unable to bring itself to the adoption of any policy other than that of repression. Mass meetings were broken up, propagandist literature was suppressed, and its publishers were prosecuted for libel; the habeas corpus act was suspended 1 Grain grown in the British colonies might be imported save when the price in England was under sixty-seven shillings a quarter. A quarter is approxi- mately eight bushels. POLITICAL REFORM IN ENGLAND TO 1832 129 until it became almost a nullity, and threatened rioting was averted by the most rigorous of military measures. The culmination of a series of unfortunate occurrences came in a clash between a squad of cavalry and a popular gathering at St. Peter's field, Manchester, in August, 1819, — an af- fair which acquired the name of the "Peterloo Massacre." Undeterred, the government carried through, late in the same year, a body of gag laws known as the Six Acts, whereby public meetings for the consideration of grievances were pro- hibited and numerous other restrictions upon the freedom of the individual were imposed. There were radicals, such as those who in 1820 conspired the assassination of the entire Tory ministry, who were so bent upon the overturn of the existing order that they were disposed to stop at nothing. This element, however, was de- structive rather than constructive, and in time it was discredited by its own excesses. Among the abler and more far-sighted reformers the conviction took root that only through broadly conceived legislation could the ills that were complained of be remedied. Such legislation, however, there was slender reason to expect so long as Parliament should be constituted as it was. The objective toward which, accordingly, the reform movement was more and more directed was the extension of the parliamentary franchise and the re -allotment of parliamentary representation. In the elaboration and promotion of this program leadership fell through a number of years to the pugnacious William Cobbett, the first English newspaper editor who caught the ear of the public and made the press a political power. In the issue of his Weekly Political Register of October 26, 1816, Cobbett set up a demand for the annual election of Parliament by all the taxpayers of the realm and insisted that to this every other public question should be subordinated. "Let us have this reform first," he urged, "and all other good things will be given unto us." Here it was that English political radical- 130 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE ism, faintly discerned in 1780-85, and only momentarily impressive in 1790-94, entered upon a new and conquering phase. After 181 6 the working-people, directly encouraged by Cobbett, expended more and more of their propagandist energy in agitation for a democratic Parliament. Among the thinking classes very considerable influence was exercised, too, by the writings of Jeremy Bentham, a political philoso- pher who, aroused by Blackstone's panegyric of the English constitution, pointed out convincingly how irrational and unjust were many of the practices and conditions which prevailed under that constitution. During the reign of George IV. (1820-30) the Tory government, directed by Canning, Peel, and Huskisson, relaxed somewhat its earlier rigor and suffered a number of liberalizing measures to be carried through, though none touching directly the most serious problems of the day. In 1823 the criminal code was humanized by the abolition of the death penalty for no fewer than a hundred offences. In 1825 working-men were permitted for the first time, under certain conditions, to form trade-unions. And by the memo- rable Emancipation Act of 1829 Catholics were restored to their political rights. But the fundamental fact remained that Parliament, the national law-making body, was an aristocratic assemblage in which the nation as a whole was but ineffectively represented, and from the remedying of this condition the reform elements never again allowed their attention to be distracted. The problem of parliamentary reform was twofold. One of the questions involved was that of the readjustment of representation in the Commons to comport with the existing distribution of population; the other was that of the exten- sion of the franchise. In the United States, as in many European countries, it is required by constitutional provision that following each decennial census there shall take place a reapportionment of seats in the popular legislative chamber. POLITICAL REFORM IN ENGLAND TO 1832 131 The purpose of this reapportionment is, of course, to pre- serve substantial equality among the electoral constituen- cies and, ultimately, an essential parity of political power among the voters. At no time, however, has there been to this day in Great Britain either a constitutional stipulation or the semblance of a tradition in reference to this matter. Reapportionment has taken place only partially and at irregular intervals, and at a few points only in the history of the nation have constituencies represented at Westminster been even approximately equal. The number of people represented by some members of the House of Commons to-day is eighteen times as great as that of the constituents of certain other members. In 1832 — the year of the first great Reform Act — the House of Commons consisted of 658 members, of whom 186 represented the forty counties and 472 sat for some two hun- dred boroughs. The distribution of the county and borough members was grossly inequitable and haphazard. Save that, in 1707, forty-five members had been added to represent Scotland and, in 1801, one hundred to represent Ireland, the composition of the Commons had continued substantially unchanged since the middle of the seventeenth century. The population changes, in respect both to growth and to distri- bution, falling within this prolonged period were, however, enormous. In 1689 the population of England and Wales was not in excess of 5,500,000. The census of 1831 revealed in these countries a population of 14,000,000. In the seven- teenth and earlier eighteenth centuries the great mass of the English people lived in the south. Liverpool was but an insignificant town, Manchester a village, and Birmingham a sand-hill. By the industrial revolution, however, coal and iron were brought into enormous demand, and both the in- dustrial and the population centre of the country was shifted rapidly northward. In the remote and hitherto almost unten- anted valleys of Lancashire and Yorkshire sprang up a mul- 132 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE titude of factories and of towns and cities. In Parliament these fast-growing populations of the north were either grossly under-represented or not represented at all. In 183 1 the ten southernmost counties of England contained a population of 3,260,000 and returned to Parliament 235 members. At the same time the six northernmost counties contained a population of 3,594,000, but returned only 68 members. Cornwall, with 300,000 inhabitants, had 44 representatives; Lancashire, with 1,330,000, had 14. Birmingham and Manchester, each with upward of 100,000 people; Leeds and Sheffield, each with 50,000 ; Leith, Paisley, and numerous other towns of 10,000 to 20,000, had no representation what- ever. On the contrary, there were entitled to representation boroughs which contained ludicrously meagre populations, and in a few instances no population at all. Gatto, in Sur- rey, was a park; Old Sarum, in Wiltshire, was a deserted hill ; Corfe Castle, in Dorsetshire, was a ruin ; the remains of what once was Dunwich were under the waves of the North Sea. The majority of represented boroughs, indeed, con- tained voting populations not in excess of one hundred souls. Borough members were very generally not true representa- tives at all, but simply appointees, designated by peers, by influential commoners, or by the government. Of the 472 borough members, not more than 137 may be regarded as having been in any proper sense elected. The remainder sat for "pocket boroughs" as the nominees of great land- lords or political leaders, or for "rotten boroughs," whose populations were so scant that here also the borough might be carried about, as it were, in a magnate's pocket. Bos- seney, in Cornwall, was a hamlet of three cottages, eight of whose nine electors belonged to a single family. But Bos- seney sent two members to the House of Commons. In the whole of Cornwall, with its 300,000 people, there were only 1000 voters. Of the 42 members who sat for the county, POLITICAL REFORM IN ENGLAND TO 1832 133 twenty were controlled by seven peers, twenty-one were similarly controlled by eleven commoners, and but one was freely elected. Throughout the country generally, bribery and other forms of political corruption were so common that only the most shameless instances attracted public notice. Not merely votes, but seats, were bought and sold openly, and it was a matter of common understanding that £5000 was the average price which a political aspirant was expected to pay a "borough-monger " for bringing about his election. Seats were sometimes advertised for sale in the public prints, and even for hire for a term of years. In transactions of the sort high officials of state not infrequently participated sys- tematically and publicly. Not only was the parliamentary franchise exercised often, perhaps usually, under circumstances by which it was robbed of its free and deliberative character; the exercise of the franchise under any sort of condition was very narrowly con- fined. Originally the representatives of the counties were chosen in the county court by all persons who were entitled to attend and to take part in the proceedings of that body. In 1430, during the reign of Henry VI., an act was passed to prevent riotous and disorderly elections, and by this act it was stipulated that county electors should thereafter com- prise only such male residents of the county as possessed free land or tenement which would rent for as much as forty shillings a year above all charges. Leaseholders, copy- holders, small freeholders, and all non-landholders were ex- cluded from the suffrage altogether. Even in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries the number of forty-shilling free- holders was small. With the concentration of land in fewer hands in the eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries it bore an increasingly diminutive ratio to the aggregate county population, and by 1830 the county electors comprised as a rule nothing more than a handful of large landed proprie- tors. 134 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE The history of the franchise in the boroughs is an exceed- ingly complicated matter. At no period of English history had there been, prior to 1830, a law which so much as made an attempt to regulate the subject. Many of the boroughs themselves had been created or accorded parliamentary rep- resentation by the most arbitrary and haphazard means, and the conditions of the franchise within them depended abso- lutely upon local custom and usage, "settled or unsettled by the decisions of parliamentary committees, which turned upon personal and political considerations." x The boroughs of 1832 maybe regarded as falling into four groups: (1) the " scot and lot " and " potwalloper " boroughs, in which the right to vote belonged, in theory at least, to every one who paid scot (local dues) and bore lot (the burden of local office), or who was a "potwalloper," equivalent to a pot-boiler, i.e., one who was sufficiently well off to boil a pot of one's own ; (2) the burgage boroughs, where the right to vote depended upon ability to show title to a house or piece of land by the form of holding known as burgage tenure, implying nominally, but not actually, local residence; (3) corporation boroughs, or "close" boroughs, in which the right to vote was restricted by charter to the members of the governing body of the borough, a body generally self-perpetuating, often non-resi- dent, and always irresponsible ; and (4) freemen boroughs, in which the right to vote was conferred upon members of the general corporation comprising the borough, as distin- guished from its governing body. Theoretically, the fran- chise in some kinds of boroughs, especially the first class men- tioned, was broadly democratic ; practically it was all but invariably exclusive, irregular, and non-expansive. Behind the Reform Act of 1832 lay half a century of agi- tation. The forces of tradition, conservatism, and vested interest to be overcome were tremendous. "Our representa- tion," wrote Burke, at the close of the eighteenth century, 1 Ilbert, "Parliament," 38. POLITICAL REFORM IN ENGLAND TO 1832 135 " has been found perfectly adequate to all of the purposes for which a representation of the people can be desired or de- vised. I defy the enemies of our constitution to show the contrary." In this complacent judgment one who reflects upon the achievements of Great Britain in the eighteenth century may be tempted to concur; yet one knows, as the thinking man of 1830 knew, that the House of Commons had lost touch with the nation at large, and that, under the changed conditions that have been described, that body had grown hopelessly inadequate to represent the interests of England's most sturdy and progressive elements. To the passage of the act of 1832 several circumstances contributed — the accession to the throne, in 1830, of William IV. ; the revolutionary movements of 1830 on the continent; the breakdown of Wellington's Tory government and the suc- cession of a Whig ministry, prescribed over by Earl Grey, which was committed unreservedly to the cause of electoral reform. The first bill, introduced by Lord John Russell, March 1, 1831, proposed to redistribute 168 seats and to enlarge the national electorate by approximately half a million. The measure was much more drastic than even its supporters had expected it to be, and upon it there took place one of the most notable debates in the history of Parliament. The historian Macaulay in an able speech declared the question to be simply whether "a hundred drunken pot wallopers in one place, or the owner of a ruined hovel in another, shall be invested with powers which are withheld from cities re- nowned to the furthest ends of the earth for the marvels of their wealth and of their industry." Under the leadership of Sir Robert Peel and other antagonists of the reform, the ministry was eventually defeated. It then appealed, in so far as it was possible to appeal, to the nation, and in the spring of 1 83 1 there was elected, amid the most unusual excitement, a new House of Commons. The result was an overwhelming 136 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE victory for the reformers, and, June 24, 183 1, Lord John Rus- sell introduced a second bill, essentially a duplicate of the first. It was the fate of this measure to be passed by the Commons by a majority of 106, only to be rejected, October 8, 1 83 1, by the Lords. December 12, amid public agitation which to many seemed to presage civil war, Russell intro- duced a third bill. March 23, 1832, the measure passed the Commons by the increased majority of 116. Again the Lords showed opposition, although the temper of the country, it was clear, would brook no further delay. The Grey ministry appealed to the king to create a sufficient number of peers to give its supporters a majority in the upper chamber. For the moment the request was refused, whereupon the ministry resigned. An unsuccessful attempt of the Duke of Welling- ton to form a ministry, however, was followed by the restora- tion of Grey and his colleagues to office and the giving by the king of the pledge which the Whig leaders had desired. Confronted by the prospect of being "swamped" in behalf of the reform measure, the Lords yielded and, June 4, 1832, passed the bill. Three days later the measure became law. The change brought about by the Reform Act of 1832 is pronounced by Spencer Walpole "the largest revolution which had ever been peaceably effected in any country." * If the measure be viewed as a legislative act complete within itself, such an assertion is of course extravagant. Regarding it, however, as it should be regarded, namely, as the inevitable forerunner of other and more far-reaching measures of democratization, the judgment may easily be sustained. The act falls into two parts, the first relating to the distribu- tion of seats in Parliament, the second to the extension of the franchise. The number of Scottish members was in- creased from 45 to 54 ; that of Irish, from 100 to 105 ; that of English and Welsh was reduced from 513 to 499. There was no general reapportionment of seats, no effort to bring 1 Walpole, "The Electorate and the Legislature," 62. POLITICAL REFORM IN ENGLAND TO 1832 137 the parliamentary quota of given portions of the country into precise and uniform relation to the census returns. But the most glaringly inequitable of former electoral conditions were very generally remedied. Fifty-six boroughs were deprived entirely of representation, and thirty-one were reduced from two members to one. Twenty-two boroughs hitherto unrepresented were given two members each; twenty-four others were given one additional member each ; twenty-seven counties were given one new member apiece. The redistribution had the effect of increasing greatly the political power of the northern and central portions of the kingdom. The alterations introduced by the act in the parliamentary franchise were numerous and important. In the counties the forty-shilling freehold franchise, with some limitations, was retained; but the voting privilege was extended to all leaseholders and copyholders of land renting for as much as £10 a year, and to tenants-at-will holding an estate worth £50 a year. In the boroughs the right to vote was conferred upon all "occupiers" of houses worth £10 a year. By basing the franchise exclusively upon the ownership or occupancy of valuable property, the measure fell short of admitting to political power the great mass of factory employes, and of agricultural laborers. For such power these classes had yet half a century to wait. And the fact should not be over- looked that by reason of its essentially conservative charac- ter the measure of 1832 was roundly opposed by those of the radicals who were bent upon universal suffrage. None the less, at this point the actual number of voters was increased from 430,000 to 650,000, and one in every 22 of the total pop- ulation became an elector. If the franchise had not been extended to the masses, it had been brought appreciably nearer them ; and — what was almost equally important — it had been made substantially uniform, for the first time, throughout the realm. Much the larger portion of the House 138 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE of Commons was to be composed, as before, of borough members, and the borough members were hereafter to be elected almost exclusively by the ten-pound householders, representative of the substantial middle class of the popula- tion. Like most English reforms, that of 1832 was based upon compromise. There was in it little or nothing of abstract principle. It did not introduce, and was not intended to introduce, democracy. It did not abolish, and was not ex- pected to abolish (though it did considerably reduce), political corruption. Above all, there was in it nothing of the ele- ment of finality. Its authors were content with it, but in the nature of the case the nation was not likely long to be. The removal of the most conspicuous anomalies of parlia- mentary apportionment inevitably raised the question why surviving anomalies, only less flagrant, should not be swept away. Similarly, the forty-shilling county franchise had long tradition behind it ; but the fifty-pound leaseholder or the ten-pound occupier was neither venerable nor sacrosanct, and if these people were to be recognized as qualified to vote, why not men of still less property ? CHAPTER X THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY The Reform Act of 1832 realized neither the hopes of those who had advocated it nor the fears of those who had opposed it, yet it was a momentous piece of legislation and in conse- quence of it the history of Parliament during the ensuing decade assumes an unusual measure of interest. The fact that the House of Commons, if by no means democratized, had none the less been brought into somewhat closer touch with the nation was made manifest by a remarkable out- burst after 1832 of legislative activity in which the welfare of the people as a whole, and especially that of the laboring masses, counted for distinctly more than in earlier times. In 1833 an Emancipation Act liberated all slaves held in British colonies and appropriated the considerable though inadequate sum of £20,000,000 for the compensation of the slave-holding planters. In the same year Parliament in- augurated the policy of appropriating public funds to the extension of elementary education. The first grant was but £20,000, but it was here that the long series of measures by which the public school system of Great Britain was brought into being had its beginning. In 1833 likewise there was passed the first comprehensive measure undertaking to regulate the hours and conditions of labor in textile factories. By the enactment in 1834 of the New Poor Law an unfortu- nate statute of 1795, under whose operation the number of paupers had been increased and the burden of poor-relief had been made all but unendurable, was overhauled and largely rescinded. In 1835 a Municipal Corporations Act created a uniform system of government for the incorporated 139 140 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE towns of the kingdom, substituting for the highly aristocratic agencies which formerly had controlled municipal affairs a variety of organs which, though representative still of prop- erty interests, were in some real degree democratic. In 1836 registration of births, marriages, and deaths was taken out of the hands of the Church and vested in a new body of state officials. In 1836 the stamp duty on newspapers was reduced, and in 1840, when the use of postage stamps was inaugurated, the postal rate on letters was lowered to a penny (two cents). By these and other measures of the earlier reformed parliaments, the social, fiscal, and administrative machinery of the kingdom was profoundly altered and liberal- ized. From the point of view of radical reformers, however, what had been done constituted but a beginning. The legislation of 1832-36 was conceived largely, though not exclusively, in the interest of the newly enfranchised middle classes. The vast body of artisans and rural laborers, untouched by the parliamentary changes of 1832, remained in a situation scarcely less favorable than before. The Corn Laws, by which the price of food was kept at an artificial level, were still on the statute books. The crying abuses of labor in mines and in non-textile factories continued unrelieved, and even in textile establishments the reforms introduced by the law of 1833 comprised but the barest minimum. The press was still shackled by taxes and censorship. The public aid of education was pitifully meagre. Taxes were excessive and ill-adjusted. And political power was still confined to the magnates of the kingdom, the townsfolk who were able to pay a £10 annual rental, and the wealthier copyholders and leaseholders of rural districts. From the radical leaders and from the laboring masses arose insistent demand for further reform. Especially was it urged that the electoral changes of 1832 be carried to what was avowed to be their logical conclusion, i.e., the establish- THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 141 ment of equal parliamentary districts and of manhood suf- frage. The attitude of the ruling classes, however, was dis- tinctly unfavorable. Whigs and Tories alike maintained that further innovation could not be contemplated. In the course of debates occasioned by the introduction of franchise- extension amendments to the first Speech from the Throne following the accession of Queen Victoria, in 1837, Lord John Russell declared that the Reform of 1832 had been made as extensive as possible in the hope that it might be final, and that any reopening of the question would imperil the stability of English institutions. The two houses of Parliament con- currently and by tremendous majorities refused to accord the demands of the reformers any sort of attention. Between the Radicals and the Whigs there had sprung up in 1832 a hazardous affiliation ; but that was now dissolved and, opposed by the forces of both Whiggism and Toryism, the Radicals mustered their strength for a titanic battle in behalf of what seemed the key to all things else desirable, namely, control of the national law-making body. The upshot was a remarkable movement which, under the name of Chartism, imparted an ominous aspect to the first decade of the new reign. The era of the Reform of 1832 had been fruitful in propagandist organizations, of which the most notable was the National Political Union, established in October, 1831, and it is to this period that the programme, if not the organization, of the Chartists is to be traced. 1 A circular by which London laboring men were summoned to a mass meeting November 7, 1831, enumerated virtually all the "points" which eventually found a place in the Chart- ist creed. In 1836 William Lovett, secretary of the newly founded London Workingmen's Association, published a pamphlet entitled The Rotten House of Commons, in which 1 As has been pointed out elsewhere, however, the essentials of Chartism appeared in a manifesto of the Society for Constitutional Information organ* ized in 1780. See p. 126. 142 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE it was shown from official returns that, in a total adult male population of 6,023,752 in the United Kingdom there were but 839,519 voters; while such were the inequalities of con- stituencies that 20 members were returned by 241 1 voters, while 20 others represented as many as 86,072. Fortified by these facts, the founders of the new Workingmen's Associa- tion convened a public meeting in the Strand, attended by some 3000 people, at which unqualified approval was accorded the essential principles of the forthcoming People's Charter. The instrument was given formal shape and sanction by the Association immediately preceding the accession of Victoria, and a committee of six was appointed to cooperate with the six radical members of Parliament in the drafting of a pro- posed measure of parliamentary reform. May 8, 1838, the final text of the Charter, embodying a simple and explicit summary of the reform programme, was made public. The Chartist leaders were aiming eventually at thoroughgoing social and industrial amelioration, but the indispensable means to this end they conceived to be the liberalizing of Parliament, and accordingly the Charter was confined en- tirely to demands of a political nature. The six points com- prised in the instrument were: (1) universal suffrage for males over twenty-one years of age; (2) equal electoral dis- tricts; (3) vote by secret ballot; (4) annual sessions of Parliament; (5) abolition of the property qualification for members of the House of Commons; and (6) payment of representatives. A bare enumeration of these demands is sufficient to emphasize the political backwardness of the England of seventy-five years ago. Not only was the suffrage still extremely restricted and the basis of representation anti- quated ; voting was oral and public, and only men who were qualified by the possession of property were eligible for elec- tion. Throughout a decade the Chartist agitation continued the most spectacular aspect of English affairs. Every known THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 143 mode of propaganda was exploited to the utmost. News- papers were established, as Hetherington's London Despatch, Vincent's Western Vindicator, Carpenter's The Charter, and Feargus O'Connor's Northern Star, the last-mentioned of which attained a circulation of 50,000 copies a week. Clubs were organized. Mass meetings and processions were held. Petitions and memorials were formulated, signed by thousands of laborers, and submitted to Parliament. In 1839 delegates from scores of Chartist clubs and gatherings assembled in national convention at London for the purpose of discussing matters relating to the progress of the democratic cause. Divergence of opinion, already in evidence, became upon this occasion pronounced, and open schism led to the withdrawal of many members from the convention. Plans were formu- lated, however, in accordance with which a National Petition for the Charter was drawn up and, June 14, 1839, presented at Westminster. In a respectful and moderate tone the instrument recommended the adoption by Parliament of five of the "six points," the demand for equal electoral districts being upon this occasion omitted. The document was pre- sented in the form of a huge parchment roll, bearing the alleged signatures of 1,200,000 people, and was borne labori- ously, and with somewhat ludicrous effect, into the House of Commons upon the backs of stalwart attendants. By Par- liament the petition was received in the usual manner, and a date a month distant was set for the hearing of a detailed statement of the Chartist case. Before the date arrived, however, a series of riots at Bir- mingham and elsewhere cost the movement such sympathy as it had awakened in official circles, and, July 12, the Commons decisively refused even to accord the Chartist petition the proposed consideration. Lord John Russell again denied that there was need of an expansion of the electorate and accused the Chartists of promoting disorder in the hope of bringing about a redistribution of property. The rebuff 144 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE was followed by a widespread renewal of rioting; but the principal sufferers were the Chartists themselves, who brought upon their leaders the rigor of the law and at the same time forfeited the sympathy of many disinterested people. During 1840-41 the Chartist movement was largely quiescent ; yet in his vigorous work, " Chartism," written during this interval, Carlyle very rightly affirmed: "The matter of Chartism is weighty, deep-rooted, far-extending; did not begin yester- day; will by no means end this day or to-morrow." The years 1840-45 were in England a period of severe economic tension and of serious labor disturbances. In 1842, when the public unrest was at its height, the Chartists presented to the House of Commons a second petition. In it demand was made, not only that the six points be adopted, but that monopolies be abolished, that all class legislation be repealed, that property be redistributed, and that the union between Great Britain and Ireland be terminated. Natu- rally enough, this memorial likewise went unanswered. A fresh series of Chartist and labor outbreaks, however, con- vinced the authorities that some concession, of an economic rather than a political character, ought to be made. The most immediate demand, not simply of the working classes but also of an influential and growing free trade party led by Richard Cobden and John Bright, was for the repeal of the customs duties, notably those on grain, whereby the price of breadstuffs and of other necessities was kept at an artificial level. The campaign against the Corn Laws started by the economists as early as 1833, set in on a large scale with the organization in 1838 of the Manchester Corn Law Association and, in the next year, of the Anti-Corn Law League. In 1840 a special parliamentary committee submitted a report on foreign commerce which is worthy of being regarded as the charter of English free trade. The Whigs timidly undertook a modification of duties, but were obliged before the work had been carried far to give place to THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 145 the Tories. In 1842 the Tory government of Peel carried through Parliament a momentous measure whereby all remaining export duties were abolished, the import duties on 750 kinds of manufactured articles consumed in Great Britain were reduced, and a sliding scale was arranged in accordance with which the duty on imported grain was to be made to rise and fall inversely with the price of the home- grown commodity. The diminution of revenue arising from these changes was compensated by the levy of a tax upon incomes. Four years of continued poor crops, including the first phases of the great potato famine in Ireland, compelled the granting of still more extended relief, and in 1846, opposed in the Commons by two hundred of his own party, Peel procured the passage of a measure whereby the obnoxious Corn Laws were swept away absolutely. The price of grain forthwith fell, and the laboring masses profited incal- culably. For a variety of reasons Chartism during the period 1842-48 was at a low ebb. In the first place, there was the widest disagreement among the Chartists themselves in respect to both aims and methods. In the original pro- gramme, new issues, as that of home rule for Ireland, were constantly being injected, and the inevitable consequence was to alienate supporters and to dissipate the energies of the movement. The aims of many of the Chartists were essentially visionary. We have it from one Radical orator of the time that universal suffrage means that "every working-man in the land has a right to a good coat, a good roof, a good dinner, no more work than will keep him in good health, and as much wages as will keep him in plenty." In the matter of methods the line was drawn sharply between the "moral force" and the "physical force" wings of the reformers. Men who adhered to the former were charged by their more aggressive comrades with lukewarmness, while the aggressives were charged by the moderates with involv- L 146 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE ing the cause in discredit and failure. In 1842, furthermore, there was set on foot a "complete-suffrage" propaganda, associated principally with the name of Joseph Sturge, the object of which was to attain the essential end of Chartism, but by independent and purely legal means; and while for a time effort was made to maintain an affiliation between the older and the younger movements, the relations between the two were never wholly agreeable, and the division of forces operated further to weaken the Chartist cause. At one time only after 1842 did Chartism assume really threatening proportions. That was in 1848, when, under stimulus of the revolutionary wave then sweeping the con- tinent, the Chartist propaganda was renewed in England upon a scale commensurate with that of 1838-39. April 4, there was assembled at London a new national convention of Chartist delegates. Plans were laid for a monster demon- stration on Kennington Common six days later, and a gigantic petition was made ready to be carried to West- minster by a body of 500,000 men. The government became apprehensive. The Duke of Wellington was put in command of the defences of the city and active preparations were made to meet force with force. On the day fixed, only some 25,000 persons gathered at the Common. Lacking in con- certed plans and disheartened by the government's precau- tions, the leaders permitted their petition to be conveyed to the House of Commons prosaically enough through back streets in a cab. It had been claimed that the petition bore 5,000,000 signatures, but upon scrutiny the number was found to be not beyond 2,000,000, including a considerable proportion of palpable forgeries. For all practical purposes, the fiasco of April 10 marked the collapse of Chartism. At no time had the reform move- ment been coordinated or capably led. Now the recrimina- tions of the disappointed and discredited leaders cost the movement whatever chance of survival it possessed. The THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 147 hold of Chartism upon the masses was relaxed, not merely by reason of its repeated failures, but in consequence of the repeal of the Corn Laws and the enactment of Lord Shaftes- bury's ten-hour day for women and young persons in factories — a measure which was put in effect May 1, 1848. The procuring from Parliament of two such boons as cheap bread and shorter hours of labor robbed of its power of appeal the argument which had been made that Parliament as constituted was wholly indifferent to the welfare of the masses and ought to be proceeded against with violence. After 1848 the desultory efforts of the Chartists were absorbed largely by trade-unions and cooperative movements, and the gospel of violence which the advocates of physical force had not hesitated to preach gave place to the more whole- some philosophy of Maurice, Kingsley, Hughes, and the lesser lights of the new Christian Socialist school. The fundamental criticism of the existing political order upon which Chartism was based was well enough justified, but the demands which the reformers placed at the head of their programme were too radical to enlist the ready support of conservative people, and the methods which many of them advocated or countenanced savored too much of continental revolutionary tactics. In more recent days most of the "six points" have been carried into effect, and unquestion- ably the Chartist agitation helped prepare the way for a broader franchise, the further adjustment of representation to population, and the secret ballot. But when, eventually, these things were brought about, the Chartist movement was but a memory. The second great measure by which political democracy was advanced in England during the nineteenth century was the Reform Act of 1867. The passage of this act was preceded by a decade and a half of agitation, but of a notably milder character than that of the Chartist period. In 1858 the Conservative government of Lord Derby acquiesced in 148 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the enactment of a measure by which were abolished all property qualifications hitherto required of English, Welsh, and Irish members, and thus was met one of the minor though yet important Chartist demands. Between 1851 and 1865 no fewer than eight measures looking toward the reform of the House of Commons were introduced, though none seriously approached adoption. Lord John Russell, while abandoning the attitude which in 1837 had won him the sobriquet "Finality Jack," still urged postponement of the issue as ^,n alternative to "dragging an imperfect measure through a reluctant Parliament and enforcing it on an unwilling country" ; and the Conservative leader, Palmerston, characterized any reduction of the £50 county franchise as "a leap in the dark." In 1864 Gladstone, on the other hand, voiced the judgment of many people when he declared that parliamentary reform ought not to be left until the country should be rent by agitation in its behalf, and that agitation should be forestalled by carefully considered and provident measures. After the death of Palmerston in 1865 the reform issue fast forced itself into the political foreground. During the year mentioned, a reconstituted Liberal party, led by Glad- stone, took over in part the doctrines of the Radicals, aban- doned the party's traditional laissez faire attitude, and set up a programme of "peace, retrenchment, and reform," in which the broadening of the franchise was assigned a place of prominence. At the same time the Conservative party, under the leadership of Disraeli, committed itself, less unreservedly, but none the less effectually, to the same sort of reform. In 1866 the Russell-Gladstone government brought in a reform bill by which the electorate was to be enlarged by 400,000. Through the tactics, however, of a reactionary Liberal group, the measure was wrecked, and its authors were driven to resign. The succeeding Derby- Disraeli ministry, bent upon "dishing the Whigs," intra- THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 149 duced forthwith a new electoral bill. In its original form the measure was " safe and moderate" ; but with the purpose of convincing the rank and file of the nation that the Con- servatives, after all, were their best friends, Disraeli flung away the securities which made the new bill at its intro- duction tolerable to his supporters and, to the amazement of friends and foes alike, carried a project of a more thor- oughgoing character than anybody save uncompromising Radicals had ever asked or desired ; and, August 15, 1867, the measure became law. The act of 1867 affected but slightly the distribution of parliamentary seats. The total number of seats (658) remained unchanged. Ireland's quota remained 105, Scot- land's was raised from 54 to 60, while that of England and Wales was decreased from 499 to 493. Of the last- mentioned number, 162 were allotted to counties, 326 to boroughs, and 5 to universities. In the allotment n boroughs lost their seats, and 35 others were reduced from two members to one. The seats thus gained were bestowed upon boroughs and counties whose populations rendered them deserving. In England and Wales the county franchise was guaranteed to men whose freehold was of the value of forty shillings a year, to copyholders and leaseholders of the annual value of £5, and to householders whose rent amounted to not less than £12 a year. The twelve-pound occupation franchise was new, 1 and the qualification for copyholders and lease- holders was reduced from £10 to £5 ; otherwise the county franchise was unchanged. The borough franchise was modified profoundly. Heretofore only householders who occupied houses worth £10 a year were entitled to vote. Now the right was conferred upon every man who occupied, as owner or as tenant, for twelve months, a dwelling-house, or any portion thereof utilized as a separate dwelling, with- 1 It may be regarded, however, as taking the place of the fifty-pound rental franchise. 150 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE out regard to its value. Another newly established franchise admitted to the voting privilege all lodgers occupying for as much as a year rooms of the clear value, unfurnished, of £10 a year. The effect of these provisions was to enfranchise the urban working population, even as the act of 1832 had enfranchised principally the urban middle class. So broad, indeed, did the urban franchise at this point become that little room was left for its modification subsequently. As originally planned, Disraeli's measure would have enlarged the electorate by not more than one hundred thousand ; as amended and carried, it practically doubled the voting population, raising it from 1,370,793 immediately prior to 1867 to 2,526,423 in 1871. 1 By the act of 1832 the middle classes had been enfranchised; by that of 1867 political power was thrown in no small degree into the hands of the masses. Only two large groups of people remained still outside the pale of political influence — the agricultural laborers and the miners. In 1868 the Liberals returned to power, and under Glad- stone's leadership the fruits of the late reform became immediately manifest in a notable series of ameliorating measures comparable with that by which a generation earlier the reform of 1832 had been followed. In 1869 the Protes- tant Episcopal Church was disestablished in Ireland, and in 1870 an Irish land act marked the first serious effort to adjust the immemorial grievances between landlord and tenant in that portion of the realm. In 1870, also, was passed the Elementary Education Act, authorizing a notable exten- sion of public provision for, and public control of, primary schools. A law of 1871 provided for the incorporating of trade-unions and the legalizing of strikes. And in 1872 was 1 It is to be observed that these figures are for the United Kingdom as a whole, embracing the results not merely of the act of 1867 applying to England and Wales, but of the two acts of 1868 introducing similar, though not identical, changes in Scotland and Ireland. THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 151 passed the Ballot Act, whereby secrecy in parliamentary elections was first established and an effective check upon bribery was instituted. That the qualifications for voting in one class of constit- uencies should be conspicuously more liberal than in another class was an anomaly, and in a period when anomalies were at last being eliminated from the English electoral system remedy could not be long delayed. February 5, 1884, the second Gladstone ministry redeemed a campaign pledge by introducing a bill granting the counties the same electoral regulations that had been extended in 1867 to the towns. The measure passed the Commons, but was rejected by the Lords by reason of the fact that it was not accompanied by a bill for the redistribution of seats. By an agreement between the two houses a threatened deadlock was averted, and the upshot was that before the end of the year the Lords accepted the government's bill, on the understanding that its passage was to be followed immediately by the intro- duction of a redistribution measure. The Representation of the People Act of 1884 is in form disjointed and difficult to understand, but the effect of it is clear and simple. By it there was established a uniform household franchise and a uniform lodger franchise in all counties and boroughs of the United Kingdom. The occupation of any land or tenement of a clear annual value of £10 was made a qualification in boroughs and counties alike ; and persons occupying a house by virtue of office or employment were to be deemed "occu- piers" for the purpose of the act. The measure doubled the county electorate and increased the total electorate by some 2,000,000, or approximately 40 per cent. Its most impor- tant effect was to enfranchise the workingman in the country, as the act of 1867 had enfranchised the workingman in the town. In 1885, the two great parties cooperating, there was passed the Redistribution of Seats Act which had been promised. 152 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Now for the first time in English history attempt was made to apportion representation in the House of Commons in something like strict accordance with population densities. In the first place, the total number of members was increased from 658 to 670, and of the number 103 were allotted to Ireland, 72 to Scotland, and 495 to England and Wales. In the next place, the method by which former redistribu- tions had been accomplished, i.e., transferring seats more or less arbitrarily from flagrantly over-represented boroughs to more populous boroughs and counties, was replaced by a method based upon the principle of equal electoral con- stituencies, each returning one member. In theory a con- stituency comprised 50,000 people. Boroughs containing fewer than 15,000 inhabitants were disfranchised as boroughs, becoming for electoral purposes portions of the counties in which they were located. Boroughs of between 15,000 and 50,000 inhabitants were allowed to retain, or if pre- viously unrepresented were given, one member each. Those of between 50,000 and 165,000 were given two members, and those of more than 165,000 three, with one in addition for every additional 50,000 people. The same general principle was followed in the counties. Thus the city of Liverpool, which prior to 1885 sent three members to Par- liament, fell into nine constituencies, each returning one member, and the great northern county of Lancashire, which since 1867 had been divided into four portions, each returning two members, was now split into twenty-three divisions with one member each. The boroughs which prior to 1885 elected two members, and at the redistribution re- tained that number, remained single constituencies for the election of those two members. Of these boroughs there are to-day twenty-three. They, together with the city of London and the three universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Dublin, comprise the existing twenty-seven two-member constituencies. By partition of the counties, of the old THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 153 boroughs having more than two members, and of the new boroughs with only two members, all save these twenty- seven constituencies have been erected into separate, single- member electoral divisions, each with its own name and identity. By the measures of 1884 and 1885 Great Britain was brought to the verge of thoroughgoing democracy. 1 Both measures stand to-day upon the statute-books, and neither has been amended in any important particular. The fran- chise, while substantially uniform throughout the realm, in point of fact is the most complicated in Europe. Now, as ever, the right to vote is not personal, but is dependent upon the ownership or occupation of land or of a dwelling- place. There are three important franchises that are uni- versal and two that are not. In the first group are included (1) occupancy, as owner or tenant, of land or tenement of a clear yearly value of £10; (2) occupancy, as owner or tenant, of a dwelling-house, or part of a house used as a separate dwelling, without regard to its value ; and (3) occu- pancy of lodgings of the value, unfurnished, of £10 a year. The two franchises which are not universal are (1) ownership of land of forty shillings yearly value or occupation of land under certain other specified conditions — this being appli- cable only to counties and to a small extent to boroughs which are counties in themselves; and (2) residence of freemen in those towns in which they had a right to vote prior to 1832. The conditions and exceptions by which all of these various franchises are attended are so numerous that few people in England save lawyers make a pretence of knowing them all. The volume of litigation which con- stantly arises with respect to the distinction between "house 1 It may be noted that the democratic trend of this decade was further accen- tuated by the enactment in 1888 of Lord Salisbury's Local Government Bily, whereby there was introduced into the counties and a few large boroughs (in- cluding London) an electoral system based on household suffrage. In 1894 the principle was extended to rural parishes having a population of 300 or mora 154 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE holder" and " lodger," and other technicalities of the subject, is enormous. At no time has effort been made to reduce existing laws to a complete code. A logical step — but one for which, until lately at least, there has been small demand — would be the adoption of a general manhood franchise, restricted only by qualifications of age, residence, and, if desired, tax-paying capacity. The aggregate of the exist- ing franchise is but little short of the result that would in this way be attained. The calculations of Lowell show that the ratio of electors to population is about one in six, whereas the normal proportion of males above the age of twenty-one, making no allowance for paupers, criminals, and other persons disqualified by the law of most countries, is somewhat less than one in four. 1 The only classes of adult males at present excluded from the voting privilege are domestic servants, bachelors living with their parents and occupying no premises on their own account, and persons whose change of abode periodically deprives them of a vote. There are those by whom it is demanded that a compli- cated, haphazard, and costly franchise system be replaced by a system which shall be rational and simple, but the suffrage questions of largest weight in Great Britain to-day are those relating to the extension of the franchise to women and the abolition of plural voting. It is a fact not familiarly known that English women, under certain conditions, were once in possession of the suffrage. It was not, indeed, until 1832 that Parliament so modified the franchise that it became applicable exclusively to men. The first attempt made in Parliament to restore and extend the female fran- chise was that of John Stuart Mill in 1867. His proposed amendment to the reform bill of that year was defeated by a vote of 196 to 73. In 1870 a woman's suffrage measure drafted by Dr. Pankhurst and introduced by John Bright 'Lowell, "Government of England," I., 213. THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 155 passed its second reading by a majority of 33, but was sub- sequently rejected. During the seventies and early eighties a vigorous propaganda was maintained and almost every session produced its crop of woman's suffrage bills. A deter- mined attempt was made to secure the inclusion of a woman's suffrage clause in the reform bill of 1884. The proposed amendment was supported very generally by the press, but in consequence of a threat by Gladstone to the effect that if the amendment were carried the entire measure would be withdrawn, the project was abandoned. The latest chapter in the history of the movement was inaugurated by the organization, in 1903, of the Women's Social and Political Union. Since the date mentioned the movement has made substantial headway, and by the spectacular character which it has assumed it has attracted widespread attention. There is, however, no prospect of its early success, and con- cerning it nothing more need be said, save perhaps that it has opened the entire question of the precise basis upon which the franchise, for both men and women, should be construed to rest. The problem of the plural vote is an old one. Under existing law an elector is entitled to vote in every constit- uency in which he possesses the requisite qualifications. In the United States and in the majority of continental countries a man possesses but one vote, and such a rule would seem an essential of democratic government. In England there have been repeated efforts to bring about the establishment of the uniform principle of "one man, one vote," but never with success. The plural vote as it operates to-day benefits principally the Conservatives, and naturally the Liberals are its opponents. Following the triumph of the Liberals at the elections of 1906 a measure was introduced requiring that every elector possessed of more than one vote should be registered in the constituency of his choice and in no other. The bill passed the Commons, but was defeated 156 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE by the Conservative majority in the Lords. The number oi plural votes actually cast at an election is not large abso- lutely, but in many constituencies it is sufficient to turn the scale as between two closely contesting candidates. Still other questions there are with respect to English electoral reform. One of them pertains to the fresh dis- tribution of parliamentary seats. As has been pointed out, the Redistribution of Seats Act of 1885 established constit- uencies in which there was some approach to equality. The principle was far from completely carried out. For example, the newly created borough of Chelsea contained upwards of 90,000 people, while the old borough of Windsor had fewer than 20,000. But the inequalities left untouched by the Act were slight in comparison with those which have arisen during a quarter of a century in which there has been no reapportionment whatever. In 1901 the least populous constituency of the United Kingdom, the borough of Newry in Ireland, contained but 13,137 people, while the southern division of the county of Essex contained 217,030; yet each was represented by a single member. This means, of course, a very pronounced disparity in the weight of the popular votes, and under the slogan "one vote, one value" there has been carried on in some quarters an active propaganda in behalf of a new apportionment of members to constituen- cies. On the eve of its fall in 1905 the Balfour government submitted preliminary resolutions looking to this end, but there was no opportunity to press the proposition. A special difficulty is imposed by the peculiar situation in Ireland. By reason of the decline of Ireland's population during the past decades, that portion of the United Kingdom has come to be grossly over-represented. The average Irish commoner sits for but 44,147 people, while the average English member represents 66,971. If a new distribution were made in strict proportion to numbers Ireland would lose 30 seats and Wales 3, while Scotland would gain one and England about 30. THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 157 To so sharp a reduction of the Irish quota the opposition would be exceedingly keen; and there is the further very practical obstacle that the Act of Union of 1801 effectually guarantees to Ireland as many as 100 parliamentary members. Several changes thus remain to be brought about before Great Britain shall have realized to the full the thorough- going democracy which she already possesses in so pre- eminent a degree. On the other hand, two or three positive achievements, in addition to those that have been mentioned, should not be overlooked. One that has been referred to already is the introduction, in 1872, of the secret ballot in parliamentary elections. Prior to the passage of the Ballot Act, members were elected by means of a poll taken publicly, affording every opportunity for bribery, intimidation, and disorder. Nowadays all save the few representatives of the universities are chosen under the Australian system, insuring both secrecy and greater orderliness at the polls. By three different means, furthermore, the attainment of a seat at Westminster has been brought within the range of possibility for increasing numbers of people. In the first place, the formal qualifications of members have been materially re- duced. The qualification of residence was replaced in the eighteenth century by a property qualification ; but, as has been pointed out, in 1858 this likewise was swept away. Oaths of allegiance and oaths imposing religious tests once operated to debar many, but all that is now required of a member is a very simple oath or affirmation of allegiance, in a form compatible with any shade of religious belief or un- belief. Any male British subject who is of age is qualified for election, unless he belongs to one of a few small groups — notably peers (except Irish) ; clergy of the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of England, and the Church of Scotland ; certain kinds of office-holders ; bankrupts ; and persons con- victed of treason, felony, or corrupt practices. In the second place, the democratization of Parliament 158 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE has been promoted by the imposition upon candidates of limitations in respect to their outlays of money upon elec- tions. In 1883 there was passed a memorable statute known as the Corrupt and Illegal Practices Act by which bribery and treating were declared illegal and the maximum of legitimate campaign expenditures was regulated upon a sliding scale in proportion to the size of constituencies. With a few modifications, this measure is still in operation. In boroughs containing not more than 2000 registered voters, the largest amount which a parliamentary candidate may legitimately spend in an election is £350, with an additional £30 for every thousand voters above the number mentioned. In rural constituencies, where proper outlays will normally be larger, the sum of £650 is allowed when the number of registered electors falls under 2000, with £60 for each addi- tional thousand. Beyond these amounts the candidate is allowed an outlay of £100 for expenses of a purely personal character. The range of expenditure which is thus per- mitted by law is, of course, large, and the records of election cases brought into the courts demonstrate that not infre- quently in practice its limits are exceeded. None the less, the effect of the law has been undeniably to restrain the outpouring of money by candidates, to purify politics, and at the same time to enable men of moderate means to stand for election who otherwise would possess no chance whatever as against their wealthier and more lavish competitors. Until recently the fact that there was no salary attached to service in Parliament operated to debar from membership all save the well-to-do. Through some years the Labor party has been accustomed to provide the means whereby its representatives are enabled to maintain themselves in the Commons, but this arrangement has affected but a small group of members, and is of a private rather than a public nature. Payment of members, to the end that poor but capable men might no longer be kept out of the Commons, THE GROWTH OF ENGLISH DEMOCRACY 159 was demanded by the Chartists three-quarters of a century ago, and from time to time since there has been agitation in behalf of the suggested policy. But it was not until 191 1 that a measure upon the subject could be got through Parlia- ment. Fresh impetus was given by the Osborne Judgment, in which, on an appeal from the lower courts, the House of Lords ruled, in December, 1909, that the payment of par liamentary members as such from the funds of labor organi- zations is contrary to law. The announcement of this verdict was followed by persistent agitation for legislation to reverse the ruling. In the budget presented to the Com- mons by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, May 16, 191 1, the proposition was made, not to take action one way or the other upon the Lords' decision, but to provide for the pay- ment to all members of the House of Commons of a yearly salary of £400 ; and with no great delay or opposition the proposal was enacted into law. The amount of the salary provided is not large, but it is ample to render candidacy for seats possible for many men who heretofore could not under any circumstances have contemplated a public career. CHAPTER XI POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN GERMANY AND NORTHERN EUROPE The growth of the political power of the people of conti- nental Europe since the close of the eighteenth century is one of the phenomena of modern times. Prior to the French Revolution there were not more than four or five states on the continent in which the people can be said to have exer- cised any substantial control over public affairs, and even in these — notably Holland, Sweden, and Hungary — political influence was possessed by only an insignificant proportion of the total population and was wielded in only an indirect and often indecisive manner. In Switzerland alone was there an approximation to what we understand to-day to be a popular government, though even there the ultra-democratic institutions which nowadays attract so much attention on the part of students of political science were largely non-existent. In 1789 the nations were all but universally without written constitutions, and despotism — "enlightened," perhaps, but yet despotism — was the rule. To-day there is not one sovereign state of Europe which does not have a constitution, wholly or in part committed to writing, by which are regulated more or less specifically the organs and powers of government. Further, there is not one state whose government purports to be based exclusively upon the principle of absolutism. Absolutism there still is, to some degree, in Spain, in Austria, in Germany, in Turkey, and especially in Russia. But everywhere, even in Russia, the authority of the sovereign is tempered, not alone by public opinion, but by popular governmental 160 GOVERNMENT IN NORTHERN EUROPE 161 agencies. This remarkable transformation has been brought about by the spread of the twin principles of constitutionalism and democracy, induced in part by the example of Great Britain, but largely by the political overturning at the close of the eighteenth century in France. It involves a great many things, among them the eligibility of the common man for public office and the liberty of the individual to speak or write with impunity upon political subjects ; but the funda- mental factor in it is the attainment of the franchise. The election of national legislative assemblies by which is exer- cised ultimate control over both law-making and public finance is the surest and most direct means by which the mass of the inhabitants of any country can control the government under which they live — short, at least, of the employment of the initiative and referendum. The political progress of the various peoples of continental Europe within the past three or four generations may, therefore, for present pur- poses, be measured to best advantage by reference princi- pally to the advance of the franchise. In Germany popular government has attained by no means the level which it has reached in England and in France, but it is to be remembered that no such thing as popular control of public affairs was known to the east of the Rhine until the nineteenth century was well advanced. The history of Germany in the past hundred years is the story primarily of the building of the German Empire, of the united German nation. This remarkable work was accom- plished under the leadership of William I. and Bismarck, whose interests centred in the creation of a powerful state, certainly not in the promotion of democratic principles of government. Only grudgingly, and with the idea that a certain carefully regulated measure of popular participation in government might impart to the political edifice an in- creased stability, did the makers of modern Germany sanc- tion the extension of political power to the masses at all. M 1 62 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Each of the twenty-five states comprising the German Empire to-day retains essentially its individual governmental system, and the variety of these systems is very great. To convey some impression of the measure of progress which has been realized in the direction of popular government in Germany, it will be sufficient to mention a few aspects of two systems only — that of the kingdom of Prussia and that of the Empire as a whole. In area, population, historical importance, and political power, Prussia at the opening of the nineteenth century was one of the more backward nations of Europe. During the course of the Napoleonic period she underwent a transfor- mation in social and economic conditions not unworthy of comparison with that previously experienced in France. In respect to governmental institutions, however, there was no change, and despite the promises of King Frederick William, in 1814-15, to take under advisement the ques- tion of a grant of a constitution, autocracy continued un- abated until the revolutionary period of 1848. The present constitution of the Prussian kingdom was promulgated January 1, 1850. Its underlying principle is the thorough- going supremacy of the crown, and while it contains impos- ing guarantees of the rights and liberties of the citizen, it is sufficiently barren in provisions for the enforcement of these rights and liberties to render possible the maintenance of a royal authority that is more arbitrary than that wielded by any monarch west of Russia. Legislative power is shared by the crown with a Landtag, or national assembly, whose upper house is composed principally of appointees of the king, and whose lower house, of 433 members, is composed of representatives elected for a five-year term in districts returning from one to three members. The system under which representatives are elected, however, is one of the most antiquated and undemocratic in Europe. At one stage in the framing of the constitution GOVERNMENT IN NORTHERN EUROPE 163 of 1850, it was proposed to establish direct manhood suffrage, but under the influence of the crown there was adopted eventually the peculiar three-class system already utilized to some extent in the election of municipal officials. Under this system every Prussian citizen who has attained his twenty-fifth year, and who is qualified to vote in the munici- pal elections of his place of domicile, is entitled to vote for a parliamentary representative. There are thus in the kingdom few adult males who may not vote, and at first glance the system appears democratic. The difficulty is, however, that the suffrage is both indirect and unequal. The extremely complicated process by which a representative is actually elected involves the following necessary steps: (1) the electoral district is divided into a number of sub- districts; (2) in each subdistrict one Wahlman, or elector, is allotted to every 250 inhabitants; (3) for the choosing of these Wahlmanner the voters of the subdistrict are divided into three classes, arranged in such a fashion that the first class will be composed of the taxpayers, beginning with the largest contributors, who collectively pay one-third of the tax quota of the district, the second class will include the payers next in importance who as a group pay the sec- ond third, and the last class will comprise the remainder; (4) each of these classes chooses, by absolute majority, one- third of the electors to which the subdistrict is entitled; finally, (5) all the electors thus chosen in the various sub- divisions of the district come together and elect, by absolute majority, a representative to sit in the popular chamber at Berlin. The three-class system prevails universally to-day, not merely in parliamentary, but also in municipal, elections. It need hardly be pointed out that it operates to throw the bulk of political power into the hands of the wealthy classes. Within any single subdistrict one-third of the taxable prop- erty is not unlikely to be owned by a very small group of 1 64 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE men, not inconceivably (as actually happened recently in a subdistrict in Berlin) by one man alone. On the other hand, the number of the least considerable taxpayers who in the aggregate contribute one-third of the tax quota is invariably large. The little group at the top, however, possesses precisely as much political weight as the large group at the bottom, because it is entitled to choose an equal number of electors. The system was devised as a compromise between a thoroughgoing democracy based on universal suffrage and the complete dominance of the landholding aristocracy, but the result of it is a segregation of social classes which is unwholesome and a distribution of political power which is grossly inequitable. Even Bismarck upon one occasion was moved to denounce the three-class arrange- ment as "the most miserable and absurd election law that has ever been formulated in any country." In late years agitation for the remodelling of the system has been incessant, and in 1 910 the government sought to appease the discontented elements by a measure retaining the three classes, but lowering the qualifications for eligibility to the upper two. By the Liberals, Socialists, Poles, and other progressive political groups, the proffered measure was pronounced a farce, and so determined was the opposition to it that eventually its authors withdrew it. The problem of electoral reform remains. The government stands com- mitted against direct and equal suffrage; the liberal forces are willing to accept nothing less. In addition there is the question of a redistribution of seats. Not since i860 have the election districts been rearranged, so that in many parts of the country, especially in the newer urban centres, the quota of representatives is grossly disproportioned to popu- lation. The great city of Berlin, for example, has but nine members. The problem of reapportionment, however, is deemed by the government especially dangerous by reason of the fact that any sort of readjustment at the present GOVERNMENT IN NORTHERN EUROPE 165 time would mean inevitably an increase of Socialist strength in the representative body and, furthermore, would render virtually necessary a similar redistribution, with similar consequences, in the Imperial legislature, or Reichstag. If, however, attempts further to liberalize the national government of Prussia have thus far been thwarted, those aimed at the freeing of the local governmental agencies of the kingdom have met with appreciable success. Beginning in 1872, Bismarck addressed himself to the task of coordinat- ing, simplifying, and, to a certain extent, liberalizing Prussian local institutions, and a series of measures enacted during the decade following the date mentioned reduced the ad- ministrative machinery and methods to substantially the character which they to-day exhibit. The system is still one of the most complicated in Europe, but the bureaucratic forces within it have been put under restraint, and the principle underlying it has come to be that of government by experts, checked by lay criticism and by the power of the purse as wielded by local elective bodies. As matters stand to-day, the voice of the average citizen counts for distinctly more in the affairs of the Empire than in those of Prussia or in those of most of the remaining Ger- man states. The Imperial constitution, promulgated April 16, 1871, is a curious compound of autocracy and democracy. The authority of the Emperor as such is at many points arbitrary, and with the constitution and proceedings of the powerful Bundesrat, or Council of the Empire, the people have nothing directly or indirectly to do. The Reichstag, however, is a popularly elected body, and the position which the Reichstag occupies in the Imperial governmental system is of fundamental importance. Members of the Reichstag, in number 397, are chosen by direct and secret ballot in single-member "circles," or districts. The franchise is broadly democratic. Every male inhabitant who, pos- sessing citizenship within the Empire, has completed his 1 66 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE twenty-fifth year, is entitled to vote in the district in which he has his domicile, provided his name appears properly upon the registration lists. He is not required to be a citizen of the particular state in which he votes. The only excep- tions to the general rule of universal manhood suffrage arise from the disfranchisement of persons under guardianship, bankrupts, beneficiaries of public charity, persons suffering judicial deprivation in respect to certain of their rights as citizens, and persons in active service in the army and navy. Any male citizen, possessed of the right to vote, twenty-five years of age or over, and a resident of a state of the Empire during at least one year, is eligible as a candidate. In 1906 a measure was enacted under which representatives are paid a salary of three thousand marks for each session, and thus Germany became one of the several European countries in which provision has been made recently for the inaugura- tion, or increase, of compensation for members of the popular legislative chamber. At two points only — though both are of very great im- portance — does the Reichstag fall short of the status of a great national parliamentary body. In the first place, never since 1871 has there been a redisricting of the Empire; so that the populations comprising the various constituencies, as is true in the kingdom of Prussia, have grown to be no- toriously unequal. The Imperial capital, with a popu- lation of two millions, is represented still by but six members, and the disproportion in other cities and densely inhabited regions is almost as flagrant. In Berlin the average number of residents in a district is 345,000 ; in East Prussia, but 121,000. The twelve most populous districts in the Empire contain 1,950,000 people; the twelve least populous, 170,000. In the second place, the control which the Reichstag is able to exercise over the policies and measures of the Emperor, the Chancellor and their agents, is not sufficient to give the German system the character of a true parliamentary gov- GOVERNMENT IN NORTHERN EUROPE 167 ernment. Never, for example, has it been established that the Chancellor — immediate representative of the Emperor and possessor of the functions of the entire group of minis- ters in countries like England, France, and Italy — can be compelled to yield office by criticism or adverse votes on the floor of the popular chamber. Until this power is made a feature of the constitutional system the popular elec- tion of the Reichstag cannot be regarded as meaning as much for democratic government as does the election of the English House of Commons or of the French Chamber of Deputies. None the less, when it is recalled that no project of finance can be adopted, and no Imperial statute can be enacted, without the assent of the Reichstag, it will be seen that in Germany the essence of popular government already has been largely realized. The constitutional arrangements prevailing in Holland and Belgium to-day are to be regarded as products largely of the era of the French Revolution and of the Napoleonic domination. By the terms of the first treaty of Paris (May 30, 1 8 14), ratified in the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna (June 9, 1815), the Belgian provinces were incor- porated with Holland, and the whole, under the name of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands, was assigned to the restored house of Orange, in the person of William I. In 181 5 there was promulgated for the new state a moderately liberal constitution. For numerous reasons the arrangement was distasteful to the Belgians and in 1831 they seceded, adopted a more liberal constitution, and established an independent monarchy. From this point the political development of the two countries moved in separate, though broadly similar, channels. In Holland the fundamental law of 1815 was retained, but the modifications which have been introduced in it have so altered its character as to have made of it an essentially new instrument. The powers of the crown are still enormous, l68 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE but more and more the balance of ultimate authority has inclined toward the States General, or Parliament. The members of the upper legislative chamber are chosen by the representative assemblies of the provinces; those of the lower chamber, directly by the voters of the kingdom. Dur- ing several decades the franchise, based upon tax-paying qualifications, was narrowly restricted. After 1870 the Liberals carried on a persistent campaign in behalf of a broader electorate, and by a constitutional amendment of 1887 the franchise was extended to all males twenty-three years of age and over who are (1) householders paying a minimum house-duty, (2) lodgers who for a time have paid a minimum rent, or (3) persons who are possessed of " signs of fitness and social well-being." The provisions relating to householders and lodgers raised the electorate at a stroke from approximately 100,000 to 300,000. It was left to subsequent legislation to define "signs of fitness and social well-being," and upon that issue there raged intense political controversy during a number of years. Eventually, in 1896, a definition was assigned the phrase which was suffi- ciently comprehensive to bring up the total number of voters to 700,000, a figure but little short of that which would rep- resent unrestricted manhood suffrage. Circumstances conspired to give the constitution of Bel- gium a pronouncedly liberal character, and the instrument as drawn in 1831 has proved so satisfactory that in no im- portant respect, save that of parliamentary representation, has amendment been deemed necessary. The Belgian parliament consists of two houses, both elective and both representative of the nation as a whole. The 112 members of the Senate are chosen in part by the provincial councils; but practically three-fourths of them are elected directly by the people, after the principle of proportional repre- sentation. The 166 members of the House of Representatives are chosen in accordance with a scheme which is noteworthy GOVERNMENT IN NORTHERN EUROPE 169 by reason of three facts: (1) it is based upon the principle of universal manhood suffrage; (2) it embraces a scheme of plural voting; and (3) it provides for the proportional representation of parties. This system was adopted in 1893, after a prolonged party contest. One vote is allowed to every male citizen twenty-five years of age who is in full enjoyment of his civil and political rights and who has been resident at least one year in the commune in which he pro- poses to cast his ballot. There is absolutely nothing in the nature of either an educational or a property qualification. One supplementary vote, however, is conferred upon every male citizen thirty-five years of age, married or a widower, with legitimate offspring, and paying to the state a tax of not less than five francs as a householder; also upon every such citizen owning real estate or government bonds in stipulated amounts. And upon holders of diplomas of institutions of higher learning, and other persons similarly qualified, are conferred three votes. What the law of 1893 does, therefore, is to confer upon every male citizen one vote and to specify three principal conditions under which this basal voting power may be increased. As the head of a family, the citizen's suffrage may be doubled. By reason of his possession of property or of capital, it like- wise may be doubled. On the basis of a not unattainable educational qualification, it may be tripled. Under no circumstances may an individual be entitled to more than three votes. The plural vote of Belgium differs, therefore, from that of Great Britain, not only in that it is based upon a variety of qualifications of which property ownership is but one, but also in that there is fixed an absolute and reasonably low maximum of votes. It is of interest further to observe that voting is declared by the Belgian constitution to be obligatory. Failure to appear at the polls, without adequate excuse, is a misde- meanor punishable by law. The citizen may, if he likes, 170 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE evade the intent of the law by depositing a blank ballot. But he must deposit a ballot of some sort. The principle of proportional representation was introduced in communal elections in 1895 and in parliamentary elections in 1899. Since 1893 the Socialists have urged incessantly the aboli- tion of the plural vote and the reduction of the age limit for voters to twenty-one years, and in these demands they have received much support from the Liberals. A loss of power by the Catholic party, which may at any time occur, would very probably entail the triumph of the "one man, one vote " principle. In both Belgium and Holland the powers and privileges of the popular legislative chamber in law- making and finance are preponderant and the arrangements for local self-government are adequate. In the Scandinavian 'countries, as elsewhere, the nine- teenth century was an era of large progress in the direction of popular government. The rise of constitutionalism in Denmark falls within the period between 1830 and 1866. The constitution of the kingdom to-day was promulgated in 1866, being, indeed, but a revision of a similar instrument of 1849. The form of government is that of a limited mon- archy and the ministers are responsible, although in truth it was not until 1901 that the principle of responsibility was definitely conceded by the crown. The Rigsdag, or Parliament, consists of two chambers. The members of the Landsthing, or Senate, are chosen variously, but those of the Folkething, or House of Representatives, are elected by direct manhood suffrage. The franchise is extended to all male citizens of good reputation who have attained the age of thirty years, except those who are in actual receipt of public charity, those who at one time have been recipients of public charity and have rendered no reimbursement therefor, those who are in private service and have no in- dependent household establishment, and those who are not in control of their own property. The voter must have GOVERNMENT IN NORTHERN EUROPE 171 resided one year in his electoral circle. Recently there has been active agitation in behalf of the lowering of the age limit from thirty to twenty-five years and the extension of the suffrage to women. In 19 10 a measure of this purport was passed by the Folkething, but it failed of ultimate adop- tion. From 1814 to 1905 Sweden and Norway were affiliated under a common monarchy. Each state, however, had its own constitution, its own parliament, and its own electoral arrangements ; and since the separation in 1905 the two have become totally independent. The constitution of Sweden dates largely from 1809. Originally not notable for liberal- ity, it has been brought by amendment into substantial conformity with the prevailing type of continental funda- mental laws. Until past the middle of the nineteenth century the Riksdag, or parliament, was an essentially mediaeval assembly of estates, but in 1866 it was reorganized upon the customary bicameral principle. The change opened the way for a parliamentary leadership on the part of the representatives of the townsmen and peasants which never before had been possible. The members of the upper chamber are chosen by the provincial assemblies, but those of the lower are elected by the people directly and under a scheme of proportional representation. Prior to 1909 the franchise was severely restricted by property qualifica- tions, but a measure of the year mentioned, adopted only after a decade of intense conflict, extended the right to vote to substantially all male citizens twenty-four years of age. At the same time the system employed in the election of the provincial assemblies was notably liberalized. The extension of the parliamentary franchise to women was refused, but under circumstances which gave promise of the eventual adoption of a measure upon that subject. The constitution of Norway, adopted originally in 1814, has been amended until to-day it is one of the most liberal 172 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE in Europe. As was evidenced by the failure of republicanism to strike root at the time of the constitutional overturn of 1905, monarchy as an institution is securely entrenched. But the powers of the sovereign are rigidly limited and the parliamentary system of government prevails without ob- stacle or limitation. A measure passed by three successive parliaments after three successive national elections, al- though each time vetoed by the crown, becomes law. Among the legislative assemblies of Europe that of Norway is unique. It comprises essentially a single body, which, however, for purely legislative purposes, is divided into two chambers, or sections. This division is made subsequent to the election of the members, so that representatives are chosen simply to the Storthing as a whole. Formerly the franchise rested, as in Sweden, upon a property qualification ; but a series of suffrage reforms within the past decade has brought it about that in respect to electoral privileges Norway is to-day one of the most democratic of European countries. By law of 1898 the franchise was conferred upon all male citizens of the age of twenty-five in unimpaired possession of civil rights and resident not less than five years in the kingdom. The existing electorate was thereby doubled. In 1901 the suffrage in municipal elections was conferred upon all male citizens, and upon all unmarried women twenty-five years of age who pay taxes on an annual income of not less than 300 kronor (about $84) in the towns, and upon all married women of similar age whose husbands are taxed in similar amounts. During ensuing years there was widespread agitation in behalf of the conferring of the parliamentary franchise upon women, and the Liberal party made this one of the principal items in its programme. In 1907 the Stor- thing rejected a proposal that women be given the parlia- mentary franchise on the same terms as men, but by a decisive majority it granted this franchise to all women who were in possession of the municipal franchise under the GOVERNMENT IN NORTHERN EUROPE 173 law of 1901. By virtue of this legislation Norway became the first of European states within our time to confer upon women under any conditions the privilege of voting for members of the national legislative body and of sitting as members of that body. 1 In 1910 the municipal franchise was granted women upon the same terms as men, and the de- mand that this principle be extended to the parliamentary franchise seems certain to be met. 1 In May, 1906, universal male and female suffrage in parliamentary elections was established in Finland, and at the first election which took place thereafter nineteen women were returned to the diet ; but Finland is not a sovereign state. CHAPTER XII POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES Among the states of continental Europe the role of pioneer in political democracy has been played by France. The Swiss cantons, the Dutch provinces, and the ancient republic of Venice were alike, in the last analysis, aristocracies, and the short-lived Commonwealth of Cromwell was a compound of aristocracy and dictatorship. The beginnings of political democracy in France, however, fall clearly within the period succeeding the summons of the States General in 1789. The France of the old regime was among the most absolute of monarchies. Prior to the Revolution there was no national organ of popular control in matters of public policy save the States General. The States General, however, comprised three orders, or groups, only one of which represented in any measure the people, and at no stage of its history did the institution exhibit capacity to maintain itself as a check upon the crown. Moreover, during the hundred and seven ty-five years preceding 1789 the States General had not once been assembled. Within the sphere of local government the sub- stance of autonomy had all but disappeared, and centralized despotism had become a ruling principle. It was no part of the programme of the French philosophers and reformers of the eighteenth century to reduce monarchy to impotence. Turgot declared that there never was such a thing as a really repub- lican constitution and avowed that monarchies are pecul- iarly adapted to promote the general happiness of mankind. Republicanism, said Montesquieu, is practicable only if there be assumed an unlimited supply of public virtue, a small territory, and an absence of luxury and large fortunes. 174 GOVERNMENT IN THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES 175 Ey Voltaire it was maintained that there never has been a perfect democracy, and that the regeneration of France was to be expected, not from republicanism, but from enlightened monarchy. Even Rousseau was bound to agree that democ- racy could be realized only in states that were both small and poor. M. Aulard, the principal authority to-day upon the development of political opinion in France during the Revolution, finds the first traces of an avowed Republican party not earlier than the autumn of 1790. 1 By force of circumstances, however, the revolutionary movement was inaugurated by the setting up of a reform programme in which the essential principles of democracy had large place ; and the wholly unforeseen direction and intensity which that movement acquired prepared the way eventually for a com- plete overturning of the existing monarchical order and the substitution of a republican regime. With the earliest tri- umph of the revolutionary forces, France entered upon the process of becoming the first, and ultimately the most ad- vanced, of democratic states in continental Europe. The fundamental fact in the political history of France during the past century and a quarter has been the mainte- nance, through recurring constitutional changes, of the essen- tial principle of popular government. The French people to-day are living under their eleventh constitution since the fall of the Bastile. All but one of the eleven have actually been in effect during a longer or shorter period. Until the adoption of the fundamental law at present in operation, no one of these instruments attained its twentieth year. But every one of them contemplated the maintenance of some sort of national legislative body or bodies; every one stipu- lated its own arrangements respecting the exercise of the franchise by the citizens of the state ; and every one recog- nized in greater or lesser degree the right of the people to be Aulard, "Political History of the French Revolution" (translated by B Miall), I, 3og; II, 53. 176 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE consulted in important matters of public policy. As asserted in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, drawn up by the National Assembly, August 4, 1789, the political principles of the Revolution were: (1) that "all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation" ; (2) that "law is the expression of the general will" ; (3) that "every citizen has a right to participate personally, or through his repre- sentative, in the formation of law"; and (4) that law "must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes." At no time during the Revolution, as has been pointed out, was the ideal of absolute political democracy realized in practice, but throughout the period large, though varying, provision was made for the extension of political power to the common man. The first of the two constitutions which were actually in effect during the Revolution — that of September 3, 1791 — provided for a one-house Corps Legislatif, consisting of 745 members, chosen by electors who, in turn, were chosen in the eighty-three departments by male citizens of the age of twenty-five who paid annually a direct tax amounting to as much as the value of three days' labor. Provision was made also for the popular election of judges and of all local admin- istrative authorities. The constitution of 1791 was in opera- tion less than a year. In 1793 a new frame of government was drawn up and ratified by the people, in which provision was made for the reference of all projected laws to primary assemblies of citizens to be voted upon after the principle of the referendum. This ultra-democratic instrument was never put in effect. September 23, 1795, however, there was promulgated the memorable Constitution of the Year III., under which France was governed somewhat more than four years. This instrument opened with a reiteration of the rights of man and established a governmental system some- what more democratic than that contemplated in the con- stitution of 1 79 1, though somewhat less so than that provided GOVERNMENT IN THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES 177 for in the instrument of 1793. Legislative power was vested in two chambers conjointly — a Council of Five Hundred and ■ a Council of Elders — the members of which were chosen by the same electors, but under different conditions of eligibility. The franchise was extended to all male citizens over twenty- one years of age who were able to read and write and who followed a trade or were liable to direct taxation ; but the earlier system of indirect election by means of electoral colleges was retained. Following Napoleon's coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire (Novem- ber 9, 1799) the Constitution of the Year III. was replaced by the Constitution of the Year VIIL, and this instrument, amended several times by important organic enactments, continued the fundamental law under which Napoleon ruled France until his abdication in 18 14. The frame of govern- ment for which it provided was extremely complicated and cumbersome, and it lent itself readily to the maintenance of the essential autocracy upon which Napoleon was bent. In form there was established a system of thoroughgoing man- hood suffrage, and nominally the government was one of the people. But the conditions under which the electoral privi- lege was required to be exercised, rendered the democratic elements of the regime a mockery. The general scheme was one devised by Sieyes under the designation of "lists of no- tables." The members of no one of the four assemblies were elected directly by the people. In each communal district citizens twenty-one years of age and inscribed on the civil register chose a tenth of their number to comprise a "com- munal list." Those named on the communal list chose in their department a tenth of their number, who formed a " departmental list." And, similarly, those whose names appeared on the departmental list chose a tenth of their number, who formed a "national list." From these three lists, in order, were chosen, largely by the Senate, the public officials of the districts, the departments, and the nation. 178 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Under this system the primary electors numbered about 5,000,000; the district notables, 500,000; the departmental notables, 50,000; and the national list, 5000. It is hardly too much to say that no electoral scheme, unless it be that of Prussia, has ever been devised which, while grounded upon the principle of manhood suffrage, more effectually withdraws from the people the actual choice of their public officials, both national and local. The fall of Napoleon was succeeded by a restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, but by the change the interests of democ- racy profited distinctly. The social structure of the country remained, and was destined to remain, as it had been fash- ioned under the Revolution and the Empire, and between the extremes of absolutism and republicanism there was hit upon a middle way, that of constitutional monarchy, modelled upon the English. The Constitutional Charter of 1814-15 ' vested in the crown the sole initiative of legislative measures, but it created a two-house legislative assembly — a Chamber of Peers and a Chamber of Deputies — without whose assent no law might be enacted and no tax might be levied. The upper chamber was composed of members named by the king, but the lower consisted of representatives elected in the departments by direct popular suffrage. By supple- mentary law of February 5, 181 7, the franchise was conferred upon all male citizens who had attained their thirtieth year and who paid a direct tax amounting to at least 300 francs annually. In 1830 the chambers were given the right to initiate measures, and the minimum age of electors was re- duced from thirty to twenty-five years; and in 183 1 the direct tax qualification was reduced from 300 francs to 200, and for certain professional classes, 100. Even under these condi- tions, however, the proportion of the enfranchised did not exceed one in one hundred fifty of the total population. With the overthrow of the Orleanist monarchy, in conse- quence of the uprising of February 24, 1848, France entered GOVERNMENT IN THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES 179 upon a period of aggravated political unsettlement. Through upwards of five years the nation experimented with re- publicanism, only at the close of that period to emerge a monarchy once more, an empire, and the dominion of a Bonaparte. April 23, 1848, there was elected by manhood suffrage a national constituent assembly of 900 members, and, November 4, this body adopted a republican constitution whose corner-stone was the absolute sovereignty of the people. The principal organs of government were to be a president and a one-house legislative assembly of 750 members. Both were to be chosen by direct and secret ballot by electors whose only necessary qualification was the age of twenty-one, a residence of six months, and the non-impairment of civil rights. For a variety of reasons the new order failed to strike root. By a law of May 31, 1850, requiring of the elector a three-year residence in his district, the principle of manhood suffrage was subverted and the electorate was reduced by three millions, or virtually one-third. At the coup d'etat of December 2, 1851, the original arrangements were revived, but only to facilitate the monarchical purposes of Louis Napoleon; and when, November 18, 1852, the people by a vote of 7,824,189 to 253,145 sanctioned the re- establishment of the Napoleonic Empire, the last vestiges of the short-lived republic vere swept away. In 1852 France was given a new constitution which, with a few modifications, continued her fundamental law until the collapse of the Empire in 1870. This constitution pro- vided for two legislative bodies — a Senate, consisting of ex-officio members and life members appointed by the Emperor, and a Corps Legislatif of 251 members elected by direct manhood suffrage every six years. The powers of the Senate were of some importance, but those of the popular chamber were so restricted that the liberal arrangements respecting the suffrage operated but indifferently to the benefit of the people. Throughout upwards of two decades 180 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the illusion of democracy was maintained, but government was in reality autocratic. The present French republic was instituted under cir- cumstances which gave promise of even less stability than had been exhibited by its predecessors of 1793 and 1848. Proclaimed in the dismal days following the disaster at Sedan, it owed its existence at the outset to the fact that, with the capture of Napoleon III. by the Prussians and the utter breakdown of the Imperial regime, there had arisen, as the historian Thiers put it, "a vacancy of power." February 8, 187 1, there was chosen by manhood suffrage a national assembly of 758 members, under whose guidance the war was brought to a close, the terms of peace were agreed upon, and provisional arrangements for government were effected. More because the monarchical factions were unable to har- monize their programmes than because there was any wide- spread demand for republicanism, the system eventually established was that of a democratic republic. The new constitution, comprising principally a series of five funda- mental laws enacted by the national assembly in 1875, was neither orderly in its arrangement nor comprehensive in its contents. It made no mention of the sovereignty of the people and contained no provision with respect to such important matters as the annual budget and the national judiciary. Under the force of its provisions, however, together with that of amendments which have been added to it, and of ordinary legislation by which it has been sup- plemented, there has been developed in France within the past forty years a governmental order which is one of the most democratic, and apparently one of the most securely established, in Europe. The fundamental powers of state are vested largely in a national parliament of two houses — a Senate and a Cham- ber of Deputies. The 300 members of the Senate are chosen in the 83 departments by electoral colleges in which the popu- GOVERNMENT IN THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES 181 iar element is prominent, and the 597 deputies are elected directly by the people. The franchise is extended to all male citizens who have attained the age of twenty-one, and who are not convicts, bankrupts, under guardianship, or in active military or naval service. Of educational or property quali- fications there are none. The only requirement is that the voter shall see to it that his name is inscribed on the electoral lists and that he shall be able to prove a six months' residence in the commune in which he proposes to cast his ballot. The conditions of the franchise are prescribed by national law; but the keeping, and the annual revision, of the electoral lists devolve upon the commune, and the lists are identical for commune, district, departmental, and national elections. The parliamentary electoral area is the arrondissement, an administrative subdivision of the department. Each arron- dissement returns one deputy, unless its population exceeds 100,000, in which case it is divided into single-member con- stituencies, one for each 100,000 or major fraction thereof. A fresh apportionment is made after each quinquennial census. The president of the republic is elected, not by popular vote, but by the two houses of Parliament. But the acts of the chief executive are in practice so largely subject to parlia- mentary supervision that the lack of direct popular election constitutes hardly a more considerable obstacle to democracy than does the anomalous presidential electoral system pre- vailing in the United States. The principle of popular elec- tion runs throughout the whole of the local governmental system. The leading official of the department, the prefect, is appointed by the central authorities, but he is obliged to work with a representative assembly elected by the people under a franchise arrangement identical with that which operates in the choice of parliamentary deputies. The council of the arrondissement and that of the commune are both elective bodies. 1 82 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Electoral questions in France to-day pertain, not to the broadening of the franchise, but simply to the precise con- ditions under which the present scheme of manhood voting shall be operated. Two questions in particular absorb much attention: (i) that of the establishment of the scru- tin de liste, in accordance with which all the deputies from a department would be elected on a general departmental ticket instead of by single-member constituencies, and (2) that of the establishment of some system, such as that which operates in Belgium, under which the various party groups within a department may acquire representation at Paris in proportion to the numerical strength which they exhibit at the polls. These changes have long been advocated by the Socialists and by other radical elements. The first of them at least has been accorded the support of several suc- cessive ministries, and the probabilities are that both in time will be carried into effect. The development of democratic government in Italy during the course of the nineteenth century has been the more remarkable in that not only was Italy previously quite as devoid of popular institutions as was France, but the country was entirely lacking in the political unity requisite for the establishment of any single and stable governmental system. The first phase of the Italina Risorgimento, or "resurrection," coincided in time with the period of French domination (1796-1814) incident to the Napoleonic wars. Its principal aspect was the creation of a group of republics, erected on the ruins of Austrian and Spanish power, as well as upon those of independent native monarchies. Eighteenth century absolutism gave place nominally to progressive and liberal government, though in truth the arrangements effected for popular participation in public affairs were hopelessly inade- quate and were not intended to establish more than the form of democracy. Politically and commercially, the republics were from the outset tributary to France, and after the GOVERNMENT IN THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES 183 establishment of the Napoleonic Empire, in 1804, Italy was fast assimilated to France in constitutional status. May 26, 1805, Napoleon was crowned king of Italy, and monarchy, long veiled, appeared again in the open. Upon the collapse of the Napoleonic regime Italy fell back largely, though not wholly, into the condition prevailing in the eighteenth century. After the Congress of Vienna had completed its readjustments the peninsula was found to contain ten states, several of which were dominated directly or indirectly by Austria, and the name Italy was still only what Metternich pronounced it to be, i.e., "a geographical expression." During the prolonged period 1815-48 — the era dominated by the great Austrian reactionary Metter- nich — there was no government anywhere in Italy that was not absolute. No one of the states had a constitution, a parliament, or any vestige of popular political procedure. The turning point came, however, with the great mid-century era of revolution. In the course of the widespread popular uprisings of 1848-49 several constitutions were granted by Italian princes, and one — that promulgated March 4, 1848, by King Charles Albert of Piedmont — assumed in time large moment by reason of the fact that, unlike the others, it was never revoked, but instead became, and is to-day, the fundamental law of the united Italian nation. After 1848 the building of modern Italy became preeminently the work of Piedmont, and when finally, in 1870, the task was com- pleted, the result stood a monument to Piedmontese organi- zation, leadership, conquest, and expansion. The principal steps in the process — the alliance with France in 1855 ; the war with Austria and the acquisition of Lombardy in 1859; the annexation of Tuscany, Modena, Parma, Romagna, Um- bria, the Papal Marches, Naples and Sicily in i860; the proclamation of the kingdom of Italy in 1861 ; the incorpora- tion of Venetia in 1867 ; and the occupation of Rome in 1870 — ■ are familiar to every student of nineteenth century history. 184 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE To each successive addition of territory the Statuto o\ Charles Albert was extended, until eventually the instru- ment became the constitution of united Italy ; and although by interpretation and supplementary legislation the work- ing constitution of the kingdom has been broadened and otherwise modified, the text of the document of 1848 stands to-day essentially unchanged. Monarchy in Italy is limited and the parliamentary system, while hampered by the multi- plicity of political parties, operates with sufficient facility to ensure effectual control of the executive by the legislative branch of the government. Parliament consists of two houses. The members of the Senate are appointed from certain stipulated categories of citizens by the crown ; the 508 members of the Chamber of Deputies are elected by the people. In no country of western Europe is the franchise more severely restricted than in Italy, yet progress toward a broadly democratic scheme of suffrage has been steady and apparently as rapid as conditions have warranted. Prior to 1882 the franchise was extended only to property -holders who were able to read and write, who had attained the age of twenty-five, and who paid an annual tax of at least 40 lire (about $8). Under this system less than two and one-half per cent of the population possessed the voting privilege. In 1882 the property qualification was reduced from 40 lire to 19 lire 80 centesimi and the age limit was lowered to twenty-one years. The disqualification of illiteracy was retained, but a premium was placed upon literacy by the extension of the franchise, regardless of property, to all males over twenty-one who had received a primary school educa- tion. By the new law the number of voters was raised from 627,838 to 2,049,461. Since 1882 the electoral system has been revised a number of times, but without any pronounced effect upon the scope of the franchise. As the law stands to-day the voter must be a citizen twenty-one years of age or over ; he must be able GOVERNMENT IN THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES 185 to read and write ; and he must have passed an examination in the subjects comprised in the course of compulsory elemen- tary education. The last-mentioned qualification is not required, however, of officials, college graduates, professional men, persons who have served two years in the army, and citizens who pay a direct tax annually of as much as 19 lire 80 centesimi, an agricultural rental of 500 lire, or house rent ranging, according to the size of the commune, from 150 to 400 lire. The test of education continues to be fundamental in the system, and the extension of public education carries with it automatically the expansion of the franchise. Un- fortunately, the obstacles to educational progress are so great that the democratization of the state through this process proceeds slowly. In 1904 the number of enrolled voters was 2,541,327/ which was but 29 per cent of the male population over twenty-one years of age, and 7.67 per cent of the total population. At the general election of November, 1904, the number of persons who voted was but 1,593,886, or 62.7 per cent of the number entitled to do so. Lack of clear-cut political issues, papal disapproval, and native indifference operate continually to keep down the propor- tion of the enfranchised citizens who make use of their privi- leges. So imminent has always seemed the menace of illiter- acy that but seldom has the establishment of manhood suffrage been proposed, and there is no very insistent demand that the existing suffrage arrangements be materially modified. None the less, it must not be forgotten that parliamentary government in Italy is barely half a century old, and by those best acquainted with the political history of the country during this eventful period it is generally agreed that the progress that has been realized in the direction of self-govern- ment has been among the more remarkable phenomena of recent times. 1 Exclusive of 26,056 electors temporarily disfranchised by reason of being engaged in active military service. 1 86 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Spain is another south European state which during the nineteenth century acquired a constitutional style of govern- ment and in which the growth of popular institutions has been larger than is commonly understood. After several more or less unhappy experiments with constitutionalism, beginning with the promulgation of the visionary instrument of 1812 and ending in the creation of the short-lived republic of 1873, Spain at length arrived at unwonted stability under a fundamental law, promulgated in 1876, which continues to the present day the legal basis of public authority. The principal organs of government are the crown, the ministers, and a Cortes of two houses. Executive power is vested in the crown, though in practice it is exercised chiefly by the ministers ; and for the acts of the government these minis- ters are responsible nominally, if not always actually, to the national parliament. The two legislative chambers are the Senate and the Congress of Deputies. The Senate, while in part elective, is essentially an aristocratic body, but the Congress cf Deputies is composed of members chosen directly by the inhabitants of the several districts into which the kingdom is divided. Prior to 1890 the franchise was re- stricted severely by property qualifications, but a measure of that year reestablished in effect the scheme of manhood suffrage which had been in operation during the revolutionary epoch 1869-75. As amended in 1907, the law confers the suffrage upon all male Spaniards who have attained the age of twenty-five, who have resided in a given electoral district not less than two years, and who have not been deprived ju- dicially of their civil rights. Except, indeed, in the case of certain judicial officials and of persons more than seventy years of age, the exercise of the voting privilege is compulsory. The political history of Portugal throughout the nineteenth century, like that of Spain, was stormy. The principle of constitutionalism may be said to have been definitely estab- lished in 1826, at which time there was granted by Pedro IV. GOVERNMENT IN THE ROMANCE COUNTRIES 187 a "constitutional charter" introducing a parliamentary scheme of government modelled upon that in operation in Great Britain. Until the uprising of 1910 this charter, modified by numerous amendments, remained the funda- mental law of the kingdom. Nominally, the governmental system prevailing under it was distinctly liberal. The powers of the crown were closely regulated, the ministers were de- clared to be responsible, and the 155 members of the House of Deputies were elected, after the principle of proportional representation, by the direct vote of all male citizens twenty- one years of age who were able to read and write and who paid a very small tax. Practically, however, by reason of the factious nature of Portuguese politics, the indifferent capacity of the royal family, and the ignorance and inex- perience of the mass of the people, popular government was little better than a farce. The accession of Manuel II. , in February, 1908, was succeeded by the ripening of a republican plot which in October, 1910, was carried into execution with complete success. Through the agency of a provisional government the monarchy was abolished, the aristocratic chamber of the national parliament was swept away, far- reaching reforms in public finance, agriculture, education, and religion were inaugurated, and arrangements were ef- fected whereby there should be elected a national constituent assembly. In the election of this assembly, May 28, 191 1, virtually all male citizens twenty-one years of age and able to read and write were permitted to participate. During the summer of 191 1 the assembly ratified the work of the provisional government, declared the government of Portugal to be that of a democratic republic, and drafted a national constitution which subsequently was put in operation. Whether Portugal's republican experiment shall prove ulti- mately more successful than did Spain's of two score years ago cannot now be foretold, but the beginning has been, on the whole, auspicious. CHAPTER XIII POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE The past three-quarters of a century has been in eastern Europe a period of transformation hardly less remarkable than that which within the same decades has taken place in England, France, or Germany. New states — Greece, Bul- garia, Roumania, Servia, Montenegro — have arisen to take their places in the widening family of nations. The railway has been introduced, industrial activity extended, trade in- creased, and agriculture revived. The facilities of educa- tion have been multiplied, and the range of religious liberty has been broadened. More important, perhaps, than any of these things, the right of the people to participate in their own government has been extensively established. Until the nineteenth century was well advanced there was no substantial measure of popular government in any country, save Hungary, between the Alps and the Urals; but to-day there is not a country anywhere in Europe in which the people do not exercise some real influence in the conduct of legislation, taxation, and other fundamental concerns of statecraft. In the nations of the east this influence is exer- cised under conditions which are very much less liberal and stable than those that obtain in western lands. But the existence of popular governmental institutions of any sort in states that were so recently devoid of them is a fact of first-rate significance. The only one of the larger states of eastern Europe definitely to attain constitutionalism before the close of the nineteenth century was Austria-Hungary; and it may be added that it is in Austria that, within our own day, the maximum of POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE 189 east European political democracy has been realized. As is familiarly understood, Austria-Hungary is a dual monarchy composed of the Empire of Austria and the Kingdom of Hun- gary. Political relations between the two portions of the monarchy have subsisted since the first quarter of the six- teenth century, but the affiliation which to-day binds the two together rests upon the memorable Ausgleich, or Compromise, of 1867. The two states have a common sovereign, who is emperor in Austria and king in Hungary, common ministries of foreign affairs, war, and finance, and a unique joint legisla- tive institution known as the "delegations." Otherwise, the two are entirely separate. Each has its own constitu- tion, its own parliament, its own ministry, its own laws, its own administrative system, its own courts. It thus becomes possible for the two to maintain political arrangements which are widely dissimilar, and in fact that is precisely what they do. Austria entered the nineteenth century a monarchy of the most thoroughly absolutist type. Some of her more recent sovereigns, notably Maria Theresa (1740-80) and Joseph II. (1780-90), belonged to the eighteenth century group of enlightened despots and by their broadly conceived meas- ures contributed much to the modernization of what was still essentially a mediaeval state; but with popular institutions no one of these monarchs had a shred of sympathy, and throughout the great era of revolution in France, and of the Napoleonic revolutionizing of Europe, the Empire continued substantially unaffected. In the widespread reaction which set in during the declining years of the Napoleonic regime it fell to Austria, guided by Prince Metternich, "the man of the status quo," to play the principal role. Through several decades Austrian influence was chiefly instrumental in dam- ming the stream of liberalism throughout half of Europe, and during this period the key to Austrian polity at home con- tinued steadily to be supplied by the maxim of the Emperor 1 90 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Francis I., 1 "govern and change nothing." It was only after 1840 that there took place throughout the Empire any con- siderable growth of liberalism. Once well started, however, the liberal movement made rapid headway, and the main- tenance of the absolutist regime became steadily more diffi- cult. The turning-point came in 1848. Under the electrify- ing effect of the news of the fall of Louis Philippe at Paris, and of the fulminations of Louis Kossuth, translated intyi German and scattered broadcast in the Austrian capital there broke out at Vienna, March 12-13 OI the year mentioned, an insurrection which instantly got beyond the government'* ability to control. Metternich was hurled from power and the structure of the Empire was shaken to its foundations. April 25 there was promulgated the first written constitution in Austrian history. In 1849, however, a new sovereign — the present Emperor Francis Joseph I. — was established upon the throne and the forces of autocracy gradually won back what had been lost. December 31, 1851, "in the name of the unity of the Empire and of monarchical principles," the revised constitution of March 4, 1849, was rescinded, and, save that the abolition of feudal institutions was perma- nent, the Empire fell back into almost precisely its status during the era of Metternich. The decade which followed was a period of political and intellectual torpor. But the triumph of constitutionalism was nearer than appeared. The depression of the later fifties, intensified by the humiliations of the Crimean War and the disasters of the Italian campaigns of 1859, induced the Emperor and his principal minister, Goluchowski, to undertake of their own accord a substantial reformation of the Empire's illiberal and antiquated governmental system. The project was delayed, first by a deadlock occasioned by differences of opinion with Hungary and later by the Austro-Prussian War Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, 1792-1804; emperor of Austria 1804-1835. POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE 191 of 1866. But in 1867 the end was attained. Under date of December 21 of that year, there were promulgated five fundamental laws which, comprising nominally a revision and extension of a patent of 1861, became for all practical purposes the constitution of the Austrian Empire of to-day. Their promulgation was a part of the same general settle- ment of Austro-Hungarian affairs which was given distinction by the establishment of the existing Ausgleich. Under the terms of these instruments Austria is constituted a limited monarchy, with a responsible ministry, a bicameral legislature, and a considerable measure of local self-govern- ment. All citizens are declared to be equal before the law; public office is open alike to all; freedom of speech and press and liberty of conscience are guaranteed to all ; and the inviolability of property is amply safeguarded. Of the relentless repression of individual freedom and initiative which so preeminently characterized the Metternich regime hardly a trace remains. The upper legislative branch, the Herrenhaus, or House of Lords, consists of a somewhat variable body of men who sit in part by ex-officio right, in part by hereditary station, and in part by special Imperial appointment. Originally, the members of the Abgeordne- tenhaus, or House of Representatives, were elected by the provincial diets, but in 1873 the power of election was vested directly in the people. The broadly democratic electoral system which prevails in the Empire to-day, however, is a very recent creation. When, in 1873, the right of electing deputies was withdrawn from the provincial diets, it was conferred upon the four classes of the provincial populations which had been ac- customed to take part in the electing of the local diets. These were (1) the great landholders, (2) the larger payers of direct taxes in the towns, (3) chambers of commerce and of industry, and (4) the larger payers of direct taxes in the rural communes. To each of these curia, or classes, the 192 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE law of 1873 assigned the right of electing a given number of parliamentary representatives. The number of voters in each class and the relative importance of the individual voter varied enormously. In 1890, in the class of landowners there was one deputy to every 63 voters; in the chambers of commerce, one to every 27; in the towns, one to every 2918; and in the rural districts, one to every 11,600. Such a system obviously was grossly undemocratic and inequi- table. In 1893 Premier Taaffe, in response to persistent agitation, brought forward a sweeping electoral measure which, if it had become law, would not have abolished the class system, but would have increased the electorate from 1,700,000 to something like 4,000,000. By both those who thought it went too far and those, chiefly the Socialists, who thought it did not go far enough, the measure was opposed, with the consequence of its defeat. In 1896 a statute was passed by which there was added to the existing chamber 72 new members, to be elected by male citizens twenty- four years of age and resident six months in their respective electoral districts. The inequalities inherent in the class system, however, were left untouched, and the problem of a democratic franchise was still unsolved. Not until 1905 did the situation again become favorable for reform. At the close of that year the government prom- ised a universal suffrage bill, and in February, 1906, a measure upon the subject was introduced. In the hope of terminating the parliamentary obstructionism by which the conduct of public business had long been impeded, and of winning fresh popularity for the Hapsburg dynasty, the aged Emperor accorded it his warm approval. In the closing days of the year the measure was passed, and, January 26, 1907, it was put in operation. By it the total number of parliamentary seats was raised from 425 to 516, a fresh and more equitable allotment of them among the racial groups of the Empire was effected, and the class system was POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE 193 abolished entirely, and in its stead was substituted general, equal, and direct manhood suffrage. For the first time the Austrian representative body was put upon a plane with the parliamentary assemblies of the most advanced nations of the world. With insignificant exceptions, every male citizen who has attained the age of twenty-four years, and who at the time the election is ordered has resided during at least one year in the commune in which the right to vote is to be exercised, is qualified to-day to vote for a parliamentary representative. There are no important qualifications of either property or education. Voting is by secret ballot, and, when so ordered by the provincial diet, is compulsory. The effort of the aristocratic elements to introduce in the law of 1907 a scheme of plural voting based upon age was unsuccessful. The fundamentals of the constitution of Hungary are of remarkable antiquity, antedating even the Golden Bull of 1222, wherein, as in the contemporary Great Charter of England, were confirmed institutions and liberties that were already old. In the main, however, the constitutional system to-day in operation took form in a series of measures enacted by the Hungarian diet in the course of the up- heaval of 1848. Thirty-one laws, in all, were at that time passed, revising the organization of the legislative chambers, extending the suffrage, creating a responsible cabinet, abolish- ing the remains of feudalism, and modernizing, in general, the institutions of the kingdom. The fate of these measures was for a time adverse. The Austrian recovery in 1849 remanded Hungary to the status of a subject province, and it was not until the establishment of the Ausgleich of 1867 that the constitutional regime of 1848 was permitted again to be put in operation. Since 1867, however, the constitu- tion and laws of the kingdom have been fully guaranteed, and Hungary has taken rank as one of the more limited of east European monarchies. The powers of the crown are 194 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE rigidly restricted, the ministers are responsible for all ex- ecutive acts, and there is a bicameral parliament of notable independence and vigor. The upper house, known as the Chamber of Magnates, is in composition aristocratic, but the lower, the Chamber of Deputies, is composed of 413 representatives elected by the people. The electoral system, however, — established in 1848 and slightly revised in 1874 and 1899, — was devised specifi- cally to insure the continued dominance of the ruling Magyar element of the population, and in its actual operation it is one of the most complicated and illiberal in Europe. The requisite age for a voter is twenty years, as compared with twenty-four in Austria, but qualifications of property, taxation, profession, official position, and ancestral privileges are so manipulated as to exclude from the franchise sub- stantially the whole of the non-Magyar population, pre- ponderant numerically though it is. 1 In an aggregate population of some 20,000,000 to-day there are not more than 1,100,000 voters. In recent years, especially since the reform of 1907 in Austria, there has been in Hungary an increasingly insistent demand that the Magyar hegemony be broken and that a broader and more equitable electoral system be substituted for the antiquated system now in operation. In 1908 the government submitted to the cham- bers an elaborate electoral measure, but the obnoxious features of the existing law were merely replaced by other features equally obnoxious and designed to attain the same ends. The proposed legislation was rejected, and the electoral system remains unreformed. Interest in the subject con- tinues intense, and it would seem that the demand of the non-Magyar peoples for a more substantial voice in the affairs of the nation cannot long be denied. 1 At the census of igoo the aggregate population of the kingdom was 10,254,559. The number of Magyars was 8,742,301. Of the non-Magyars, 8,029,316 were Slavs and 2,135,181 Germans. POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE 195 The opening decade of the twentieth century, prolific in constitutional reforms in numerous states of western Europe, witnessed the inauguration of constitutionalism in two important nations of the east, Russia and Turkey. By no means sufficient time has elapsed to render it possible to forecast with assurance the consequences of the changes that in these countries have been introduced, but it seems reason- ably clear that in both instances the ground which has been occupied in the direction of popular participation in govern- mental affairs will never be wholly abandoned. Russia at the beginning of the nineteenth century was a thorough- going autocracy. It was within the competence of the tsar to make war and conclude peace at will, to appoint and dismiss his ministers independently, to initiate and pro- mulgate arbitrarily any measure of legislation, and to order the arrest, imprisonment, exile, or execution of any person whatsoever, all without an iota of responsibility and with- out obligation to ask the assent of, or to render account to, any earthly power. Of parliamentary institutions there was not a trace. Save in the very general sense of an ill-defined body of customs regulating such matters as the succession to the throne, there was not even a national constitution. The tsar could at any time effect the most fundamental changes in the economy of the state, not only without calling into consultation representatives of the nation, but even over the protest of any or all of Ins official agents and advisers. The history of Russia throughout the century exhibited a remarkable alternation of liberalism and reaction. Alex- ander I. (1801-25) was during the first two-thirds of his reign a more liberal sovereign than any the Empire had ever known. He relaxed the censorship of the press, encouraged tolerance for dissenters in religion, instigated the codifica- tion and humanizing of the law, remodelled the organs of government, contemplated emancipation of the serfs, be- stowed upon the affiliated kingdom of Poland a constitution 196 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE which in respect to the franchise was more liberal than the English or the French, and apparently was not ill-disposed toward the granting of a constitution to Russia itself. After 1 81 8, however, he fell all but completely under the spell of Metternich and, giving way to his apprehensions, became strongly reactionary. Nicholas I. (1825-55), his brother and successor, was by nature an absolutist, and the three decades covered by his reign comprised an era of remorseless, undeviating repression. The accession of Alexander II. (1855-81), following hard the humiliations of the war in the Crimea, inaugurated a second epoch of liberalism. The censorship of the press was again relaxed, the activities of the secret police which during the preceding reign had been most obnoxious were curtailed, the agencies of popular education were overhauled and extended, jury trial was introduced in criminal cases, a measure of local self-govern- ment was instituted through the district and provincial zemstvos, and, as has been related elsewhere, the whole body of serfs on both royal and private estates was emancipated. The reign closed, as had that of Alexander I., amidst re- action, although it is interesting to note that at the time of the sovereign's assassination a project was in hand looking toward the establishment of a national consultative assembly. Alexander III. (1881-94) believed liberalism both dan- gerous and fundamentally non-Russian, and with his acces- sion there set in a new era of autocracy which was prolonged through the reign and over into that of the present emperor, Nicholas II., until within recent years the exigencies of war and revolution forced a relaxation. How, step by step, Russia was brought, during the years 1904-08, to the attainment of constitutionalism is a matter of familiar history. Pressed by strikes, disorders, and plots, the Imperial government was driven, first, to decree the freedom of the press and kindred liberalizing measures, then to call into existence a Duma, or national representative POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE 197 assembly, and finally to concede that the franchise should be universal and the assembly's control of legislation more than merely nominal. The convening of the first Duma, May 10, 1906, was preceded by the promulgation of a series of "organic laws" which were forbidden to be touched by the assembly, and which, amended at a number of points, comprise to-day the formal constitution of the Empire. There was established at the same time a Council of the Empire, an essentially aristocratic body whose function it became to serve as an upper chamber of the national legis- lature. "No new law," declares the constitution, "shall be promulgated without the approval of the Council of the Empire and of the Imperial Duma, and no law shall become effective until after its approval by the Emperor." ' The regulations in accordance with which the members of the Duma are elected have been modified a number of times, but in the form adopted in 1907 they prescribe that those deputies who represent the towns shall be elected directly, and those who represent the governments and provinces shall be elected indirectly, by the people. In general, the franchise is extended to male citizens twenty-five years of age, excluding students, soldiers, and sailors in actual service, and several classes of present or past offenders against the laws. No individual is entitled to more than one vote. The history of the Duma was for a time stormy, and by the intensity of party and factional strife the survival of the new regime was more than once imperilled. The life of the third Duma (opened November 14, 1907), how- ever, has been prolonged, and the years covered by it have been marked by constructive legislation of the sort of which Russia long has stood in need. The government of the Empire is still far from democratic. The immediate purpose of the constitution is quite as much to safeguard the interests of monarchy as to promote those of the people, 1 Art. 44. Dodd, "Modern Constitutions," II, 188. 198 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE and the ultimate principle of autocracy is maintained at St. Petersburg with rigidity. Measured, however, by the conditions of a century, a generation, or even a decade ago, the amount of progress attained in governmental responsive- ness to the will of the nation looms large. The history of European Turkey in the past hundred years has been a story largely of governmental inefficiency and territorial dismemberment. With popular institutions the nation until very recently had little to do. In 1876 there was promulgated a liberal constitution, but the instrument was intended merely to enable the new sultan, Abdul Hamid II., to weather a threatened palace revolution, and as soon as it had served its purpose it was suspended. In the summer of 1908, however, a revolution which had been long brewing wrought speedily and peacefully a remarkable change of situation. The Young Turks acquired control of the army and forced upon the sultan a restoration of the constitu- tion of 1876 and an order for the election of a national parliament. The termination of the old regime of tyranny and corruption was acclaimed throughout the surviving portions of the Empire, and, although during the spring of 1909 a counter-revolutionary movement was set on foot against the reforming element, the triumph of the new order was complete. In April, 1909, Abdul Hamid II. was deposed and in his stead was set up as constitutional monarch his brother, Mohammed V., and August 5, 1009, a new con- stitution, differing but slightly from that of 1876, was put in operation. The sultan remains the spiritual head of the larger part of the Moslem world, but he is no longer a tem- poral autocrat. His ministers are responsible for all execu- tive acts. The first Turkish Parliament was opened Decem- ber 17, 1908. It consisted of two chambers, a Senate appointed by the sultan, and a Chamber of Deputies elected by the people on the basis of one representative for every 50,000 adult males of the population. POPULAR GOVERNMENT IN EASTERN EUROPE 199 Of the several European states which within the past hundred years have achieved independence of the Turkish Empire every one maintains free institutions, and some are quite thoroughly democratic. During a considerable period after her liberation (1827-29) Greece suffered from abso- lutism. In 1844 a constitution was put in operation under which was established a limited monarchy and a bicameral legislature, but it was not until after the accession of the present sovereign, George L, in 1863, that liberalism became the ruling principle in governmental affairs. Under the constitution of 1864 the powers of the crown are restricted, the ministers are responsible, and supreme legislative func- tions are vested in a popularly elected Bule, or parliament, of one chamber. Roumania achieved independence in 1878 and proclaimed herself a kingdom in 1881. Her government is that of a constitutional monarchy with an elective parlia- ment, although the electoral system, resembling the three- class system of Prussia, is exceedingly illiberal. Servia also was recognized as independent in 1878. Since the creation of the Servian kingdom, in 1882, the governmental arrangements of the nation have been unstable and, on the whole, less satisfactory than those of any other sovereign Balkan state. Bulgaria, long a principality tributary to Turkey, took advantage of the Turkish revolution of 1908 to declare her independence, and although the act constituted a violation of the Berlin treaty of 1878, the declaration was permitted by the powers to be made good. The kingdom remains what the principality was, i.e., a constitutional monarchy whose legislative body, the Sobranye, is elected by manhood suffrage. The smallest of the Balkan states, Montenegro, was converted by its prince voluntarily, in 1905, from a patriarchal autocracy into a limited monarchy with a constitution framed by a popular assembly; and, in August, 1 910, the miniature principality was raised to the dignity of a kingdom. CHAPTER XIV THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE IN SWITZERLAND Throughout a generation past the laboratory par excellence of democracy in Europe has been the diminutive republic of Switzerland. "The sovereignty of the people," writes an English student of popular institutions, "based upon the equal political and civil rights of all adult male citizens, has nowhere been so fully realized as in the expanding series of self-governing areas in which a Swiss citizen exercises his rights and duties as a member of a commune, a canton, and a federal state ; nowhere have the relations between these larger and smaller areas of democracy grown up under con- ditions of such careful adjustment and so much promise of stability. Finally, there is no other state whose constitutions, federal, provincial, communal, express such implicit con- fidence in the present will of the majority and admit such facility of fundamental changes to meet new conditions. Though there are one or two modern states where public control of industry and other forms of socialistic legislation and administration have been carried further than in Swit- zerland, it would probably be found that nowhere has sub- stantial liberty and equality of opportunity, political, in- dustrial, educational, and social, been more adequately secured than to the citizens in the more advanced cantons of Switzerland. For not only in political government do we find many able experiments in the art of reconciling indi- vidual liberty with rule by the majority, but outside of politics in the labor organizations, cooperative societies, consumers' leagues, and an immense variety of economic, philanthropic, educational, and recreative unions, we have 200 THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE IN SWITZERLAND 201 evidence of the free play of a democratic spirit finding ex- pression in social forms." l The Swiss confederation as it exists to-day is a product of the middle and later nineteenth century. The origins of it, however, are to be traced to a very much remoter period. Beginning with the alliance of the three forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden in 1291, it was brought to its present status through the gradual accretion of new cantons, the subdivision of old ones, the reconstitution of dependent territories, and the development of a federal governmental system superimposed upon the political arrangements of the several affiliated states. In 1798, when the French Directory, at the instigation of Napoleon, took it upon itself to revolutionize Switzerland, the con- federation consisted of thirteen essentially autonomous cantons whose only organ of common control was a diet in which each member of the federation possessed one vote. The powers of the diet were scarcely more than advisory. Of the cantons, some were moderately democratic, but others were rigidly aristocratic, and the institutions of them all were largely such as had survived from the later Middle Ages. The consequence of the French intervention of 1798 was the almost instant conversion of the loosely organized confederation into a centralized Helvetic Republic, tribu- tary to France, and administered under a constitution which was substantially a reproduction of the French in- strument of 1795. A government of ample powers was set up at Lucerne, comprising an Executive Directory, a Senate, and an indirectly elected Grand Council of Deputies. A uniform Swiss citizenship was established, a common suf- frage was introduced, freedom of speech and of the press were guaranteed, and unity was provided for in the coinage, the postal service, and the penal law. The French intervention was ruthless, and the regime thrust upon the Swiss had little 1 Lloyd, "A Sovereign People," 1-2. 202 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE root in national tradition or interest, but by it the shackles of medievalism were effectually broken and the country was set upon the road toward substantial and modernized nationality. Under the new system there was much chafing and, February 19, 1803, Napoleon yielded so far as to pro- mulgate an Act of Mediation whereby was authorized an essential restoration of federalism, and once more Switzer- land became a mere league of states. The diet of the new confederation, however, possessed powers materially more extended than those which had been exercised by its pred- ecessor, and the equality of civil rights, furthermore, which the French had introduced was not permitted to be molested. At the close of 1813, when Napoleon's hold upon the European situation was fast being relaxed, the Act of Media- tion was repudiated by a majority of the cantons, and under date of August 7, 1815, there was adopted by the whole number of cantons — now raised to 22 — a "Federal Pact," or constitution, whereby the ties which bound the federation together were still further weakened. Most of the guaran- tees of common citizenship, religious toleration, and in- dividual liberty which the French had introduced were rescinded, and during the decade following 181 5 the trend in the more important cantons was not only particularistic but distinctly reactionary. The smaller and poorer cantons, however, retained largely their democratic institutions, and after 1830 the tide turned in the direction of liberalism in one after another of the more influential ones. Between 1830 and 1848 there took place not fewer than thirty liberaliz- ing revisions of cantonal constitutions, and in the same period the movement for the strengthening and democratiz- ing of the confederation as a whole gained such headway that in the revolutionary year 1848 it became possible for the first time for the Radical, or Centralist, party to bring about the adoption of a new nationalizing constitution. Under this instrument were revived numerous features of THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE IN SWITZERLAND 203 the constitutional regime of 1 798-1803. But the establish- ment of national unity was not yet carried far enough to satisfy the Centralists, and in 1874 they procured the adop- tion of a revised and still more centralizing fundamental law. The constitution of Switzerland to-day is this instrument of 1874, amended, however, upon at least a dozen occasions and in a number of highly important particulars. The nation remains a confederation, and the sphere of govern- mental authority left to the twenty-five affiliated cantons and half-cantons is large; but the trend through two genera- tions has been scarcely less pronouncedly in the direction of increased nationalism than has been the case in the United States since 1789. The governmental system of the confederation to-day, like that of the individual cantons, is based upon a curious combination of the two principles of representation and the exercise of political power directly by the people. The essential organs of the general government are the executive Federal Council and the legislative Federal Assembly. The latter consists of two houses, of which the upper is known as the Council of the States and the lower as the National Council. The Federal Council comprises a plural executive, such as was advocated by many of the framers of the Constitution of the United States. It consists of seven members elected by the two legislative houses in joint session for a maximum term of three years. To preside over the deliberations of the Federal Council and to serve as titular head of the state the houses designate each year one of the seven councillors, and upon him is bestowed the name of President of the Republic. This dignitary is, however, not at all a "chief executive" in either the American or the French sense. He is at best only primus inter pares, and his powers do not materially transcend those 01 his colleagues. Each of the councillors assumes direction of one of the seven departments of state, but neither singly nor collectively 204 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE does their authority reach far beyond routine business. Ultimate control in all matters with which they have to do is vested in the Assembly, of which body the Federal Council, indeed, is in function but a sort of executive committee. Within the Assembly the Council of States, or upper house, is essentially federal, while the National Council, or lower branch, is broadly popular. The Council of States, like the American Senate, consists of two members from each of the affiliated states; but there the analogy ends, for these mem- bers may be chosen in any one of a half-dozen ways, the length of their terms may be fixed by the individual cantons, and the functions of the chamber are in every respect identi- cal with those of the lower house. It is commonly agreed that the Council of States lacks the initiative and the restrain- ing power inherent in a virile upper chamber. The National Council is composed of deputies chosen at a general election, for a term of three years, by direct manhood suffrage. The constitution stipulates that there shall be one representative for every 20,000 inhabitants or major fraction thereof, and a reapportionment is made consequent upon each decennial census. The quota of representatives falling to the various cantons varies, of course, from decade to decade. It runs at present from one in Uri and Zug to sixteen in Zurich and twenty-seven in Bern. The electorate consists of all male Swiss who have attained their twentieth year, and who are in possession of the franchise within their respective cantons. Voting is in all cases by secret ballot, and elections take place on the same day (the last Sunday in October) throughout the entire country. Fear of Catholic influence dictated the restriction that no clergyman might be elected a repre- sentative. With this exception, all voters are eligible. The constitution requires that the Assembly shall be con- vened at least once a year ; in point of fact, it meets regularly twice, in June and in December. The powers which it exercises are principally legislative, but also in no small THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE IN SWITZERLAND 205 degree executive and judicial. It is the real directive agency of the confederation. The most remarkable features of the Swiss political system are those which arise from the employment of the popular initiative and referendum and of other direct primary agencies of government. Historically, these institutions were carried over into the domain of the federal government from the governmental systems of the cantons, and an understanding of their operations presupposes some acquaintance with their cantonal origins. There are in the confederation to-day twenty-five cantons and half-cantons. 1 Each has its own constitution, and no two constitutions are altogether alike. The variation in governmental organs and practice is there- fore considerable. Taking, however, as a basis of classifi- cation the nature of the legislative process, the whole number of cantons may be said to fall into three groups. The first comprises those in which the ultimate public powers are exercised directly by a Landesgemeinde, or primary assembly of enfranchised citizens; the second, those in which the ex- ercise of such powers is vested in a body of elected repre- sentatives, subject to an obligatory referendum of measures to the people; the third, those in which the public powers are similarly vested, but in which the referendum is optional rather than obligatory. Prior to the French intervention of 1798 there were in the confederation no fewer than eleven cantons whose govern- ment was of the primary-assembly type ; to-day there are but two cantons and four half-cantons — Uri, Glarus, the two Unterwaldens, and the two Appenzells. Under varying circumstances, but principally by reason of the increasingly unwieldly character of the Landesgemeinde occasioned by the growth of population, the remainder have gone over to 1 Strictly, 19 cantons and 6 half-cantons. In respect to local government the half-canton is a distinct state, but in federal affairs it has only one-half the weight of a canton. 206 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the representative system. All those in which the primary assembly survives are small in area and are situated in the more sparsely populated mountain districts where condi- tions of living are primitive and where there is small need of governmental elaborateness. The area of Zug is but 92 square miles, that of Glarus 267. The distance to be travelled by the citizen who wishes to attend the Landesgemeinde of his canton rarely exceeds ten miles. Theoretically, the primary assembly is composed of all male citizens of the canton or half-canton who have attained the age of twenty years. Actually, it is a gathering of those who are able, or disposed, to be present. The assembly meets once a year, in April or May, at a centrally located place within the canton, and usually in an open meadow. Special sessions may be convened when occasion arises. With the men come ordinarily the women and children, and the occasion partakes of the character of a picturesque, even if solemn and ceremonious, holiday. Under the presidency of a Land- amman, or cantonal executive, elected by the assembly, the gathering passes with despatch upon whatsoever pro- posals may be laid before it by the Landrat, or legislative council of the canton. In the larger assemblies measures are simply adopted or rejected, without privilege of debate. In the smaller ones, however, it is still possible to preserve some restricted measure of discussion. Unless a secret ballot is specifically demanded, voting is by show of hands. Propositions may be introduced by any member, though in practice it is customary to communicate them exclusively through the agency of the cantonal council. The com- petence of the Landesgemeinde is very comprehensive. It comprises the revision of constitutions, the enactment of all laws, the levying of all direct taxes, the granting of public privileges, the election of executive and judicial officials — in short, the performance of all the fundamental functions of government. The Landesgemeinde is the sovereign organ THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE IN SWITZERLAND 207 of a democracy as thoroughgoing as any the world has ever known. Every canton, whether or not of the primary-assembly type, has an elective legislative council, or Landrat. In the primary-assembly cantons the council's principal func- tion is the preparing and submitting of measures, and its place in the governmental system is subsidiary. In all other cantons, however, it is a more important institution, for it comprises the only law-making body which is ever brought together at one time or place. Where the obliga- tory i2ferendum exists the decisions of the council are but provisional, but where the referendum is only optional, they acquire in many matters the stamp of finality. Members of the council are chosen regularly in districts by direct vote of all males who have completed their twentieth year and are in possession of full civil rights. Of the referendum there are traces in Switzerland as early as the sixteenth century. In its present form, however, the institution originated in the canton of St. Gall in 1830, so that it is to be regarded as essentially a nineteenth century creation. The principle which underlies it is closely akin to a fundamental tenet of the philosophy of Rousseau, namely, that laws ought to be enacted, not through repre- sentatives, but by the people directly. The device of the referendum may be applied within two essentially distinct fields — that of organic, fundamental law (constitutions and constitutional amendments) and that of ordinary statute law. The referendum as applied to constitutional instru- ments exists to-day in every one of the Swiss cantons, save, of course, those in which the existence of a primary assembly precludes occasion for the special reference of either con- stitutional or legislative questions. It is in no sense, however, peculiar to Switzerland. The principle that changes in the fundamental law shall be referred directly or indirectly to the people obtains in English-speaking countries generally, 208 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE and to some extent elsewhere. The referendum as applied to ordinary laws, on the other hand, is in origin and spirit distinctively Swiss, although it likewise is spreading among English-speaking peoples, notably in Australasia and the United States. The referendum for ordinary laws exists to-day in every non-Landesgemeinde portion of Swit- zerland save the canton of Freiburg. The constitutional referendum is in all cases obligatory; the legislative is in some cantons obligatory, in others optional. Where the legislative referendum is obligatory, every enactment of the cantonal legislative council must be submitted to popular vote. Where it is optional, a measure is referred only upon demand of a specified number or proportion of voters. In cantons of this second class a petition calling for a referendum must be presented, as a rule, within thirty days of the enact- ment of the measure upon which it is proposed that a vote be taken. The number of signers required to make the petition effective varies from 500 in Zug to 6000 in St. Gall. Similarly, the proportion of voters which is competent to throw out a measure is variable. In some cantons a majority of all enfranchised citizens is required; in others, a simple majority of those actually voting upon the proposition in hand. The complement of the referendum is the initiative. Through the exercise of the one the people may prevent the taking effect of a law or a constitutional amendment to which they object. Through the exercise of the other they may not merely bring desired measures to the attention of the legislative chamber; they may secure the enactment of such measures in the teeth of the indifference, or positive opposition, of that body. In current political discussion, and in their actual operation, the two are apt to be closely associated. They are, however, quite distinct, as is illustrated by the fact that the earliest adoptions of the initiative in Switzerland took place in cantons (Vaud in 1845 and Aargau THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE IN SWITZERLAND 209 in 1852) in which as yet the referendum did not exist. Among the cantons the right of popular initiative is now all but universal. As a rule, measures may be proposed by a pro- portion of voters identical with that which is competent to overthrow a measure referred from the legislative body; and any measure proposed by the requisite number of voters must be taken under consideration by the legislature within a stipulated period. If the legislature desires to prepare a counter-project to be submitted to the voters along with the popularly initiated proposition, it may do so ; but the original proposal must in any case go before the people, accompanied by the legislature's opinion upon it, and their verdict is decisive. Within the domain of the federal government the obli- gatory referendum and the right of popular initiative have been extended thus far only to constitutional instruments, not to ordinary legislation. The obligatory referendum as applied to revisions of the constitution was established in 1848. The right of popular initiative was inaugurated by an amendment of July 5, 1891. By the terms of the last- mentioned measure either total or partial revision of the fundamental law may be initiated by petition of 50,000 enfranchised citizens. If the demand is for a total revision, there must be put to the whole people the preliminary ques- tion as to whether there shall be a revision at all. If the verdict is affirmative, a new national assembly must be elected, and to it falls the task of carrying out the popular mandate. If the demand is for but a partial revision, the suggested amendment is submitted (the procedure varying under different conditions) to the people without the intervention of a general election. But in no case may an amendment be put in operation until it has been accorded the assent of a majority of those voting upon it in a majority of the cantons. In respect to all ordinary legislation of the confederation the referendum is as yet but optional, and there is no popular 2io SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE initiative at all. The legislative referendum, borrowed from long-established cantonal practice, made its first appearance in the national constitutional system in the revised funda- mental law of 1874. Under its operation measures passed by the Federal Assembly do not take effect normally until after the lapse of a probationary period of ninety days. At any time within the ninety days following its enactment it may be demanded, either by the people directly or by the cantonal governments, that a measure of the Assembly be submitted to a referendum. Petitions signed by as many as 30,000 voters, or adopted by the legislatures of as many as eight cantons, render it obligatory upon the Federal Council to arrange for a referendum upon a measure within four weeks after announcement of the demand has been made. The method of the referendum is carefully prescribed. Every male citizen in possession of unimpaired civil rights is entitled to vote, and the voting takes place under the supervision of the authorities of the canton and of the com- mune. If in a majority of the cantons a preponderance of votes is cast in favor of the measure in hand, the Federal Council proclaims the fact and the measure goes at once into operation. An adverse majority renders the measure null. In the event, of course, that no referendum is demanded, the measure goes automatically into effect at the expiration of the ninety-day period. The introduction, in 1874, of the federal referendum, and likewise that, in 1891, of the federal initiative, was vigorously opposed in some quarters, and to this day there has been no small difference of opinion, even among the Swiss themselves, respecting the efficacy of these agencies in the promotion of stable and progressive government. By common agree- ment, however, neither has resulted in the haste, waste, or lack of continuity in the management of public affairs which by many was feared. Between 1874 and 1906 the referendum was invoked a total of 29 times for laws and resolutions and THE RULE OF THE PEOPLE IN SWITZERLAND 21 1 18 times for constitutional amendments. Of the 29 legis- lative measures voted upon, 10 were approved and 19 were rejected. Of the 18 constitutional projects, 12 were accepted and 6 rejected. The proportion of ordinary laws falling within the range of the system which have been sub- jected to popular vote, while varying widely from time to time, has averaged not far from ten per cent. In every instance petition for a referendum has arisen directly from the people, not from the cantonal governments. On the side of constitutional amendment it is interesting to note that dur- ing a score of years only three popularly initiated amendments have been incorporated in the fundamental law. One, in 1893, prohibited the Jewish method of slaughtering animals ; another, in 1908, authorized for the first time legislation by the federal authorities upon subjects relating to the trades and professions ; the third, also in 1908, prohibited the manufacture and sale of absinthe. A number of amendments proposed have been rejected, notably that of 1894 stipulating that the state should obligate itself to provide employment for every able-bodied man, and those of 1900 providing for , the introduction of proportional representation in the election of the lower legislative branch and for the election of the executive Federal Council directly by the people. For the prevailing Swiss opinion that both the referendum and the initiative work conservatively there is much basis of fact. Certainly it is true that those great progressive measures by which within the past fifteen or twenty years, the functions of the federal government have been broadened, the conditions of labor have been ameliorated, the nationalization of railways and of the alcohol trade has been accomplished, and reforms have been carried out in finance, law, and social organization, ripened within the national legislative assembly more rapidly than throughout the country at large, and, in more than one instance, were carried only after having been acted upon once or twice by the people unfavorably. There 212 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE are those, indeed, by whom the referendum is regarded as essentially an agency of obstruction. The view is short- sighted, but the fact that it can be, and is, seriously main- tained, controverts the assumption of others that the reference of legislative measures to the people necessarily opens the flood-gates for legislative irresponsibility and for public recklessness. In Switzerland there is to-day a widespread demand for the extension of the initiative and of the obligatory referendum to all federal legislation. In 1906 the Federal Council went so far as to submit to the legislative assembly a proposal to the effect that 50,000 voters, or eight cantons, should have the right at any time to demand the passage, amendment, or repeal of any federal law or decree. The proposal was not adopted, but the eventual acceptance of both the legislative initiative and the obligatory referendum seems not improbable. Granted that the advanced democ- racy of Switzerland is to be adjudged a success, it does not follow, of course, that results attained within a sphere so restricted, and under conditions of race, religion, and historical tradition so unusual, afford proof of the universal practicability of the principles that have been described. The social and industrial well-being of the great mass of the Swiss people to-day bears witness, however, to the essential efficacy of these principles in Switzerland, and, at the least, the civilized world has cause to be grateful for the experiments in statecraft which the Swiss are habitually making. CHAPTER XV PUBLIC PROTECTION OF LABOR At few points has the social economy of Europe undergone greater change since the eighteenth century than in respect to the conditions attending manual labor. Prior to 1775 in England, and on the continent prior to 1840, labor was very largely rural — agricultural or agricultural and industrial combined. Men lived very generally in the country, in villages, or in small towns. They and their families worked in the open air or in their own homes. Life, if not easy, was at least simple. The introduction of machinery and steam- power, however, entailing the rise of the factory system, the concentration of industry, and the growth of cities, completely altered the situation. Large masses of people were tempted or obliged to abandon the life of the country, and the new industrial centres became the seats of hastily gathered, ill-adjusted, and restless populations. However labor may have been exploited under the old conditions, it was rarely subjected to a strain such as that which now befell it. Machines could run day and night, and by factory and mill operators the hours for employes were stretched to the utmost limit. Many machines did not require the attention of full-grown men, and women and children were given the places of men because their labor was cheaper. In mines, on railways and steamships lines, and even in the public employ hours, wages, and other conditions of labor tended steadily to become less advantageous for the workman. One of the tremendous tasks of the nineteenth century came to be that of rescuing labor from the perils into which, under the pressure of industrial change, it had been brought. 213 214 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE The problem arose first in England, because there the new conditions were first developed, but in one form or another it presented itself eventually in every part of Europe. It will be sufficient to describe somewhat fully the method by which Great Britain dealt with the problem, and after- wards to allude briefly to the steps taken to the same end elsewhere. The first quarter of the nineteenth century, as has been pointed out, was in England a period of widespread discontent and of grave distress. The causes are numerous and by no means easy to disentangle. In the first place, there were the Napoleonic wars, by which were entailed exceptionally heavy taxation. In the second place, there was the ultra- protectionist policy of the Corn Laws, whereby food was made scarce, and its cost was forced not infrequently to a starvation level. In the third place, there was dissatisfac- tion with a political system under which the mass of the people possessed no control over public policy. In the fourth place, there was in operation a peculiarly ill-advised poor law, under which pauperism and dependency tended inevitably to be increased. Finally, there was the enormous dislocation of labor and of living incident to the Industrial Revolution, together with a long train of abuses by which the various stages of the transition in industry and in agriculture was accompanied. While by no means all of the ills of the period can properly be ascribed to the revolution in industry, those which arose from high prices, enclosures, unemployment, and poverty but accentuated the adverse effects of the new industrialism. All periods of rapid industrial change are times of hardship. A machine is invented and a man is deprived of the one kind of employment with which he is familiar. A factory is built and the workman must forsake his friends and associations to remove to its vicinity. The profits of labor may be increased, though often they are not ; but, if they are, the disadvantages PUBLIC PROTECTION OF LABOR 215 of the new life may quite offset the gain. Eventually it may prove that, by reason of the expansion of industry and of trade, the aggregate demand for labor is enlarged, and the change may contribute distinctly to the working-man's good. But, for a time at least, the readjustment is likely to be disagreeable. This was precisely the case in England in the later eighteenth and earlier nineteenth centuries. Between 1740 and 1815 there was a sixty-fold increase in the importa- tion of cotton, a tenfold increase in the Yorkshire clothing trade, a twenty-fold increase in the output of pig-iron, a seven-fold increase in the total volume of exports, a fivefold increase in the total volume of imports. So vast an aug- mentation of industrial and commercial activity inevitably meant, in the end, a greater demand for labor, higher wages, and, for many people at least, improved conditions of living. But during the earlier decades of the nineteenth century the transition had gone so far only as to be productive of the minimum of benefits and the maximum of evils. In their zeal for the extension of industrial operations and the piling up of profits, the great factory owners were as yet blind or indifferent to the conditions that attended the existence of their employes and unappreciative of the principle, so com- monly recognized in these days, that in the most successful industry the interests of capital and labor are bound up intimately together. Women and children were brought into the factories, because they were able to operate the new machines as well as could men, because they were easy to control, and because they would work for lower wages. The hours of labor were drawn out to fourteen, fifteen, even seventeen, a day, because profits increased in proportion to output. Precautions in respect to safety and sanitation were neglected, because they cost money, and there was nobody to require them to be exercised. Wages were kept low, because labor was plentiful. Mills too often became veritable prisons in which men, women, and children toiled 2l6 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE long hours, relieved only by scant sleep in fetid and cheerless homes, working until work developed disease and deformity, and in many instances brought early death. The beginnings of the factory system were indeed grounded in social misery, and no one who has not read the harrowing details as set forth in the scores of Blue-books containing the records of numerous investigating commissions during the first half of the nineteenth century can appreciate the depth of injustice and degradation into which English labor was plunged by the rise of the modern mill and workshop. "A great wrong was done," says an English writer, "partly through greed, partly through ignorance, a wrong so bitterly felt and bit- terly resented that not all the prosperity which England has enjoyed in the last sixty years, not all the concessions which the law has enjoined and the employers have yielded, have been able to bring back a good understanding between labor and capital, or alter the poor man's fixed idea that he is being exploited for the benefit of the rich." * Until comparatively late neither public opinion nor law did much to relieve the situation. The period was one in which the preponderating social and economic principle was that of laissez-faire. The doctrine arose originally from the economic teaching of Adam Smith and represented a reaction against the restrictionist principles of the seventeenth and eighteenth century mercantilist school. It was intended to be applied more specifically to trade, but its advocates carried it into every department of economic affairs. The purport of it was that the growth of wealth and of pros- perity would be best promoted by allowing to the individual a broad freedom of action and by the abstention of the state from interference in economic concerns. Its more purely social application was stated by Malthus in the words : "By making the passion of self-love beyond comparison stronger than the passion of benevolence, the more ignorant are led to pursue 1 Warner, "Landmarks in English Industrial History," 310. PUBLIC PROTECTION OF LABOR 217 the general happiness, an end they would have totally failed to attain if the ruling principle of their conduct had been benevolence." In practical effect, acceptance of the prin- ciple was equivalent to the assumption that all was well with the world, whatever the appearances to the contrary. At the least, it meant that what was wrong would be righted in the natural course of things and without occasion for public interference. The delusion was a comfortable one, and England aban- doned it with extreme reluctance. During a prolonged period such demands as were made for national legislation respecting the conditions of industry fell upon deaf ears. Those who complained were informed by the new school of economists that their demands were contrary to the immu- table laws of industrial progress. Slowly, however, the iniquities of existing conditions burned themselves in upon the consciences of liberal-minded men, including not a few of the capitalists themselves, and eventually public sentiment was brought to the point of supporting and demanding legislative relief. The arousing of widespread and influ- ential feeling upon the subject can be traced to a date as early as 1784, at which time a serious outbreak of fever in cotton mills near Manchester directed attention to the over- work of children, under highly dangerous and wretchedly unsanitary conditions, which the factory system even at that time generally involved. In 1795 the Manchester board of health definitely advised legislation for the regula- tion of the hours and conditions of factory labor. In 1802 Sir Robert Peel directed the attention of Parliament to what was perhaps the most crying abuse of the day, i.e., the miser- able conditions of apprentices in cotton mills, and did it with such force that he was able to bring about the enactment of the first statute in English history relating to factory employment. In their anxiety to relieve the ratepayers the authorities of the parishes, it developed, were accustomed 2l8 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE to dispose of pauper children as apprentices, transporting them to the mills, where, while nominally ''learning a trade," they were reduced to veritable slavery. Men made a busi- ness of procuring and supplying apprentices, bringing to- gether gangs of workhouse children from neighboring parishes and conveying them by wagons or canal-boats to factory districts where they were likely to be wanted, subsequently disposing of them on the best terms possible to factory owners in need of "hands." Apprentices were lodged and fed, under conditions that were execrable, in cheap houses adjoining the factories ; they were placed in charge of over- seers whose pay was dependent upon the amount of work they could compel to be accomplished; they were flogged, fettered, and tortured, and in general subjected to cruelty and repression which far exceeded that occasionally prac- tised in the same period in the slave states of America. Meagre pay was sometimes provided, but as a rule the ap- prentice's only compensation was poor and insufficient food, the cheapest sort of clothing, and a place to sleep in a filthy shed. Peel's "Health and Morals Act to regulate the Labor of Bound Children in Cotton Factories" prohibited the binding out for factory labor of children under nine years of age, restricted the number of working hours in the day to twelve, forbade night labor, required that the walls of factories in which such children were employed be whitewashed and that the buildings be properly ventilated, prescribed that every apprentice be given at least one new suit of clothes a year, and required that bound children be made to attend religious services and to receive an elementary education. That the prohibition of the employment of apprenticed children under nine and the reduction of the working day for children to twelve hours comprised a distinct improvement upon former conditions is a sufficiently striking commentary upon the nature of those conditions. The act is a landmark PUBLIC PROTECTION OF LABOR 219 in the history of labor legislation, but its scope was so re- stricted that it can be said to have touched only the fringe of the problem. It applied only to cotton factories in which as many as twenty persons and three apprentices were employed, and only to children who were apprenticed. It did not affect the state of the great number of children who, at all ages, accompanied their parents to the factory at six in the morning and worked on and on until seven, or eight, or nine at night, with insufficient sleep, no fixed meal time, no leisure, and no education. After 1802 the arm of the state was quite benumbed by the laissez-faire ideal, and many years elapsed without further action. The Health and Morals statute contained a pro- vision that the county justices should appoint "visitors," or inspectors, to see that the law was enforced, and the amelioration of apprentice conditions was undoubtedly considerable. Violations, however, were easy and frequent, and at the best the reform was but a beginning. At the close of the Napoleonic wars, Peel called up the subject again for parliamentary consideration. Peel himself employed upwards of a thousand children in his factories, but he was deeply concerned regarding the abuses that were practised and stood ready at all times to lead in the adoption of remedial measures. In 181 5 he secured the appointment of a special parliamentary committee charged with an investigation of the entire problem, and in 18 19 he, together with another great manufacturer, Robert Owen, brought about the enact- ment of a law by which it was provided that no child under the age of nine should be admitted to a cotton factory, and that no person under sixteen should be required to work in excess of twelve hours a day. It had been the hope of its authors to make this measure apply to factories of every sort, but in the end they were obliged to accept a compromise. The act of 1819 was important, however, because with the growing application of steam-power in the textile industries 220 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE after 1815 the employment of children otherwise than under the apprentice system was tending rapidly to be increased. In 1825 and 1831 the act of 18 19 was extended slightly, but it was not until 1833 that there was passed the first really great measure applying to the textile industries gener- ally. The decade which preceded the enactment of this measure was filled with agitation. The subject was debated many times in Parliament ; it was investigated by several government commissions ; it was widely discussed in news- papers and pamphlets and on the platform and in the pulpit. The leaders of the reform movement were Michael Sadler, Richard Oastler, Robert Owen, and, especially after 1832, Lord Ashley, later seventh earl of Shaftesbury. Lord Ashley is to be reckoned the most eloquent champion of the English laboring classes during the nineteenth century. Such was his devotion to the interests of the oppressed that he was constrained to cast aside ease, influence, and friends, and to throw himself unreservedly into the fight for what was, among people of his station, an unpopular cause. In the reformed parliament of 1833 Sadler lost his seat, and it devolved upon Ashley to bear the brunt of the struggle by which the enactment of the law of 1833 was immediately preceded. This act, like most such measures, was a com- promise. It did not stipulate the ten-hour day which Ashley advocated, but it marked a very great advance upon the laws previously in effect. It applied not only to cotton, but also to woollen, hemp, flax, tow, and linen mills. It fixed the maximum hours of labor for children under thirteen at nine a day and forty-eight a week, and for persons under eighteen at twelve a day and sixty-nine a week. It prohibited work by persons under eighteen in any kind of factory between the hours of 8.30 p.m. and 5.30 a.m. It stipulated that child laborers should be given an average of two hours' schooling a day, and that two whole, and eight half, holidays should be allowed in the course of every year. For the first time pro- PUBLIC PROTECTION OF LABOR 221 vision was made for skilled inspectors who should comprise an independent body of men unconnected with the locality in which the factories were situated, and whose specialization in their work might enable them to acquire information needed for the further development of legislation for labor protec- tion. The act left much to be done, but some idea of its effectiveness may be gathered from the fact that whereas in 1833 there were more than 56,000 children employed in 3000 mills, by 1838 there were only 29,000 children in 4000 es- tablishments. Under the leadership of Ashley the movement for a ten-hour day for protected workers was continued, although its success was delayed a decade and a half. By an important act of 1844 the hours of adult women were first regulated, being fixed, as were those of "young persons," i.e., persons between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, at a maximum of twelve a day. Children's hours were at this time further reduced by an arrangement under which em- ployes under thirteen years of age were permitted either to work the same hours on alternate days or half-time every day, with compulsory school attendance as a condition of employment. Times for meals were more closely regulated, and work after 4.30 p.m. on Saturdays was forbidden. And for the first time penal compensation was provided by statute for preventable injuries arising from unenclosed machinery. On the threat of Peel to resign if it were adopted, Ashley's amendment of Lhis measure stipulating a maximum ten-hour day was rejected ; but in 1847 a proposal of Fielden that on and after May 1, 1848, the maximum working day for all women and "young persons" in the textile industries be ten hours was enacted into law. The mill-owners continued to keep their factories open twelve, fifteen, and even twenty hours a day, working their employes in shifts to evade the requirements of law. There was passed, accordingly, in 1850, a measure which restricted the working day for all women and "young persons" to the hours between 6 a.m. 222 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE and 6 p.m. in summer and 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. in winter, no pro- tected worker being allowed to labor after 2 p.m. on Saturdays. By an act of 1853 the same rule was extended to children. Although the measures that have been described applied only to the textile industries, and only to persons under eighteen and to women, they served practically to fix the limitations of the English working day. After 1853 it but remained to carry them over into one after another of the various departments of industry which were as yet untouched, and in a long series of measures during the sixties and seventies this was gradually accomplished. Thus in i860 were regu- lated bleaching works, in 1861 dyeing establishments, in 1863 bakehouses, in 1864 potteries, lucifer-match factories, and percussion cap and cartridge factories, and in 1867 a large number of industrial enterprises as yet immune from public supervision. The act of 1864 was of special importance in that in it appeared for the first time regulations requiring ventilation to be applied to the removal of injurious gases, dust, and other impurities generated in the processes of manufacture. A Sanitary Act of 1886 and a Workshops Regulation Act of 1867, both to be administered by local authorities, virtually completed the application of the essen- tial principle of factory legislation to all places in which manual labor was employed for gain in the making or finish- ing of articles or parts of articles of merchandise. Inves- tigations into the conditions of child labor continued to be made, occasionally with startling results, and in 1874 an act was passed by which the minimum age of employment of children in textile factories was raised to ten years. In 1876 there was created a Commission on the Factory Acts, and two years later there was passed an elaborate measure in which the factory legislation of the past three-quarters of a century was simplified and systematized; and this consolidated act continued in effect, with some modifications, until replaced, January 1, 1902, by the revised and further PUBLIC PROTECTION OF LABOR 223 consolidated measure, passed in 1901, which is to-day in operation. The range covered by the statutes of 1878 and 1901 is enormous. Subjects dealt with in detail include the age and physical fitness of workers, hours, sanitation, security against accidents, and the special conditions attending the trades that are unusually dangerous. It is possible here barely to mention a few present-day regulations as an indication of the measure of progress that has been attained. In the first place, the act of 1901 made the prohibition of the employ- ment of a child under twelve in any kind of factory or work- shop * direct and absolute. Certificates of physical fitness for employment must be obtained by the employer from the certifying surgeon for the district for all persons under six- teen years of age employed in a factory and, under certain conditions, in a workshop. The employment of children, young persons, and women is regulated minutely as regards ordinary and exceptional hours of work, ordinary and excep- tional meal-times, maximum of continuous hours of work, and number and length of holidays. In textile factories the hours of labor must fall between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. in summer, and between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. in winter, with a minimum aggregate of two hours' interval for meals out of the twelve, a limit of four and a half hours of work at a stretch, a Saturday half-holiday, and under no conditions work overtime. In non-textile establishments the ten-hour day prevails, but the limitations imposed upon the employer are somewhat less rigorous. Night work is allowed in certain specified industries, under conditions, for male workers, but 1 As technically defined by English law, a "factory" is, with a few stipulated exceptions, a work-place where manual labor is exercised for gain in or incidental to the making, repairing, or finishing of any article or part of article, and in which steam, water, or other mechanical power is employed in aid of the manu- facturing process. A place of manufacture where such power is not employed is a "workshop." Factories are dealt with by the law under two categories — textile and non-textile. 224 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE for no other workers under eighteen, and overtime for women may never be later than 10 p.m. or earlier than 6 a.m. In all establishments six holidays must be allowed in the year, and, except for Jews, under stipulated conditions, Sunday labor is forbidden. It will be noted that the persons to whom these regulations apply are, strictly, (i) children, i.e., be- tween the ages of twelve and fourteen ; (2) young persons, i.e., between the ages of fourteen (thirteen, if the necessary educational certificate has been obtained) and eighteen ; and (3) women of all ages above eighteen. There is, however, a vast body of regulations respecting sanitation and safety in the conduct of manufacturing processes which, broadly, apply to male employes equally with the "protected" classes. These regulations cannot even be summarized here, but they form a very essential part of the existing labor- protection scheme. It is to be observed, also, that parallel with the develop- ment of protective legislation in respect to factories and work- shops has been the growth of similar legislation respecting the hours and conditions of labor in mines. The first Mines Act was passed in 1S42 in consequence of sickening revelations made by a Commission on Labor of Young Persons in Mines and Manufactures appointed in 1842. This measure pro- hibited the employment of women and girls, and of boys less than ten years of age, underground ; but it was not until 1850 that the reporting and explanation of fatal acci- dents, and not until 1835 that other safeguards for health, life, and limb in mines, were systematically required by law. The principal statute upon the subject at present in force is the Coal Mines Act of 1872, based on the recommendations of a commission which reported in 1864 and amended at several points in 1886, 1887, 1894, 1896, 1900, 1903, and 1906. The prohibition of the employment of women and girls underground remains untouched, and the minimum age at which boys may be employed underground has been raised PUBLIC PROTECTION OF LABOR 225 successively, from ten in 1872 to twelve in 1884 and thirteen in 1900. The minimum age at which boys and girls may be employed above ground in connection with any mine, fixed at ten years in 1872, was raised in 1887 to twelve. The hours of employment of a boy underground may not exceed fifty- four in any one week ; and in 1908 an act was passed by which it is stipulated that no workman, adult or otherwise, may be required to remain below ground in a mine for the purpose of ordinary work more than eight hours in any consecutive twenty-four. In every country on the continent in which industry has assumed any considerable importance there exists to-day a more or less elaborate code of law by which are regulated, in the interest of the worker, the conditions attending fac- tory, mine, and even farm, labor. These codes are in all cases the product of the nineteenth century, most of them of the period since 1850. To speak of them individually is here impossible, but certain general facts regarding them are worth observing. In the first place, in most continental countries regulations concerning the maximum hours of labor apply indiscriminately to all laborers, male and female, and of all ages. The maximum prescribed is commonly eleven hours a day, although in France it is nominally ten. A second fact is that there is rarely provision for a weekly half-holiday, which is peculiarly an English institution. The rule of Sunday cessation of labor has been extended in several countries, most recently in Belgium and Spain. In France there has been since 1892 a legal seventh-day rest, which, however, under law of 1906 may or may not fall upon Sunday. In but few instances is the regulation of labor in mines as thoroughgoing as in Great Britain, but in some cases, especially in Germany, control of factory and shop sanitation has been carried somewhat beyond the point yet attained under the English system. In France the maximum working day for all laborers was Q 226 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE fixed as early as 1848 at twelve hours. In 1902, as stipulated by an earlier statute, it was reduced to ten and one-half, and in 1904 to ten. Under law of 1892, amended in 1900, factory and workshop labor is prohibited for children under thirteen years of age 1 and night labor is forbidden for workers under eighteen and is allowed in the case of women only in specified trades. General sanitation in industrial establish- ments is provided for in a comprehensive statute of 1893, amended in 1903. In Germany conditions of labor are regu- lated by an Imperial Industrial Code, based upon the earlier industrial legislation of the several German states, and more directly upon the Code of 1869 of the North German Federa- tion. Under the provisions of this Code broad discretion is left to the Imperial authorities to promulgate administrative regulations relating to industrial affairs ; it is in this manner that many of the measures to-day in effect have originated. Austria has an extensive Industrial Code dating from 1883. Belgium has an advanced body of regulations beginning in 1863 and culminating in the law of Sunday rest of 1905. Holland's system of labor control dates from 1874. In Switzerland separate cantonal legislation prepared the way for the federal labor law of 1877 which has been the basis of all subsequent legislation upon the subject. Norway's law of 1872, Sweden's of 1901, and Denmark's of 1901 are as liberal as any in Europe. Even in Italy and Spain, where until recently the conditions attending the employment of women and children in industrial establishments were appalling, notable progress has been realized — in Italy under the laws of 1886 and 1902, in Spain under those of 1900 and 1904. 2 1 Twelve, if the requisite educational and medical certificates can be presented. 'Two important agencies through which, aside from the state control that has been described in this chapter, the interests of labor are protected will be discussed in later chapters. One is insurance against occupational accidents (see chaps. XVII and XVIII),- the other is the formation of labor unions (see chap. XIX). CHAPTER XVI THE CARE OF THE POOR Throughout the Middle Ages the administration of charity, like that of education, was distinctively a function of the Church. With the lot of the poor the state rarely concerned itself, and agencies of private philanthropy were extremely uncommon. On the whole, the Church performed a necessary service with laudable zeal. But there was little uniformity of principle or regularity of practice. Into the causes of destitution and the means of its prevention no inquiry was made, and as a rule application for relief was followed by indiscriminate grants to the deserving and the undeserving alike. The inevitable consequence was that the machinery which existed for the purpose of relieving poverty operated in no small measure also to augment and to perpetuate it. In the course of time, however, the idea gradually took hold that it is properly a function of the state both to regulate the conditions of economic life by which the welfare of men is determined and to make suitable provision for the care of the ever present element of the unfortunate, the dependent, and the destitute. This idea developed more slowly on the continent than in England, but with the changes that came in the train of the French Revolution it may be said to have become established universally in western Europe. In England the new position acquired by the Church in the days of Henry VIII., the sweeping away of the monas- teries, the enclosure of the common lands, the final break-up of the manorial system, and the gathering of considerable populations in the towns cooperated to place upon the ad- ministration of charity a wholly new aspect as early as the 227 228 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE sixteenth century. Pauperism, increased in volume and in seriousness, acquired the character of a national institution. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries there had been much legislation designed to regulate the conditions of labor. Successive penal statutes had sought to confine the laborer to the place of his birth and to compel him to work for wages fixed at infrequent intervals by his employers. But prior to Henry VIII. there had been no such thing as a "poor law." It was in 1536 that Parliament first formally recognized and undertook to cope with the problem of the pauper. In a statute of that year, enacting that voluntary alms should be collected in each parish for the relief of the helpless poor, the distinction was for the first time clearly drawn between "poor impotent, sick, and diseased people, not being able to work, who may be provided for, holpen, and relieved," and "such as be lusty, who, having their limbs strong enough to labor, may be daily kept in continual labor, whereby every one of them may get their own living with their own hands." The principle here laid down, i.e., that the impotent poor should be cared for from public alms, while the able- bodied poor should be put to work, underlies a long series of sixteenth century statutes. An act of 1551 stipulated that the man who should refuse to contribute voluntarily to the relief of the poor should be interviewed by the justice of the peace of his parish, who, after "charitably and gently per- suading him," should levy a tax upon him in any amount that seemed reasonable. In 1 60 1 there was passed a memorable measure which has been denominated the "foundation and text-book of English poor law." With some modification it continued the basis of English public charity until 1834, and in a degree was perpetuated in the statute of that year. It dealt, in the main, with the authorities, the funds, the recipients, and the methods of poor relief. In the first place, it stipulated that in each parish two or more "substantial householders" THE CARE OF THE POOR 229 should be nominated annually by the justice of the peace to serve as overseers of the poor. The requisite funds were to be raised by the overseers, "weekly or otherwise," by taxes assessed upon all inhabitants of the parish, the parson heading the list ; and thus the principle of obligatory con- tribution, half-concealed in the act of 1551, was adopted openly and universally. In respect to the recipients of relief a distinction was drawn among three several classes, and the methods to be pursued were defined accordingly. The first class was composed of children whose parents could not provide for them. These were to be apprenticed, until the age of twenty-four in the case of boys, until that of twenty-one (or marriage) in the case of girls. The second class comprised adults able to work but without employ- ment. These were to be set to work, if need be upon a "stock" of flax, hemp, wool, iron, or other material provided by the overseers. The third class included the aged, the blind, the lame, and such other persons as were unable to labor. These were to be relieved outright. The essential principles of this measure were beyond criticism ; but by variety of amend- ments and supplementary acts during the ensuing two hun- dred years the operation of these principles was seriously deflected from the channels that had been contemplated. First among the more important of these modifying meas- ures was the Law of Settlement of 1662, which provided that laborers removing to a new parish, though not seeking or in need of charity, might be sent back within forty days to their original homes to prevent the possibility of their becoming eventually "rogues and vagabonds," and so a burden to their adopted parish. The effect of this statute was not only to divide the kingdom into 14,000 warring communities, each seeking to throw its burden of charity upon its neighbors, but to render it next to impossible for a workingman to seek employment or better wages at a distance from his home. Labor was restrained from going 230 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE where there was demand for it, just as it had been by the successive "statutes of laborers" of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. A second act, that of 1691, provided that there should be kept a register of paupers and of the relief given them, but permitted the giving of relief on the order of a justice of the peace or of the bench of justices at Quarter Sessions. The intention was to impart to the system at the same time more method and more flexibility, but the effect was to open the door for a vast amount of public assistance rendered indiscriminately and over the heads of the proper administrators, the overseers. A third act, that of 1723, allowing parishes to cooperate in the building of houses for the reception of the indigent and ordering that "no poor who refused to be lodged and kept in such houses should be entitled to ask or receive parochial relief," was more wholesome. The purport of this "workhouse test" was to restrict the operation of the act of 1601 to "indoor relief," and by it both the number of applicants and the existing parish rates were for a time reduced. In the second half of the eighteenth century the problem of the poor assumed greatly increased seriousness. By reason chiefly of augmented taxation and the growing dis- proportion between wages and prices, the number of appli- cants for relief tended steadily after 1750 to rise. The result was a corresponding rise in the poor rates. During the last quarter of the seventeenth century the yearly aggregate of rates varied between £600,000 and £900,000. At the middle of the eighteenth century it was not in excess of £700,000. By 1776, however, it had reached £1,500,000; by 1786, £2,000,000; and by 1800, £4,000,000. The difficulties of the situation were vastly increased by the operation of the Settlement Law. Men who might readily have been enabled by removal from one parish to another to make a living were restrained and kept in a state of dependence, while vagrants, invalids, widows, and luckless people generally THE CARE OF THE POOR 231 were carted and whipped and driven backward and forward from one thrifty parish to another. By common consent, the condition was one which called for remedial action. Unfortunately, the course which was adopted was the most unwise that could well have been hit upon. The principle of it was that of granting relief, or "allowances," to supple- ment wages. By a measure commonly known as Gilbert's Act, passed in 1782, the admission of able-bodied poor to workhouses was forbidden, and the rule was laid down that for all such persons employment should be found or created in the vicinity of their own homes, the wages received to be supplemented, if necessary, by assistance from the rates at the discretion of the overseers or justices. But this was not all. In 1795 the justices of Berkshire, assembled in Quarter Sessions at Speenhamland, declared that the poor were in need of more assistance than had been extended and made it known that since farmers and other employers persistently refused to increase the pay of their laborers, they (the justices) would thereafter grant an allowance in aid of wages to all "poor and industrious men and their families." To every household was to be allowed from time to time such sums as might be necessary to raise the family income to a minimum, varying with the price of bread. The policy thus announced was carried into effect and was imi- tated with alacrity throughout the country, the more by reason of the fact that the break-up of the domestic system of manufacturing was at this time fast depriving the rural householder of those by-industries whereby he and his family had been accustomed in part to support themselves. The evil effects of the new practices can hardly be exagger- ated. Hitherto public relief, in theory at least, had been confined to the exceptionally unfortunate, and to be in receipt of relief marked off the individual sharply from his fellows. Between 1722 and 1782, it had meant almost inevitably the workhouse. Now, however, the workhouse test was 232 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE given up ; all idea of deterring the indigent from pauperism was abandoned ; the rates were to become a normal part of the industrial system; the pauper was to be made as com- fortable as the industrious. Thriftlessness and extravagance were directly encouraged. Allowances being given to supple- ment wages, he who was lazy and earned least was entitled to receive most. If he married improvidently and had a large family, he was not burdened thereby, because for every child there was made an extra allowance. The pauper became, indeed, among the poor the only man who could marry and bring up children in comfort. On the other hand, industriousness was penalized. If a man, by hard work, prudence, and economy contrived to sustain himself independently, he but had the mortification of beholding his idle neighbor as well off as himself and the chagrin of being compelled to contribute to the rates by which this idle neighbor was supported. The upshot was the wide- spread pauperization of English labor, and especially of the rural working population. The ordinary man ceased to try to support himself and his family without resort to charity; and, charity being ever at hand equally for all, he would have been something more than human if he had not grown indifferent to work. The tendency was for the parish more and more to assume the disposal of the labor of its working people, to the end that it might gain compensa- tion in such measure as was possible for the enormous fiscal burden that was imposed upon it. A notorious aspect of this practice, to which allusion is made elsewhere, was the apprenticing of parish children to the mill operators of the northern industrial centres. Wages steadily declined, be- cause when the principle of the universal supplementing of wages from the rates was once admitted, employers somewhat naturally felt relieved from obligation to pay their workmen properly, and thus was increased the burden which fell upon the taxpayers of the nation at large. THE CARE OF THE POOR 233 It was, indeed, the costliness of the system that has been described that, more immediately than any other considera- tion, prompted a change of policy. Rates rose until they threatened completely to absorb the rents of the landlords. Even by 1802-03 it was calculated that 28 per cent of the population of the country were in receipt of permanent or occasional relief, and the aggregate outlay had reached £4,267,965, which was more than double the average figure when the Gilbert Act was passed only a score of years earlier. In 181 7 the outlay attained its maximum in the sum of £7,870,801. In that year a committee of the House of Commons proposed a number of desirable modifications, and in 1819 a statute relating to the subject was passed. This measure, however, was essentially colorless, and years elapsed before the issue was brought to the point of decisive action. In 1832 a public commission was appointed to "make dili- gent and full inquiry into the practical operation of the laws for the relief of the poor in England and Wales, and into the manner in which those laws are administered, and to report their opinion as to what beneficial alterations can be made." The commission was composed of nine able men represent- ing a considerable variety of interests. In February, 1834, after two years of incessant labor, it presented a report which comprises at the same time one of the most illuminating and one of the most startling documents of its kind in exist- ence. Not only were the iniquities of the existing order mercilessly laid bare ; a constructive legislative programme of reform was proposed and convincingly defended. The great source of abuse was found in "the outdoor relief ex- tended to the able-bodied, on the beneficiaries' own account and on that on their families, whether given in kind or in money." Under the operation of the existing system, it was shown, "idleness, improvidence, or extravagance occa- sion no loss, and consequently diligence and economy can 234 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE afford no gain. ... In many places the income derived from the parish for easy or nominal work actually exceeds that of the independent laborer ; and even in those cases in which the money relief only equals, or nearly approaches, the average rate of wages, it is often better worth having, as the pauper requires less expensive diet and clothing than the hard-working man. In such places a man who does not possess either some property, or an amount of skill which will insure to him more than the average rate of wages, is of course a loser by preserving his independence. ... But though the injustice perpetrated on the man who struggles as far as he can struggle against the oppression of the system is at first sight the most revolting, the severest sufferers are those that have become callous to their own degradation, who value parish support as their privilege, and demand it as their right, and complain only that it is limited in amount, or that some sort of labor confinement is exacted in return." l The alterations which the commission proposed were in- corporated largely in the Poor Law Amendment Act passed by Parliament before the close of 1834. By this measure, known commonly as the New Poor Law, new and centralizing machinery for the administration of public charity was created, and certain fundamental changes were introduced in the methods and means by which relief should be accorded. In the matter of administration the need of unification was very great. In 1832 the public funds arising from the rates were administered by more than 2000 justices of the peace, 15,000 bodies of overseers, and 15,000 parish vestries, acting always independently and very commonly in opposition. The act of 1834 provided for the appointment of a central board of three commissioners and the division of England and Wales into 21 districts, each in charge of an assistant commissioner. These and other officials whose appointment was provided for were authorized to direct and control the 1 Report on the Poor Laws, 77-87. THE CARE OF THE POOR 235 administration of public relief in all of its phases. Under their supervision "poor-law unions" were to be formed by the uniting of parishes for the purpose of maintaining work- houses and electing boards of "guardians" of the poor; and regulations were laid down covering the apportionment of expenses among the affiliated parishes. The seventeenth century Law of Settlement was so amended as to be in effect rescinded, and the duty hitherto laid upon the parish to find work for the unemployed and to make allowances in aid of inadequate wages was wholly abrogated. The most strik- ing provision of the law, indeed, was that by which outdoor relief for the able-bodied was altogether abolished. No person physically able to labor was hereafter to be entitled to public relief in his own home. Only to persons wholly unable to work, whether from old age or invalidity, might outdoor relief be extended, and in these cases only with the assent of two justices. On the side of administration, the intent and effect of the act was to restore the Elizabethan principles of relief by assigning the immediate care of the poor to responsible persons chosen by the ratepayers, and themselves controlled by the instructions of a central body. The policy of indoor relief, too, represented a restoration of more ancient practice, particularly that of the middle portion of the eighteenth century. In 1838 the New Poor Law was extended to Ireland, where, indeed, there had previously been no poor law at all; and in 1845 it was introduced in Scotland. With relatively unimportant amendments, save in the matter of administration, the Poor Law of 1834 is still in operation throughout the United Kingdom. Its beneficent effects were manifest almost immediately upon its enactment. Rates declined at once by one-fourth, and in proportion to population they have never again approached the figures of 1834. The percentage of paupers in the total population has fallen from 7.5 to less than half that number, and English 236 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE labor has been largely redeemed from the demoralization brought upon it a century and a quarter ago by well-meant but extremely ill-advised legislation. At the same time, the new system has not at any stage of its history entirely es- caped criticism. In 1839 feeling against the Poor Law Com- missioners ran so high that Parliament seemed on the point of dissolving the board. Better judgment prevailed, but in 1847, and again in 1871, important changes were introduced in respect to the central agencies of administration. In 1847 the Poor Law Commission as such was dissolved, and there was organized a new body of commissioners whose head, the President of the Poor Law Board, was made a minister responsible, like other ministers, to Parliament. In 1871, in consequence of the feeling that the administration of poor relief had come to be a fairly simple matter, the Poor Law Board was given enlarged functions in relation to public health, primary education, and other aspects of local affairs, and to the reconstituted body was given the name which it bears to-day, i.e., the Local Government Board. The last- mentioned change somewhat obscured, though it cannot be said greatly to have impaired, poor relief administration. The most questionable aspect of the policy of the Local Government Board has been the revival in a limited measure of outdoor relief for the able-bodied. The pressure of the poor to be relieved without the necessity of removal to a workhouse is very great, and it is almost inevitable that some departure from the letter of the law will be made. Despite the fact that by 1908 the aggregate number of permanent paupers in England and Wales was but 826,345 — 23.4 per 1000 of population as compared with a ratio of 41.8 per 1000 as recently as 1859 — it has been felt by many persons of authority that the rapidity of industrial change, especially the steady increase of unemployment, renders ad- visable a recasting of the prevailing poor relief system. In December of the year mentioned a public commission of THE CARE OF THE POOR 237 eighteen members was created to inquire into the operation of the existing law and into the various means adopted out- side of the poor law to meet distress arising from unemploy- ment, particularly in times of industrial depression. The commission gathered an enormous amount of evidence, the larger part of which has been published in a series of thirty- four volumes, and in 1909 submitted two elaborate reports. The report of the majority, comprising the chairman (Lord George Hamilton) and thirteen other members, reviewed at length the history of English poor-relief legislation, pointed out a number of defects in the present system, and offered a scheme of reform which comprises, not a breaking-up of the prevailing regime, but a modification of it in a number of more or less important particulars. The report of the minor- ity of the commission recommended changes so drastic that their adoption would be equivalent virtually to the enact- ment of a new law. Both majority and minority favored the abolition of the general workhouses in which able-bodied paupers are now gathered, though as to what should be sub- stituted there was lack of agreement. The majority urged the giving of indoor relief in separate institutions appro- priate to children, vagrants, the aged, and four other distinc- tive classes of beneficiaries. Majority and minority likewise agreed upon the abolition of the "parish union" area and the substitution for it of a larger administrative district. At present the cases, character, and amount of relief within the parish union, as well as adjustments of rates, are determined by a board of guardians elected by the ratepayers, and the law is such that to these guardians is left a wide range of discretion. The two reports agree in recommending the aboli- tion of the existing boards, and the majority advocates a division of the functions of these agencies between two sets of officials, one possessing authority throughout a county or county borough, the other to be a subordinate committee within an area corresponding to the present parish union. 238 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE Both reports urged the substitution for the term "poor law" of the milder phrase " public assistance." The two documents have elicited widespread discussion, but no action thus far has been taken to comply with the recommendations con- tained in either of them. In Germany relief of the poor has been made one of the principal functions of the local governing agencies. Under a law of the North German Confederation, passed June 6, 1870, incorporated in the Imperial Constitution in 187 1, and revised March 12, 1894, public relief of the poor is entrusted to local and district unions, the former comprising usually a parish or manor, the latter a circle, a province, or even one of the federated states. The general principles of poor relief are regulated by Imperial Law for the Empire as a whole, but in the application of these principles a certain lati- tude is left to the states and to the local authorities. In addition to prescribing that poor relief shall be administered through local and district unions, the Imperial law requires that in relation to the mode and measure of relief to be granted or withheld, every German in every state of the Empire shall be regarded as a native. The local union may consist of one parish or commune, or of several combined. Its authorities are bound to extend relief to needy persons resident at any time within its bounds, although if an individual given assist- ance has his domicile in another union, the costs may be reclaimed from that union, and the assisted person may be transported thither. As to when a person is to be adjudged in need, the Settlement Court of the Empire has ruled that an able-bodied man is "temporarily in need of help if without work and without property that he can dispose of in order to satisfy urgently necessary wants of life, as. for example, food and shelter." Relief may be claimed, too, by persons possessed of property but unable to convert it at once into the means of livelihood. By the local unions are maintained poorhouses in which are given indoor (geschlossen) relief, THE CARE OF THE POOR 239 besides special institutions for orphans, lunatics, and other helpless persons whose residence in the ordinary poorhouses is undesirable. The law of Prussia prescribes that every destitute German resident within the state shall have a claim upon the poor-law union for shelter, necessary subsistence, requisite treatment and care in event of sickness, and seemly burial in case of death. The relief may be provided in poor- houses (Armenhauser) or in hospitals {Krankenhauser) , and it may be given only in return for labor. The district union is a much larger area than the local, but is of only secondary importance. Its principal function is the provision of relief for vagrants and other paupers who, possessing no legal domi- cile, have no right to assistance at the hands of a local union. Within the unions of both types the requisite funds are raised by voluntary contributions, by special appropriations, and occasionally, though not regularly, by the levy of poor- rates as such. Service upon the local poor-law boards is obligatory and unpaid. "Every parishioner," says the Supplementary Poor Law of Prussia, "entitled to take part in the parochial elections is liable to discharge unpaid duties in the poor-law administration of the parish during a period of three years, or longer, as may be provided by the statutes of the parish." Save by reason of age, frequent absence, permanent illness, or the tenure of public office, no citizen may escape this liability without special consent of the parochial authorities. Service of the kind is a serious public duty, and it is of a higher order than is obtained in any other country. In many of the larger towns there is in satisfactory operation a modification of the poor-relief system which was first devised in the Rhenish Prussian town of Elberfeld a hun- dred years ago, and is known, accordingly, as the "Elberfeld system." Under it very sharp distinction is drawn between the destitute incapacitated and the destitute able-bodied. For the former it provides relief unconditionally; for the latter, relief only in return for such work as may be assigned. 240 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE It seeks distinctly to be disciplinary and educational as well as charitable, and upon the poor-law officials is imposed spe- cific obligation to investigate the conditions and causes of poverty and to inaugurate or recommend preventive and remedial measures. It involves, also, a free interworking of public with private charitable enterprise. Throughout the Empire as a whole the problem of poor-relief is less insistent than once it was, or than it is in many other European coun- tries, the principal reason being that the thoroughgoing scheme of workingmen's insurance to-day in operation has reduced the volume of pauperism to unusually small dimen- sions. In France there is no poor-rate, and the pauper as such has no legal claim to public support. Ample provision is made, however, by law for the care of destitute children, pauper lunatics, and aged and infirm men and women devoid of resources and victims of incurable maladies. The necessary funds are contributed in part by the state, in part by the departments, and in part by the communes, and are raised from the product of certain fines, the income from endow- ments, surtaxes on fees of admission to places of public amusement, and a wide variety of other sources. Public benevolent institutions are of four principal types: (i) the hopital, for cases of curable illness; (2) the hospice, where the aged poor, cases of incurable malady, orphans, foundlings, and in some cases lunatics, are received; (3) the bureau de bien-faisance, charged with the extension of outdoor relief, in money or in kind, to the aged poor, or to those who, though ordinarily capable of working, are prevented from doing so by illness or strikes; and (4) the bureau oV assistance, which dispenses free medical treatment to the destitute. The last- mentioned institution exists in every commune ; maintenance of the other three is optional but almost universal. All are supervised by a branch of the Ministry of the Interior. 1 See chapter XVII. THE CARE OF THE POOR 24 1 It is impossible to make mention here of the widely varied agencies through which other European states minister to their dependent classes. Several of these states — notably Switzerland, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway — maintain poor-relief systems which are, on the whole, as humane and as wisely managed as any in the world. In Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, and eastern Europe satis- factory poor-relief arrangements have never been devised or carried into operation ; yet even in these countries the progress that has been realized since the close of the eighteenth century is considerable. One fact that should not be overlooked is that in virtually all countries of western Europe there have been set on foot within the past half-century a variety of activities whose object is the amelioration of the lot of the self-supporting poor. More and more it is coming to be recognized by phi- lanthropists and legislators that the best means of dealing with poverty is the removal, in so far as is possible, of the disadvantages in respect to health, comfort, and social status ordinarily inherent in it. Poverty cannot be legislated out of existence or otherwise ejected from the social order, but it is possible to alleviate it both by private charity and by public regulative legislation. One means of public ameliora- tion which has been brought extensively to bear is that of free and compulsory education. Another is the development, especially since the second quarter of the nineteenth century, of the science of public sanitation. A third is the establish- ment of savings-banks and of other agencies by which thrift is encouraged and the wage-earner is enabled to make pro- vision for a "rainy day." A fourth, concerning which a word may be said here, is the improvement of conditions in respect to housing and the extension of opportunity for the acquire- ment of rural homes. In no European state has the housing problem assumed greater seriousness than in the United Kingdom. Not only R 242 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE in the cities, but in the smaller towns and in the rural dis- tricts, housing facilities have long been, in Ireland and in Scotland, as well as in England, shockingly inadequate. The fundamental cause is the wholesale cityward movement of population which set in with the revolution in agriculture and industry a century ago, and which to this day has con- tinued all but unabated. In the newly risen industrial cen- tres the laboring masses came to be, and in a measure still are, crowded in hastily built tenements in congested dis- tricts adjacent to the mills, where disease, physical degenera- tion, crime, pauperism, and high death-rates early reached alarming proportions. In the country, at the same time, the disappearance of the yeomanry, the poverty of the agricul- tural laborers, and the niggardliness of the landlords very generally cooperated to prevent the replacing of dilapidated and unsanitary cottages by desirable habitations. Recogni- tion of the evils arising from inadequate housing and agita- tion in behalf of improved conditions can be traced to a period somewhat antedating the middle of the nineteenth century. As early as 1841, under the leadership especially of Lord Shaftesbury, there began to be organized in England societies having as their object the improvement of working-class housing. One of these was the Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Industrial Classes, in- corporated in 1845. Another of the same period, the Soci- ety for Improving the Condition of the Working Classes, had as its president the Prince Consort. At the middle of the century agitation began to bear fruit in legislation. Begin- ning in 1857, there were passed by Parliament, prior to the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1903, a score and a half of more or less important measures pertaining to housing and public health, besides a variety of special measures of the sort applicable only to Ireland or Scotland. The laws upon the subject at present in effect in Great Britain are the Public Health Acts of 1875 and 1891 (some- THE CARE OF THE POOR 243 what amended), the Housing of the Working Classes Act of 1890, amended by measures of 1894, 1900, and 1903, and the Housing and Town Planning Act of 1909. The Public Health Acts in general place upon the local authorities the obliga- tion to provide, under appropriate local regulations, the proper construction, cleaning, and drainage of streets, an adequate water-supply, and the inspection of houses and other build- ings. The Housing Acts go further and authorize the authori- ties to demolish unsanitary buildings, to clear "slums," to undertake the construction of habitations for the working classes, and to encourage private enterprise in these same general directions. The administration of these measures, being entrusted to local agencies, varies considerably from place to place and from time to time, but there can be no question that since the existing laws have been in operation, housing conditions have been materially improved. Two facts in evidence may be cited. Taking as a standard of overcrowding an average of more than two persons per room, the proportion of the overcrowded in England and Wales in 1891 was 11.23 P er cent, while in 1901 it was but 8.2 per cent. During the period 1871-75 the annual death-rate in the United Kingdom was 21.3 per 1000; in 1903-07 it was but 15.7. This last-mentioned change is not to be explained solely, of course, by the improvement of housing conditions, but it is doubtful whether any other single factor played so im- portant a part. Vitally connected with the housing movement is the effort which has begun to be made to draw people away from the congested city districts and to settle them in suburbs or in smaller towns and villages. The improvement of transit facilities has contributed somewhat to this end, but it is recognized that considerable results must be dependent upon specially directed effort, private and public. To facilitate the acquisition of land by the present landless there was passed in 1907 a new Small Holdings and Allotment Act by 244 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE whose terms county and borough councils, with the coopera* tion of the Board of Agriculture, are authorized to acquire land and to allot it to those who may desire it in quantities of from one acre to fifty acres. The measure of success with which this policy, borrowed substantially from Denmark, can be made to operate cannot as yet be predicted. But results already attained are distinctly encouraging. A very interesting phase of the "back to the country" movement in Great Britain is the spread of the Garden City idea. The Garden City scheme comprises, in brief, the organ- ization in the country of industrial communities in which model factories can be established and where the workers and other residents can occupy inexpensive but attractive, hygienic, and comfortable homes, each with its little garden, and all to be surrounded by a belt of arable land, to the end that the advantages of city and of country may be effectually combined. In 1899 a Garden City Association was formed in London, and four years later a Garden City corporation acquired a tract of 3800 acres at Letchworth, thirty-four miles north of London, and established there the first indus- trial centre of the projected type. The experiment has been very successful, and the consequence has been not merely the rapid conversion of England to the practicability of the idea, but the springing up of active Garden City associations in Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, and the United States. All European countries, of course, have their problems of housing and of urban congestion. In Belgium there has been important housing legislation since 1889, in France since 1894, in Holland since 1901, in Austria since 1902, and in Italy since 1903. In Germany, where by reason of the rapid increase of population, the growth of manufactures, and the urbanization of the people, the housing question is especially acute, there has been no uniform legislation for the Empire; but the various states have elaborate schemes of health and THE CARE OF THE POOR 245 housing regulations. That the problem is one of universal interest and importance was emphasized by the holding at London, in 1907, of an International Housing Congress at which representatives of numerous countries brought to- gether a mass of valuable data relating to it. CHAPTER XVII GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN When crops were poor, prices high, taxes heavy, bureau- cracy intolerable, Hans the elder was at little loss as to what to do. He corresponded with his cousin Heinrich in Illinois or his erstwhile neighbor Karl in Sao Paolo, bought a ticket for Hamburg or Bremen, and took passage for America. The chances were that the Fatherland would know him no more. When, however, Hans the younger falls into discon- tent and rebels against his environment, the probability is that, instead of fixing his hopes upon America or any other distant quarter of the globe, he will dispose of his little farm and, surrendering to the drift of the day, set out upon the beaten road to Berlin, Chemnitz, Essen, or any one of the scores of other great centres where work and wages are to be had within the Empire. For the Hans of to-day is reasonably certain, as the Hans of yesterday was not, that he can materi- ally better his condition and enhance the opportunities of his family without resorting to the extreme of expatriation. He scorns the colonies, and he is not attracted by the United States, Brazil, the Argentine Republic, South Africa, or any of the outlying fields of opportunity which appeal ordinarily to the workless and luckless European. His labor, his taxes, his military service, his children, are saved to the Empire, in part because of the remarkable growth in recent years of German industrial opportunity, but also in part by reason of the equally remarkable set of ameliorating and conserving instrumentalities which Germany has brought to bear upon the conditions surrounding her working classes. It thus arises that, although the population of the Empire increased 246 GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 247 between 1882 and 1910 from 45,200,000 to 64,896,881, the volume of annual emigration, once exceeding 300,000, falls to-day under 50,000; and although during the period men- tioned the absolute number of persons who drew their living from agriculture was but slightly reduced, the proportion of those who did so fell from 42.5 to 28.6 per cent. Germany's vast surplusage of population is finding profitable employ- ment to-day in the factories, workshops, mines, and commer- cial establishments of the Empire. We in the United States have lately been passing through a notable awakening respecting the importance of the con- servation of our physical resources. Under conditions that have existed with us it is perhaps inevitable that an arous- ing to the inestimable value of our forests, our water-power, and our unoccupied lands should have been belated. Until within recent years the available supply seemed so inex- haustible that economy appeared hardly worth while. In Germany, however, the conservation of resources — of forests, of mines, of waterways, of farm-lands — has long been a fundamental canon in the national creed. And not only that. Throughout upwards of a generation Germany has been working more systematically than any other nation upon the problem of what a recent French writer has denominated "the higher conservation" — the conservation, that is, of men, women, and children, and of their capacities to add by their labor or their ingenuity to the stock of national wealth. Speaking in the Reichstag, February 6, 1906, Count Posa- dowsky, Imperial Minister of the Interior, said: "If Ger- many has just experienced a vast industrial expansion equalled by no other country in the world during the same time, it is chiefly due to the efficiency of its workers. But this effi- ciency must inevitably have suffered had we not secured to our working classes, by the social legislation of recent years, a tolerable standard of life, and had we not, so far as was possible, guaranteed their physical health." 248 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE In Germany there is no such fear of the state as frequently asserts itself in England and the United States. The doc- trines of laissez-faire and individualism find few adherents. In the conduct of government there is avowedly a preponder- ating element of paternalism, and men both recognize that the splendid Imperial structure of the present day owes its existence to thoroughgoing central leadership and expect that leadership to be perpetuated. It is believed to be in no small measure through the continuous and impartial application of the regulating and directing power of the state that the several classes composing the Empire's population have been brought to their present condition of prosperity and efficiency. The landed proprietor is protected against American wheat ; the manufacturer is shielded from the com- petition of foreign-made goods ; the ship-owner is subsidized from the Imperial treasury; the factory workman is guar- anteed free education for his children, public assistance in the procuring of employment, and the benefits of insurance against illness, accidents, and old-age. The watchwords all along the line are conservation and efficiency, and no na- tion has as yet approached Germany in the realization of these twin principles of public welfare. At the basis of everything lies the remarkable German scheme of public education. Every German citizen has a right to a common-school education at the public cost. And not merely has he a right to it; he is obligated to receive it. School attendance is compulsory for both boys and girls between the ages of six and fourteen. And this elementary education means more than instruction in the rudiments of academic subjects. It involves compulsory physical train- ing in school gymnasiums and swimming-tanks and on school playgrounds, and also frequent excursions for purposes both of observation and of exercise ; and these diversions are continued in vacation periods, under the direction of teachers and at the public expense. Every child entering the schools GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 249 is examined by a physician. If any defect is discovered, the parents or guardians are advised of it, and the training of the child is so adapted that, if possible, the handicap may be overcome. After leaving the elementary school the boy or girl must spend two or three years in free "continuation" schools, in which the subjects of study are largely of a practi- cal nature ; and still beyond are the high schools, gymnasiums, commercial colleges, art and normal schools, and other secondary schools, attendance upon which is optional and not always entirely free, but which attract very great num- bers of pupils. In all of the schools in which attendance is compulsory books are furnished free to those who are unable to purchase them. Breakfasts, likewise, are provided, and in fact the feeding at public cost of all school children has been widely introduced. The ultimate aim, never lost to view, is that the boy shall be made a good soldier and a self- supporting and useful citizen, and that the girl shall become a model Haus-frau and mother. The first requisite of na- tional power is recognized to be sturdy, intelligent, thrifty men and women. In German eyes, the workingman, skilled or unskilled, is an asset. When he is profitably employed, he both main- tains himself and those dependent upon him and contributes positively to the volume of national industry and wealth. Conversely, when he is idle, he is not merely not a contribu- tor; he is a hindrance. When he becomes a tramp, his existence becomes a social drain. When he is maimed or killed, society loses by so much. It is therefore the part of thrift to see to it that, in so far as possible, every capable member of society shall have something worth while to do, that he shall be educated sufficiently to do well the work that falls to him, and that in the doing of it he shall be ac- corded every safeguard and favoring circumstance that is practicable. It is some such philosophy as this, bluntly stated, that underlies the great mechanism by which Germany to-day 250 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE protects, encourages, and conserves her working classes. This mechanism is in part educational, in part governmental, in part economic. It comprises, however, certain devices of a special nature by which the lot of the ordinary man is sought to be surrounded with security, and of these, four are of principal importance : insurance against unemployment, insurance against sickness, insurance against accidents, and insurance against old age. The last three, as will be pointed out, rest upon Imperial statute and are universal throughout the Empire; the first has not been made the subject of gen- eral legislation, but has been left rather to be administered by municipal and local authorities and by private philan- thropists. Officially, Germany has never admitted the Socialist con- tention that every able-bodied man has an inalienable right to work. But the devices that have been brought to bear to minimize the evils of unemployment tend strongly toward a recognition in effect of this principle. The German method of dealing with unemployment is the very practical one of bringing together with as little delay and inconvenience as may be those who want work and those who want workers. The principal instrument employed to this end is the labor registration bureau. Here and there, as in Leipsic, there were public labor bureaus in Germany as much as sixty-five years ago, and the earliest private establishment of the kind was founded at Stuttgart in 1865. The impetus which led to the present multiplicity of labor bureaus, however, came from a social congress held at Berlin in 1893. There are in the Empire to-day approximately 400 bureaus maintained by municipalities, together with a very considerable number maintained by trade-unions, guilds, and private persons. In practically every industrial centre of importance there is a public bureau, and by these alone employment is found for from 500,000 to 1,000,000 men and women during the ~$irse of everv twelvemonth, ^ey are administered *s GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 25 1 a rule, by special municipal officials and in buildings or rooms set apart for the purpose. Classified lists are kept on file, both of persons seeking employment and of persons desiring laborers, and everybody interested is invited to consult these and to receive any supplementary information that may be in the possession of the officials. At the private registries there is often a small fee to be paid, but the services of the public ones are almost uniformly free. The period for which an applicant registers varies from two weeks to several months, and it may be extended indefinitely. At the larger registries waiting-rooms are provided in which the registered unemployed may find shelter and sustenance dur- ing the day, and in which from time to time lists of applica- tions for laborers are read aloud by the official in charge. As a rule, applicant^ for skilled labor are considered in the order of their ability; applicants for unskilled work in the order of their appearance, save that priority is accorded men who are heads of families. The Berlin registry, established in 1888, is conducted on non-municipal lines by a society known as the Central Association for Labor Registration. Since 1902 its work has been carried on in a splendid block of buildings of its own in the Gormanstrasse. In the centre of the block is a great open hall, capable of seating 1400 persons, in which seekers of employment sit, grouped by occupations, awaiting the announcement of positions to be filled. In 1908 this bureau alone secured work for 120,000 persons. In many centres, as Berlin, Munich, and Diisseldorf, there is a tendency toward the amalgamation of trade-union and private registries with the public ones, to the end that all agencies of the sort within a city may be brought under a common management. The municipal bureaus of the several states, furthermore, are generally organized in an associa- tion, as that of Bavaria, that of Baden, etc., in order that uniformity of practice may be maintained, lists of appli- cants may be interchanged, and special surpluses 01 252 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE shortages may be more readily handled. These state or- ganizations in practice fulfil the function of employment clearing-houses. 1 The services rendered by the labor bureaus are supple- mented by those of certain other agencies, notably the Her- bergen zur Heimath, or "home lodging-houses," and the Verpflegungsstationen, or "public relief stations." It is recognized in Germany that under modern economic condi- tions a certain amount of unemployment is inevitable. Strikes, lockouts, failures, business depression, the invention of new methods or machinery, involve constantly, in some measure, the perpetual dislocation of industry. To the end that the man in need of work may be encouraged to set actively about the finding of it, there have been established hundreds of lodging-houses and relief stations which minister exclusively to the wandering laborer, and it is possible to-day for a man of this class to traverse very nearly all parts of the Empire, earning his way as he goes, or receiving sustenance and shelter entirely without cost. The Herbergen are private establish- ments, founded and maintained by philanthropic individuals or societies. The first one was opened at Bonn in 1854 by a professor in the university, Clemens Theodor Perthes. The majority are organized in connection with labor registries, and more than half of them have savings-bank features. They are required to be controlled by responsible committees, to be clean and cheap, and to be conducted with a view to the inculcation of morality and thrift. In order to procure ad- mission, the worker must prove that he needs assistance and must be able to produce a passport showing that he has re- cently been employed. He can pay some twelve cents for his lodging and breakfast, or, if he has less than a mark in cash, he can make the necessary settlement by spending four hours at wood-chopping or some other simple form of labor. 1 For a description of a typical municipal bureau — that of Munich — see Dawson, "The German Workman," chap. 2. GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 253 The relief station differs from the Herberge principally in that it is a public institution. To destitute wanderers it likewise offers food and lodging, but only in return for work. Here, also, no one may be admitted unless he can produce a certificate or other evidence of recent employment. In the industrial regions of southern Germany, especially West- phalia, the lodging-house and relief station have been devel- oped to such a degree that vagabonds and beggary have all but disappeared. There are some two score labor colonies, too — some public and some private — in which agriculture is carried on for the support of such men as care to join them. They are not penal establishments, but they are closely regulated, and at the bottom of the economic scale they fulfil a distinctly useful function. Finally, there is a certain amount of insurance against unemployment, although this particular form of social ameli- oration has not been carried as far in Germany as in a few other countries. The first experiment of the sort was begun at Cologne in 1894 under the immediate inspiration of the success of the Swiss, especially at Berne, in this field. An endowment fund was contributed, in part by the city council and in part by private philanthropists, and the work of ad- ministration was vested in an Unemployment Bureau con- sisting of twenty-six citizens representative of all parties and social classes. To avail himself of the benefits of the system, the skilled laborer was required to pay in 45 pfennigs, and the unskilled 35, a week during thirty-four weeks of the year. Between December 1 and March 1 a member who lacked employment was entitled to draw from the fund two marks a day during twenty days succeeding the third day of work- lessness, and thereafter one mark a day. Membership was opened to all independent able-bodied workingmen eighteen years of age and over and resident in Cologne at least twelve months. For a time the institution grew slowly, but it is now thoroughly established, and, with diverse regulations 254 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE and conditions of membership, other institutions of the sort are springing up in various population centres, as in Munich and in Leipsic. The varied agencies that have been mentioned — labor registries, Herbergen, relief stations, labor colonies, and unemployment insurance — exist by virtue of municipal, corporate, ecclesiastical, or private enterprise. Within the past generation there has grown up, however, a vast system of industrial insurance, Imperial in sanction and in scope, by which the arrangements described are supplemented and enveloped. There is in most European countries to-day a tendency toward the development of a complete and sym- metrical scheme under which workingmen may be insured against all contingencies involving the termination or inter- ruption of support from wages and arising from any cause other than the voluntary cessation of labor. In the realiza- tion of this tremendous programme Germany was the pioneer and is still the leader ; and without question one of the reasons for the remarkable advance of German industrial power is to be found at just this point. German industrial insurance falls into three principal phases : insurance against accidents, insurance against sickness, and insurance against old age and invalidity. Prior to 191 1 each of these three kinds of insurance was regulated by an independent law or code of laws. But, historically, the three are intimately associated as parts of one great social project. The war with France in 1870-71 was followed in Ger- many by a remarkable outburst of economic activity, one result of which was a very rapid increase in both the numbers and the latent powers of the industrial elements of the coun- try's population. The transition to industrialism was pro- ductive of social unrest quite comparable with that which had been occasioned in England by a similar development during the early decades of the century. Among the dis- contented the propaganda of socialism, instituted by the fol- GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 255 lowers of Marx and Lassalle at the middle of the century, began to make rapid headway. Between 1872 and 1877 the number of avowed Socialists in the Empire rose from 125,000 to upwards of 500,000. In view of the recent establishment in the Imperial constitution of manhood suffrage in parlia- mentary elections, the prevailing disaffection gave promise of acquiring grave political consequence. The government took alarm and, following two unsuccessful attempts upon the life of the Emperor, wrongly attributed by Bismarck to Socialist conspiracies, a sweeping Imperial measure was enacted in 1878 by which it was sought to suppress socialistic agitation altogether. Some of the demands which the more moderate of the Socialists were making, however, seemed to the Chancellor not unreasonable, and at the time when the repressive act was passed he virtually pledged the govern- ment to the consideration of a number of specific reforms by which the relations of the various classes of society should be improved and the welfare of the industrial masses in partic- ular should be promoted. It was, in part at least, in fulfilment of this pledge that Bismarck, in 1881, came forward with his memorable pro- gramme of social insurance. The Socialists — especially the "State Socialists" of the Wagner-Schmoller school — are to be regarded as in a very real sense the authors of this programme ; but to meet their more pressing demands, to allay discontent and to prevent further triumphs of the revo- lutionary propaganda, Bismarck made the scheme his own and contrived not only to win for it the support of his Im- perial master, William I., but to force the proposed reforms through an avowedly reluctant parliament. "That the state," he declared, "should interest itself to a greater degree than hitherto in those of its members who need assistance, is not only a duty of humanity and Christianity — by which state institutions should be permeated — but a duty of state-preserving policy, whose aim should be to cultivate 256 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the conception — and that, too, amongst the non-propertied classes, which form at once the most numerous and the least instructed part of the population — that the state is not merely a necessity but a beneficent institution. These classes must, by the evident and direct advantages which are secured to them by legislative measures, be led to regard the state not as an institution contrived for the protection of the better classes of society, but as one serving their own needs and interests. The apprehension that a socialistic element might be introduced into legislation if this end were followed should not check us." As is sufficiently apparent, the political ideal underlying this exhortation was that of thoroughgoing, but beneficent, paternalism. "Give the workingman the right to work as long as he is healthy," Bismarck further contended in 1884; "assure him care when he is sick, and maintenance when he is old. Do not fear the sacrifice involved, or cry out at state socialism, as soon as the words 'provision for old age' are uttered. If the state will show a little more Christian solicitude for the workingman, then the Socialists will sing their siren song in vain, and the workingmen will cease to throng to their banner as soon as they see that the government and the legislative bodies are earnestly concerned for their welfare." What the Chancellor hoped to do, in brief, was to cure the Empire of socialism by inoculation. Earlier in the century there had been in Germany some beginnings of industrial insurance, so that Bismarck's system is not to be regarded as having been created absolutely de novo. Those beginnings, however, had been crude and sporadic. In the matter of accidents a Prussian statute of 1838 had legalized, in respect to railways, the principle of employer's liability, and in 1871 the principle had been ex- tended to factories, mines, and quarries. But the burden of proof imposed upon the employe was so heavy that in effect the law conferred small benefit. From early times the guilds GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 257 and associations of journeymen had as one of their principal functions the affording of relief to their members in time of sickness, and by statutes of 1845, 1849, and 1854 the kingdom of Prussia legalized and encouraged these benevolent ac- tivities. It is worth observing, indeed, that by the law of 1854 power was given local authorities both to require the formation of insurance societies and to compel certain classes of employers to contribute one-half of the necessary cost, thus introducing for the first time the principle of obligatory insurance. The memorable German Workingmen's Society founded at the middle of the century by Lassalle had as one of its features an elaborate insurance system, as did vari- ous other later organizations of the character. In Saxony, Bavaria, Baden, Wiirttemberg, and several of the minor German states, sickness and accident insurance was not uncommon by 1880, and in a number of instances it included compulsory features. Bismarck's first Imperial insurance measure was laid before the Reichstag, March 8, 1881. It was restricted to accident insurance, and the substance of it was that all proprietors of factories, mines, and other industrial establishments should be compelled to insure their employes against occupational accidents, either in an Imperial insurance department or in mutual associations of employers. Toward the raising of the necessary funds both employers and employes were to be required to contribute, and the Empire was pledged to provide a special appropriation. The Reichstag assented to the principle of obligatory insurance, but it refused to vote the requisite subsidy, and it declared for a scheme under which each state of the Empire should maintain its own individual insurance arrangements. Bismarck refused to yield, and the deadlock was broken only by the Emperor himself, who, November 17, 1881, transmitted to the Reichstag a memo- rable message in which was outlined the proposed programme of the government, and solemn affirmation was made of the 258 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE "necessity of furthering the welfare of the working people" and of rendering "the needy that assistance to which they are justly entitled." May 8, 1882, two new measures were submitted, one dealing with accident, and the other with sickness, insurance. The two bills were closely related, but for political reasons they were given separate consideration. The sickness insurance law was passed June 15, 1883, and went into effect December 1, 1884. The accident insurance measure was passed July 6, 1884, and became effective October 1, 1885. After these were well in operation, the third project — that of insurance against old age and invalid- ity — was broached, the first draft of the bill upon this subject making its appearance November 17, 1887. The old age and invalidity measure was passed June 22, 1889, and went into effect January 1, 1891. At various times following the dates mentioned, one or another of the three laws was amended, and between 1889 and 1903 all were revised and to some extent unified. Fi- nally, July 19, 191 1, there was enacted a gigantic statute in which is codified the whole of the legislation relating to the several branches of workingmen's insurance in the Empire. The vastness to which the subject has grown may be indicated by the fact that the statute of 191 1 contains a total of 1805 articles, in addition to an "introductory law" containing 104 more. The present code embodies the development of a scheme of compulsory insurance running through a quarter of a century and covering practically the entire industrial population of the Empire — easily the most elaborate system of the sort that the world has ever known. The sickness insurance law of 1883 was extended at first to persons employed only in factories, mines, quarries, and certain other industrial establishments, and receiving an annual wage of not over 2000 marks ($476), but by successive amendments the provisions of the measure have been made to apply to a very much larger body of people. The act of GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 259 191 1 makes compulsory for the first time the insurance of agricultural laborers, teachers, household servants, members of theatrical companies, persons engaged in household indus- tries, seamen, and a large number of other classes of employes — in effect extending the system to workers of every sort whose annual wage or salary falls below 2000 marks. The law provides for eight absolutely independent kinds of sickness insurance funds, each to be administered for the benefit of certain stipulated classes or bodies of people. There is, for example, the "local fund," to which, in certain localities, all workingmen of the community belong ; the " factory fund," in which the workmen of an industrial establishment employing more than fifty hands are insured ; and the "miners' fund," maintained exclusively for miners. In so far as possible, preexisting Krankenkassen, or sick benefit societies, have been perpetuated and adapted to the purposes of the present system. Each fund is sustained by the work- ingmen and the employers, with occasionally some assistance from the community and from private individuals. As a rule, the employers contribute one-third and the workingmen two-thirds; though the new law prescribes that contribu- tions to one of the classes known as "guild funds" may be levied equally upon the two parties. In practice, the em- ployers pay the entire amounts and deduct accordingly from the employe's wages. The expense to the worker is very small. It varies according to the trade and the locality between i\ per cent and 4 per cent of the daily wage, rarely exceeding 3 per cent. The funds are administered by boards representing both employers and employes, the members being chosen at meetings in which it is the privilege of every contributor to take part. The benefits comprise, in the main, free medical and surgical treatment, hospital or home care, burial money in the event of death, and a sick allowance amounting to one-half (in some instances three-fourths) of the wage the beneficiary is accustomed to receive, and begin- 260 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE ning the third day of sickness. If illness is continued beyond a half-year, the burden is transferred to the accident insurance fund. These are but the benefits which the law prescribes. As a matter of fact, in the larger industrial centres others of a social or charitable nature are not infrequently extended. In 1907 the number of sickness insurance societies in the Empire was 23,232, and the number of persons insured through them was 12,138,966 (8,972,210 men and 3,166,756 women), com- prising approximately 19 per cent of the Empire's population. When the new provisions of the act of 191 1 shall have gone into effect, the number will be materially increased. The original accident insurance law, enacted in 1884, applied only to certain specified and supposedly more hazard- ous trades, but by subsequent legislation the scope of it was broadened until to-day the industries which remain untouched by it are few. Except in these few industries, all working- men, irrespective of wages, and all inferior administrative and operating officials whose yearly salaries do not exceed 5000 marks are required to be insured. The funds by which the system is maintained are contributed entirely by the employers. When a man sets up or acquires an industrial establishment, he automatically becomes a member of the association covering his business, and is bound to contrib- ute to its insurance fund in proportion to his pay-roll and to the degree of risk assumed by laborers in his employ. The administration of the law rests with the employers, and it is within the competence of their associations not only to classify trades and fix the danger schedule, but to enforce regulations and the use of appliances for the prevention of accidents. The scale of compensation is determined by law, and every accidental injury or death, except such as is incurred by the culpable negligence of the employe, is indemnified. Compensation for injury consists of free medical attendance ; a cash benefit during disablement, which for total disability amounts to two-thirds of the wages received during the GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 261 preceding year, and for partial disability is two-thirds of the impairment of the earning power; or, in lieu of the cash benefit, free hospital treatment until cured and a reduced cash benefit for dependents. During the first thirteen weeks of disablement from accident, however, benefits are paid from the sick fund, and only after the expiration of that period from the accident fund. In the event of accidental death compensation consists of a burial benefit equal to one-fifteenth of the yearly wage, together with pensions, in varying amounts under varying circumstances, for widows, children, and other dependents. Between 1885 and 1907 the number of persons covered by accident insurance rose from 3,251,336 to 21,172,027. The law establishing invalidity and old-age insurance went into operation January 1, 1891. It was replaced by a new statute upon the subject in 1899, and it is significant to note that whereas the original measure was forced through the Reichstag with the greatest difficulty, being carried eventually by the slender majority of twenty votes, the act of 1899, by which the scope of old-age insurance was materially broadened, was carried almost unanimously. The applica- tion of the law was further extended by the revision of 191 1, notably in respect to "survivors' insurance," i.e., the insurance of widows and orphans. The law now provides that all persons over the age of sixteen, working for wages, must insure against invalidity and old age. Invalidity is defined as total and permanent disability not caused by occupa- tional accident. The law extends, also, to numerous groups of salaried men and women, especially teachers and manag- ing employes, whose annual earnings fall below 2000 marks. The cost of old-age and invalidity pensions is borne in part by the Imperial treasury, but principally by funds contrib- uted equally by the insured and their employers. The system represents in effect a compromise between the desire of some that the state bear the whole of the cost and that of 262 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE others who advocated nothing more than a device for com- pulsory saving. The contribution made by the workingman varies from 7 to 18 pfennigs (15 to 4 cents) a week, according to the amount of wages received. The law entitles all contributing wage-earners to (1) an invalidity annuity in the event of permanent disability (save by occupational accident) so complete that as much as two-thirds of the individual's earning-power is lost, and (2) an old-age annuity, payable to all who attain the age of seventy, without regard to physi- cal capacity. The amount of payment is fixed in accordance with a five-fold schedule of wages and contributions, on the general principle that the beneficiary shall receive a sum equivalent to two-thirds of the average wage of the class to which he belongs. Old-age pensions are paid primarily from the general invalidity fund, but to each pension the Imperial Government adds fifty marks ($11.90) a year. Aside from bearing the expenses of administration and pay- ing the contributions of men while serving in the army and navy, this, indeed, is the only fiscal burden which the govern- ment assumes in relation to any part of the entire insurance system. Some outlay, of course, is involved in the gather- ing of statistics, the deciding of appeals, and other incidental activities, but the total obligation which falls upon the Imperial treasury is small. In 1906 it amounted to only 48,757,608 marks. In 1907 the number of persons insured against invalidity and old age was 14,958,118 (10,350,293 men and 4,607,825 women). "I do not believe," declared Bismarck in the Reichstag in 1881, "that either our sons or grandsons will quite dispose of the social question which has been hovering before us for fifty years." Certainly that question has not been disposed of in Germany as yet. On the contrary, in few countries is there to-day a greater multiplicity of problems of an essen- tially social character. Only this year a book has been published by a German sociologist in which is contained a GERMANY AND THE COMMON MAN 263 scathing arraignment of social conditions within the Empire, demonstrating to what an extent labor laws are violated, city populations are overcrowded, workingmen's children are underfed and under-developed, poverty and disease are prevalent in even the most favored portions of the country, and social misery fails to be alleviated by any and all of the agencies, public and private, that have been brought to bear upon it. 1 After full allowance has been made, however, the fact remains that the most daring, the most comprehensive, and probably the most effective of all modern programmes of social amelioration is that which since 187 1 has been carried into execution in the German Empire. But for the successful operation of the devices that have been described, and of others not here mentioned, it would hardly have been possi- sible for the most rapidly growing and swiftly changing of European populations to acquire even its present degree of well-being and contentment. Without undermining the safeguards of individual industry and of thrift, the state seems abundantly to have succeeded in developing in the workingman that sense of security and of loyalty which is admittedly a requisite of national power. 'Otto Riihle, "Das proletarische Kind" (Munich, 1912). CHAPTER XVIII THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE The programme of workingmen's insurance which Bismarck succeeded in carrying through in Germany during the decade 1 88 1-9 1 was an innovation in respect to its comprehen- siveness, its connection with the state, and the compulsory nature of the benefits which it sought to bestow. In several countries, including Prussia and other parts of Germany, there existed prior to 1880 various arrangements for insur- ance against accidents and sickness ; but these arrangements were applied to small groups of men, in most instances were voluntary rather than obligatory and private rather than public, and at the best were sporadic and unsystematic. Impelled by a public minister who viewed things in the large, and, dominated by the spirit of thoroughness which is char- acteristic of German legislation, the Germans of a generation ago led the way in the elaboration of a great coordinated scheme under which the entire wage-earning body may be protected against economic misfortune, and at the same time the burden of social support may be distributed with equity among those who ought to bear it. At the time the German experiment was contemplated in many quarters with surprise, and even with abhorrence. To many the scheme seemed especially objectionable by reason of the large elements of state socialism which unquestionably were involved in it, although, as has been pointed out, the project was advocated by Bismarck primarily as an agency by which the progress of socialism — revolutionary socialism at least — might be stayed. r>64 THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 265 The success of the system, however, was instantaneous, and gradually the critics, both in and out of Germany, were obliged to revise their opinions. The growth of socialism was by no means estopped, but — what was more important — it was demonstrated that Germany had hit upon a scheme of social conservation by which was increased tremendously the security and efficiency of her fast-growing industrial population, and at an expense which, considering the magni- tude of the end attained, was slight. The upshot was that one after another of the states of Europe was moved to investigate the possibilities of public insurance and to enact insurance measures directly inspired by German models, and following more or less closely the lines which by the Germans had been marked out. It is not to be assumed, of course, that no one of these states would have entered the field independently, but certainly it is true that every one of them, as a matter of historical fact, has availed itself freely of the example and the experience of the German Empire. There are to-day social insurance systems, more or less elaborate, in Great Britain, France, Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Italy, Switzerland, and Austria. Even in Russia and some of the minor Balkan states there are the beginnings of such systems. One may say not only that workingmen's insurance in some form is at present well-nigh universal in Europe, but that, in most countries at least, there is a pronounced trend in the direction of a more complete and connected system than as yet exists. No one can follow the course of European legislation without being aware that the past decade has been exceedingly fruit- ful, in England, France, Belgium, and several other countries, in measures looking toward social amelioration in general and the extension of workingmen's insurance in particular. Nowhere was the German scheme of compulsory insurance subjected to heartier criticism a generation ago than in Great Britain. In view of this fact it is interesting to observe 266 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE that in Great Britain to-day there exist insurance arrange- ments which at some points transcend the German, and that, on the whole, no important European state save Ger- many herself has yielded so unreservedly to the insurance idea as has the United Kingdom. The triumph of social insurance at Westminster has come principally within the past six and a half years, i.e., since the accession of the Liberal party to power in December, 1905. 1 The Liberals entered office with a programme in which a very large place was accorded to social legislation, including the remedying of unemployment, the establishment of old-age pensions, the adjustment of labor issues, and the general amelioration of the circumstances attending the existence of the poor and the unfortunate. The record of achievement, while not one of unqualified success, or at all points of unquestionable statesmanship, has been remarkable. Four aspects of it which relate especially to the subject of social insurance call for present attention: (1) the passage of the Workmen's Compensation Act of 1906; (2) the adoption, in 1908, of a general scheme of old-age pensions, extended in scope by legislation of 1909 ; (3) the establishment, by the National Insurance Act of 191 1, of an elaborate system of insurance against sickness, involving the creation of important agencies for the conservation of the national health ; and (4) the insti- tution, under terms of the measure last mentioned, of an experimental scheme of insurance against unemployment in the building and engineering trades. In respect to occupational accidents there is not in Great 1 The Conservative ministry of Arthur J. Balfour resigned December 4, igos, although commanding a nominal majority of 76 in the House of Com- mons. A Liberal ministry under Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman assumed office, and, January 8, 1906, the "Khaki" Parliament, elected during the progress of the South African war, was dissolved. The elections which ensued resulted in an overwhelming Liberal victory. The Liberals obtained 429 seats, the Con- servatives 157, the Irish Nationalists 83. The Liberal tenure of power, though at times seriously menaced, has continued uninterruptedly to the present day. THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 267 Britain as yet a system of compulsory insurance, but there is a thoroughgoing employer's liability law, and under the pressure of it large numbers of employers carry insurance in ordinary insurance companies or in specially organized stock companies. This law, known commonly as the Work- men's Compensation Act, was passed in 1906, and its effect, so far as the working population is concerned, is to guarantee protection almost, if not quite, the equal of that which would be derived from a compulsory accident insurance statute of the German type. Prior to 1880 workmen in the United Kingdom were entitled under the operation of the common law to receive assistance in the event of injury, but compen- sation could be obtained only upon irrefutable proof that the employer was directly responsible. In the nature of things such proof was frequently difficult to bring, and the employe was left without protection that was really adequate. The principle of liability was incorporated in statutory law for the first time in 1880. The passage of the act of 1880 was made possible only after ten years of agitation, and to the end it was opposed by all of the great manufacturing, railway, and mining interests ; yet the law went no further than did a Prussian statute passed as early as 1838. In practice the measure proved unsatisfactory and further agitation led to the Workingmen's Compensation Act of 1897, passed by a Conservative government under the leadership of Joseph Chamberlain. This statute, in which the principle of lia- bility was affirmed unconditionally, applied to all of the so-called dangerous trades, i.e., to workmen in factories, quarries, mines, railway service, and building operations — an aggregate of approximately one-half of the laborers of the kingdom. And by amendments of 1900 and 1901 persons engaged in agriculture and ship-lading were included. After 1897 numerous proposals were made looking toward the broadening of the applicability of the measure, and finally, in 1906, there was passed the Workmen's Compensation Act 268 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE which is to-day in operation. This measure, framed in accordance with the recommendations of a parliamentary commission, amended the law of 1897 at a number of points in favor of the workman, and extended its scope so that it now applies to virtually all occupations, including domestic servants. All manual laborers in the occupations specified are included without regard to wages, and all clerks and salaried employes whose pay is less than £250 a year. Prior to 1906 the number of persons protected was 7,000,000; to-day it is approximately 13,000,000. As the law now stands, any employe who is injured at his work during working hours is entitled to compensation, regardless of circumstances, provided only that the employe's ability to earn full wages is impaired through at least one week, and provided also that injury is not occasioned by the employe's "serious and wilful misconduct." In the event of disability exceeding in duration one week the compensa- tion is half the average weekly wage, including the value of board and lodging, ranging to a maximum of £1 per week. If injury causes permanent disability, this compensation is due weekly as long as the beneficiary lives. In the event of the employe's death the employer is obligated to pay reasonable medical and funeral expenses to a maximum sum of £10. If, however, there are persons who are wholly dependent upon the wages of the deceased, the employer is required further to pay to such persons a sum equivalent to three years' wages, the maximum being fixed at £300 and the minimum at £150. Persons partly dependent are com- pensated at special rates. The employer is not required, as is the German employer, to insure. But he very com- monly does insure, in order that when it becomes necessary for him to pay an accident benefit, he may be indemnified by the insurance company. 1 1 The text of the British Workmen's Compensation Act of iqo6 is printed in Lewis, "State Insurance," 188-225. THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 269 A second very important phase of social legislation in contemporary Britain is the establishment, in 1908, of an extended system of insurance against old age. Pensions for the aged were advocated as early as 1880, and through a quarter of a century both of the principal parties were profuse in promises to enact legislation upon the subject. In 1885, the year following the adoption of Germany's old- age and invalidity insurance law, a Select Committee on National Provident Insurance was created by Parliament to investigate pension schemes, but after two years the com- mittee reported that the obstacles to the establishment of compulsory old-age insurance were at the time insuperable, and no action was taken. Agitation was kept up, both by those who were in favor of compulsory contributions to a fund for old-age pensions and by those who were inclined to a scheme of voluntary insurance supported by a government subsidy. Charles Booth long urged the establishment of a system whereby, from funds supplied by an increase of the income tax, every man, be he rich or poor, should be entitled from the age of sixty-five until death to a government pen- sion of five shillings a week. A commission appointed by Gladstone in 1893 failed to recommend the adoption of any one of several pension plans to which it gave consideration, and the same was true of a commission appointed in 1896. But a committee constituted in 1899 reported definitely in favor of a plan, which, worked over by two succeeding committees, appointed in 1900 and 1903, was eventually adopted. A bill upon the subject was introduced in 1907. It did not reach a vote, but the next year Premier Asquith brought in the measure in a revised form, and in the House of Commons it was passed by the overwhelming majority of 417 to 29. Approved by the House of Lords in the same year, the Old Age Pension Act became law under circum- stances which imparted to it a peculiarly non-partisan and national character. 270 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE The general features of the British scheme are reproduced from the old-age pension arrangements of Denmark, estab- lished in 1891, of New Zealand, established in 1898, and of New South Wales and Victoria, established in 1900. They differ materially from the principal features of the German system, which have been described elsewhere. In Germany pensions are paid from funds contributed jointly by employers and employes, supplemented by government subsidies. In Great Britain they are paid entirely from funds raised by general taxation, no contributions on the part of either em- ployers or workingmen being required. Those who framed the act of 1908 were determined from the outset upon the non-contributory principle. The people in whose behalf the scheme was projected, asserted Mr. Asquith, find it at best so difficult to make both ends meet that no additional burden, however trifling, ought to be imposed. As the law stands, every person, male or female, married or unmarried, over seventy years of age, who has been a British subject at least twenty years and a British resident at least twelve years, and who has not been habitually disinclined to work, is entitled to a pension, unless he or she enjoys an annual income in excess of £31 105. ($153.41). The original measure imposed the further condition that the pensioner must not be in receipt of poor relief. By an amending act of 1909 (in effect January 1, 191 1), however, this stipulation was rescinded and the poor-law authorities were relieved of the care of 163,000 paupers, involving a saving to the rates of £21,951 a week. No person may receive a pension and poor relief simultaneously. When the pension becomes available, poor relief automatically ceases. Receipt of a pension, unlike that of poor relief, involves no impairment of civil status. Pensions are paid weekly in advance through the postoffices of the country. The amount of the pension is graduated in accordance with the yearly income of the recipient. Qualified persons whose annual income does not THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 271 exceed £21 receive 55. a week; those with incomes between £21 and £23 125. 6d. receive 45. ; those with incomes between £23 125. 6d. and £25 55. receive 35.; those with incomes between £25 55. and £28 17s. 6d. receive 25. ; and those with incomes between £28 175. 6d. and £31 105. receive 15. In no case may the sum of independent income and pension exceed 135. ($3.12) a week. The act of 1908 went into effect January 1, 1909. Within three months claims for pensions had been filed to the number of 837,831, and 647,494 pensions had been granted. A year later (March 31, 1910) the number of pensioners was 699,352. Of this number 638,147 were in receipt of the maximum weekly allowance of 55. ; the number who received 15. was but 5560. At the beginning of 1911, as has been noted, the body of pensioners was appreciably enlarged by the removal of pauper disqualification, and during the first six months of 191 1 the average weekly number of persons in receipt of pensions was 901,605. By the authors of the project it was estimated that the annual burden to the state would be approximately £7,500,000, although it was freely admitted that pension expenditures would tend inevitably to be in- creased. The annual cost of the pensions in effect March 31, 191 1, was £9,700,000; and the amount carried for the pur- pose in the budget of 1911-12 was £12,350,000. It is urged by many that the age of eligibility be lowered from seventy to sixty-five, and there is a probability that in time this will be done. According to a statement of Mr. Lloyd George in June, 191 1, such a change would mean an added outlay yearly of £7,750,000. The fiscal difficulties which would arise from the imposition of this added national burden may prove prohibitive. The extension of employers' liability and the provision of pensions for the aged were but preliminaries of the crowning project of social amelioration to which the present Liberal Government early devoted itself. In a very considerable 272 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE measure this project was realized, late in 1911, in the passage of a National Insurance Act which comprises easily one of the most important pieces of legislation in the history of modern Britain. The formulation of the measure was undertaken actively in 1908, but the presentation and adoption of it were delayed by the Lords' rejection of the memorable budget by which the requisite funds were to be supplied, and by the general election and the parliamentary unsettlement which followed. The budget of 1910-n at last found the money, and May 4, 191 1, the Lloyd George insurance bill was introduced in the House of Commons. The proposition was received, both in Parliament and outside, with marked favor, and before the year was out it was enacted into law. The twofold nature of the measure is indicated by the title : an act "to provide for Insurance against Loss of Health and for the Prevention and Cure of Sickness, and for Insurance against Unemployment." Part I of the act relates to insurance against ill-health ; Part II, to insure against lack of work. In the matter of sickness insurance the framers of the act of 191 1 did not find the field wholly unoccupied. Through the agency of what are known as "friendly societies" insur- ance against illness has been long and widely practised. The origin of these societies is to be traced to the guilds of the Middle Ages, and some of the organizations have survived without a break, and with no fundamental change, through many hundreds of years. By the close of the eighteenth century there were some thousands of societies, and in the nineteenth century very many new ones were established. In 1793 they received legal recognition for the first time, and by statutes of 1819 and 1829 they were accorded official approval, with a modicum of public regulation. Laws of 1875 and 1896 effected important changes in their adminis- tration and brought them more directly under the supervision of the state. They have always been, however, and they remain to-day, purely voluntary organizations. The law THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 273 allows any seven persons to form a society, and this society is authorized, in addition to other things, to raise funds by contributions of members and their dependents in sickness, invalidity, old age, widowhood, or minority. Societies are left largely free to manage their own affairs, and in neither structure nor procedure do they exhibit much uniformity. In no country has this kind of insurance agency been devel- oped upon a scale more elaborate. In 1904 the number of friendly societies in the kingdom was nearly 28,000, and in an aggregate of 15,000,000 working-people upwards of 4.500,000 were identified with at least one society. The insurance for which the societies make provision is prin- capally against sickness. In framing his sickness insurance proposals Mr. Lloyd George advised constantly with the annually elected execu- tive and parliamentary standing committee of the National Conference of Friendly Societies, and in the final working out of arrangements care was taken, as was done in Germany in 1883, to utilize in so far as possible sickness benefit agencies already existing. The essential features of the system es- tablished can be stated briefly. Insurance against sickness and disability is made compulsory for all wage-earners between the ages of sixteen and sixty-five, save such as can prove an income of as much as £26 or more a year from prop- erty. Insurance is administered under the direction of the state and through the medium of "approved societies." These societies may be preexisting friendly societies, or they may be bodies of persons, corporate or incorporate, registered under act of Parliament, established by royal charter, or simply approved by the proper insurance com- missioners. In any case they must not be conducted for profit, they must give ample security against the malver- sation of funds, and they must maintain rules and regulations acceptable to the insurance commissioners. No person may be insured in more than one society at a time. T 274 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE In Germany the state makes no contribution to sickness insurance funds. The entire cost falls upon the employer and the employe, in the proportion of one-third and two- thirds respectively. In Great Britain the worker pays \d. a week if a man, 3d. if a woman ; the employer pays 3d. for each employe ; and the state contributes 2d. If, however, the weekly wage is under 155., the employer pays propor- tionally more. If the wage does not exceed 95. a week, the employe pays nothing, while the employer pays yd. for the insurance of each male employe, 6d. for that of each female. In general, the worker pays for insurance not more than half as much as the German laborer pays. Not only that; the triple source of funds renders possible the paying of benefits considerably larger than those which prevail in Germany. Benefits in all cases include free medical attend- ance, and they are to be made to include free treatment in sanitoria to be provided by the state from special funds. For persons between the ages of twenty -one and fifty the cash benefit amounts, in the case of men, to tos. a week, and in the case of women to 7s. 6d., during the first twenty-six weeks of sickness, and thereafter, for both men and women, 55. Persons less than twenty-one years of age and those beyond fifty are provided for in accordance with special rates. Through the agency of local health committees to be established in every county and county borough, much remedial and constructive work in behalf of the national health is required to be undertaken. The total number of persons insured under the terms of the act approximates 14,000,000, and the estimated cost to the state during the first year of operation (beginning May, 191 2) is no less than £7,385,000. A problem whose seriousness is coming more and more to be recognized in the United Kingdom is that of unemploy- ment. It is the estimate of competent statisticians that the army of the able-bodied unemployed in the British Isles THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 275 numbers all the time from 150,000 to 300,000. That in a population which is highly industrial there must always be a certain amount of unemployment is commonly recognized, but in contemporary Britain both the number of the unem- ployed and the distress which arises from lack of work have become such as to occasion grave apprehension. Until comparatively recently the only public measures utilized to meet the situation were the extension of poor relief and the occasional establishment of "distress works" by means of which labor is provided by the public authorities in return for food, lodging, and a cash pittance. In 1905 the Con- servative Government of Mr. Balfour carried an Unem- ployed Workmen Act by whose terms the Local Government Board was empowered to establish "distress commissions" in the larger cities and towns and to cooperate with the local authorities in the finding of employment for the idle, the government bearing one-half of the cost and the local com- munities the remainder. By 1910 the provisions of this measure were extended to 75 municipalities and 14 towns; but by common admission only the fringe of the problem had been touched. When, in February, 1909, the Poor Law Commission brought forth its memorable reports, majority and minority agreed that the poor law as it to-day stands is totally inade- quate to correct the evils of worklessness. Ordinary charity, furthermore, was pronounced of dubious value, and the reports concurred in advocating very heartily the establishment of a system of labor exchanges on the model of the labor bureaus of Germany. By the minority of the commission it was declared that while the labor exchange of itself would not prove an adequate remedy, its establishment was the " indispensable condition of any real reform." The minority further put itself upon record in favor of a previously sug- gested project to the effect that the government should adopt a ten-year programme of capital grants-in-aid, setting 276 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE aside £4,000,000 a year throughout a decade to be used in periods of depression to supply labor for men who should be in need of it; the idea being that this labor should be provided by the undertaking of great public works, such as land reclamation, afforestation, and harbor improvement. To the present time the Poor Law Commission's reports have received but scant attention in Parliament. But during the summer of 1909 the recommendation respecting unemployment upon which majority and minority of the commission were most conspicuously agreed was carried into effect by parliamentary legislation, and the meagre agencies established by the act of 1905 were replaced by a broadly national scheme of unemployment amelioration. Delegates sent by the Labor party to study the German labor bureau system urged that the essentials of that system be reproduced in Great Britain, and the principles involved in the maintenance of publicly controlled exchanges were approved unreservedly by the National Conference of Trade- Union Delegates, the Central Unemployed Body for London, and numerous other organizations and semi-official agencies. The Labor Exchanges Act was introduced May 19, 1909, by Winston Churchill, at that time President of the Board of Trade. Under its terms the whole of the United King- dom was divided into eleven districts, in charge of each of which was placed an inspector, and provision was made that in all of the more important urban centres there should be established labor exchanges whose function should be the supplying of workers with employment information and, in general, the promotion of the mobility of labor. The ultimate number of these exchanges was placed at 350. At the begin- ning of 191 2 there were in operation 224. They are of three grades, differing according to the population of the towns in which they are located. From the outset their success was beyond question. During the first six months of 191 1 the number of positions secured for applicants was 261,802. THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 277 Like the German labor bureaus, the British exchanges are intended primarily to bring employer and workingman together, leaving the two to effect terms as they may be able ; but the exchange may extend to the workingman the loan of such funds as may be necessary to enable him to travel to the place where he is to be engaged. Being maintained by the state, the British exchanges are more closely coordinated than are the German bureaus. Despite the provincial organi- zations that have sprung up in Germany, the bureaus are still essentially municipal. Registration in Great Britain, as in Germany, is voluntary ; but it is not unlikely eventually to be made compulsory. When the Labor Exchanges Act was introduced, it was announced by the government that the measure was intended to be but preliminary to the inauguration of a scheme of unemployment insurance. Several possible forms of such insurance were given careful consideration. By some persons it was proposed merely that the state subsidize existing trade-unions which grant unemployment allowances. This plan was deemed inadequate because not all trade- unions grant such allowances, and because by such a method the considerable body of laborers outside trade-unions would not be reached. Of the adult males of working age in the United Kingdom, not more than 1,500,000 as trade-unionists are entitled to unemployment benefits. The thing to do, it was decided, was to establish a system of direct unemploy- ment insurance. Recognizing that it was neither desirable nor financially possible to set up at a stroke an insurance scheme that would be universal, the framers of the project were compelled to choose between insuring some workmen in ail trades or all workmen in some. In the one instance, insurance would be voluntary, in the other compulsory. Choice fell upon the second plan, and for the experiment there were selected two important groups of trades which experience shows to be most affected by periods of industrial 278 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE depression. One of these is the building group, comprising a total of 1,321,000 laborers; the other is the engineering group, comprising 1,100,000. An elaborate measure extending to this body of 2,421,000 workingmen compulsory unemployment insurance comprised Part II of the great National Insurance Act introduced by Mr. Lloyd George, May 4, 191 1, and enacted into law eight months subsequently. In accordance with the terms of this measure, all laborers above the age of eighteen engaged in the trades stipulated are required to be insured against un- employment. The system is supported by joint contributions of employers and employes, aided by state subventions. The workman pays 2\d. a week, the employer 2\&. for each person employed, and the state \\d. Employers, however, who hire laborers by the year are required to contribute less than half of the amount named. The benefit provided is 75. a week through a maximum period of fifteen weeks of unemployment. Each employe keeps a little insurance book in which insurance stamps are affixed by the employer and by the state. When he falls out of employment, he takes his book to the nearest exchange and claims his benefit. No benefit, however, is due if lack of work is occasioned by participation in a strike or lockout, by dismissal for miscon- duct, or by voluntary act of the employe without good cause. At the age of sixty (fifty-five if retiring at that time from his trade) every insured person who has contributed during as many as 500 weeks is entitled to the return of all contribu- tions which he has paid in, with compound interest at 2\ per cent, less any amount he may have received in benefits. The adoption of this important scheme was accomplished without serious opposition, and it has been generally under- stood that the success of the experiment will mean as rapid an extension of unemployment insurance to other trades as may be practicable. Already in this matter Great Britain has gone much further than has Germany, for it will be re- THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 279 called that in Germany the state does not yet insure against unemployment at all. Aside from Germany and Great Britain, the industrial insurance idea has taken firmer hold in France than in any other of the larger European countries. In France, as elsewhere, insurance was at one time partial, haphazard, and wholly voluntary. Under the stimulus of German and English examples, however, supplemented by unsatisfactory trials of unregulated insurance schemes, France is fast moving toward the adoption of a thoroughgoing system of com- pulsory insurance, and notable portions of such a system have already been put in operation. By laws of 1834, 1850, and 1852, public regulations were imposed upon a large body of voluntary mutual sickness societies by which the guilds, abolished during the Revolution, had very generally been replaced. In 1898 the existing types of societies were re- duced to two — the "free" and the "approved" — and all were brought under the closer supervision of the government. Their by-laws must be submitted to the proper public author- ities, and they may undertake only such forms of insurance as are authorized by law. The total number of societies, including those for children, rose between 1898 and 1908 from 11,825 to 20,200. The aggregate membership in 1898 was 1,909,469; in 1904, 3,488,418; and in 1907 it was esti- mated at 4,680,000. The principal function of these societies is that of making provision for sick benefits, sometimes supplemented by other forms of benefit. Employers con- tribute as a rule only when a society is organized in connec- tion with a particular establishment. The requisite funds are supplied in the main by a monthly contribution on the part of the members, ordinarily one franc, but more if, in addition to the head of the family, the wife or children are insured. Nearly all societies carry on their rolls "patrons," or honorary members, who may be depended upon for con- siderable contributions, and to the majority the state allows 280 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE a small subsidy. In respect to all classes of workingmen save two, sickness insurance is still voluntary, being contingent upon membership in a mutual society. The exceptions are miners and seamen, for whose protection the law has estab- lished a system of compulsory insurance supported by both employers and employes. Accident insurance is likewise voluntary, though extremely common. Under the Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensation Act of April 9, 1898, and its amendments, employers are held liable for all occupational accidents which befall their employes, and even fewer loopholes are left by which the burden of liability may be evaded than in the case of the corresponding law of Great Britain. The statute of 1898 represents a compromise between the two houses of the French legislature, the Chamber of Deputies favoring and the Senate opposing a scheme of universal and compulsory in- surance. The original statute applied to workmen in all indus- trial establishments and provided compensation for all injuries lasting more than four days. By amendments of 1899 and 1906 the application of the law was extended to workmen using agricultural machines driven by mechanical power and to employes of mercantile establishments. Since 1868 there has been maintained a government accident insurance department — the Caisse Nationale (T Assurance en Cas d 'Accidents — in which employers who apply are insured against their liability for accidents; and all companies and societies which undertake employers' liability insurance are supervised by the government and required to give adequate security. No employers, except mine operators and ship- owners, are required to insure, but all are actively encouraged to do so. It is estimated that something like 70 per cent of all workingmen entitled to compensation under existing law are protected by insurance policies taken out by their employers. Very recently France has become one of the several Euro- THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 281 pean countries in which wage-earners are required to insure against old age. From the middle of the nineteenth century there have existed in France a number of agencies for the provision of old-age annuities, the most important being two departments of state, the Caisse des Depots et Consignations, established in 1856, and the Caisse Nationale des Retraites pour la Vieillesse, dating originally from 1850 but reorganized in 1886. The first is a great national bank which seeks to impart special encouragement to thrift by the payment of high rates of interest upon savings deposits; the second is strictly an insurance department in which both immediate and deferred life annuities are sold at unusually low rates. Between 1884 and 1906 the number of deposits in the Caisse Nationale des Retraites rose from 597,438 to 4,247,344, deposi- tors being not simply individuals (both adults and children) but also friendly societies and corporations. In 1895 the state began in a small way the assumption of the burden of old-age pensions by introducing a system under which per- sons seventy years of age and upwards, who during a stipu- lated period had been depositors in the Caisse Nationale were made entitled to an increment of their annuities to be paid from the national treasury. July 14, 1905, a law was passed by which it was made the obligation of the state, on and after January 1, 1907, to pen- sion all French citizens over the age of seventy, as well as all who before attaining that age should be wholly and perma- nently disabled by accident or disease. This law, in other words, established at the same time universal old-age pensions and universal invalidity pensions for citizens who are inca- pable of providing by their labor for the necessaries of then- own existence. The amount of the pension to be paid varies, according to the recipient's circumstances, from 60 to 240 francs. The scheme is non-contributory and is confined to the necessitous poor. The burden entailed upon the state (100,000,000 francs a year) proved heavy, but rapidly the 282 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE conviction grew that the provision which had been made ought to be supplemented by a system of universal and com- pulsory old-age and invalidity insurance. As early as 1906 the Chamber of Deputies passed an elaborate measure pro- viding, from funds contributed jointly by employes, employers, and the state, pensions for all industrial, commercial, and agricultural workers upon attainment of the age of sixty. By reason of the prospective cost of the proposed scheme the measure was rejected by the Senate. But in 1909 a modified draft was submitted to the Senate, and April 6, 1910, the Old Age Pensions Act, many times amended, became law. The system adopted bears a close resemblance to that in operation in Germany. The voluntary old-age pension arrangements heretofore existing are continued, but they are subordinated to a new and ambitious scheme of insurance that is in part voluntary and in part compulsory. The law applies to laborers and employes of both sexes in all industries, in commerce, in agriculture, in the liberal professions, and in domestic service. It does not apply to miners, seamen, and railway employes, who have their own essentially compulsory systems. But the number of people expected to be reached by the new measure is 18,000,000, in a total of 20,000,000 engaged in all kinds of occupations. Of this number, one- third, including farmers, small proprietors, and the self- employed, are not required to insure, though they are ex- tended every inducement to do so. But for some 12,000,000 workingmen and working-women whose annual earnings fall below 3000 francs insurance is compulsory. The French system, like the German and the Belgian, but unlike the English, is contributory. All persons coming within the scope of the compulsory features of the law are required to make contributions, which must be duplicated by the em- ployer, at the rate of 9 francs a year for men, 6 francs for women, and 4! francs for workers under 18 years of age. Each insured person obtains from the government a card on THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 283 which the payments of employers and employes are recorded by means of stamps bought from the government or the au- thorized societies or savings-banks. The size of the annuity depends upon the amount of premiums paid. Pensions become due at the age of sixty-five, and to each annuity paid to a person beyond that age the state adds 60 francs a year, provided as many as thirty annual payments have been made. A pension can be claimed by any qualified person at the age of fifty-five, but subject to a proportionate reduction of the state allowance. The government has pledged ultimately to reduce the pension age to sixty; also to introduce at an early date a special scheme of insurance against invalidity. In point of time the first among the nations to follow the example of Germany in establishing a system of compulsory workingmen's insurance was Austria. An accident insurance law was passed by the Austrian parliament December 28, 1887, and was followed March 30, 1888, by a measure pro- viding insurance against sickness. Prior to 1887 there was no guarantee of compensation for occupational accidents save such as was extended by the meagre common law liability of employers and, in the case of railway employes, by an act of March 5, 1869, making employers in the railway in- dustry liable for accidents not due to unavoidable causes or to negligence on the part of the workmen themselves. The act of 1887 followed in general the German model, though with some administrative differences, the organization of the funds being not by industries but by geographical areas. The original measure extended to workingmen and super- vising employes in factories, foundries, mines, wharves, quarries, building trades, and all industrial operations in which machines or explosive substances are used; and by revision of July 20, 1894, it was made to cover workingmen engaged in railway and other transportation, fire protection, street cleaning, and a variety of other pursuits, leaving unprotected only farm laborers (except such as use motor 284 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE machinery), foresters, and persons engaged in small industries in which machinery is not utilized. Compensation is gradu- ated, as in Germany, but runs somewhat lower than in that country. In the event of complete disability the pension allowed is 60 per cent of the wages received ; if the disability be but partial, the allowance is correspondingly reduced. In Germany the workmen do not participate in the expenses of accident insurance, but in Austria, while the cost is borne nominally by the employers, a maximum of 10 per cent may be deducted on this account from the laborer's wages. In 1906 the number of persons covered by accident insurance was 2,918,679. If the quota seems small, it must be remem- bered that Austria is by no means the industrial country that Germany is, and that far the larger part of her 10,000,000 wage-earners are employed in agriculture. It is interesting to observe that in 1906 21.1 per cent of the insured were women. The Austrian sickness insurance law of 1888 was inspired by the example of Germany, coupled with the recognized in- adequacy of the guild sickness associations, mutual societies, and other heterogeneous sickness insurance agencies pre- viously existing. As in Germany, use was made of these earlier organizations, and there are in effect eight distinct types of societies to-day in operation. For employes in all branches of industry, trade, and transportation, insurance is compulsory; for those in other pursuits, including agri- culture and forestry, it is optional. In six of the eight groups of societies contributions of workmen and employers are fixed, as in Germany, at two-thirds and one-third respectively ; in the other two employers contribute only voluntarily or as required by special statute. The benefits extended are slightly larger than in Germany, the principal difference being that whereas in Germany the minimum sickness allow- ance is 50 per cent of the wages received, in Austria it is 60 per cent. The number of sickness insurance societies THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 285 in 1906 was 2917, and the number of persons insured was 2,946,668, of whom 22.6 per cent were women. During several years past there has been under consideration in Austria a project involving a general overhauling and exten- sion of the national insurance system. December 9, 1904, the government presented to the legislative chambers a Program for the Reform and Development of Workingmen's Insurance, comprising a series of measures by which it was proposed that the several laws at present in force should be replaced. Much labor has been expended in working out the details of the scheme, and final action has not yet been taken. Features of the reform which are fairly agreed upon include, however, such an extension of sickness insurance as will bring up the number of the insured to 5,200,000 persons, such provisions as will render accident insurance more effec- tive in those industries, especially mining, attended with the greatest risks, and the establishment for the first time of a comprehensive scheme of old-age and invalidity insurance, patterned upon that of Germany. 1 Among the nations of northern Europe the spread of social insurance within the past decade has been rapid. Especially noteworthy are the results that have been attained in Bel- gium. Public encouragement of workingmen's insurance in Belgium began in 185 1 with the enactment of a measure, modelled on a French law of the previous year, extending to friendly relief societies the advantages of official recogni- tion. Other acts to stimulate the formation of such societies were passed in 1861 and 1887. The law at present covering the subject was passed June 23, 1894. It made provision for the first time for a state subvention in aid of sickness insurance organizations. Of "registered" societies, which alone are entitled to share in this subvention, there were, in 1907, 3300, with an aggregate membership of 400,000. Of 1 There is at present no old-age and invalidity insurance in Austria, save that provided in 1854 for miners and in 1906 for clerks and other office employes. 286 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE unregistered societies, which are independent in their manage- ment and receive no public aid, there were at the same time about 800, with a membership of 50,000. In view of the fact that the wage-earners of Belgium number not fewer than 1,200,000, it is apparent that there is yet large room for sick- ness insurance extension. Since 1868 miners have been subject to compulsory insurance against accidents through special sickness insurance associations to whose funds em- ployers and employes both contribute and the state and the provincial governments allow subsidies. December 24, 1903, there was enacted a modern employers' liability law whose provisions were made applicable to workmen in all industries, including manufactures, trade, and agriculture, and to appren- tices and foremen whose annual earnings amount to less than 2400 francs. In many quarters there was demand for a thoroughgoing compulsory accident insurance schema, to be supported by employers and employes. Such a plan failed to be adopted, but under closely regulated conditions em- ployers are held pecuniarily liable for all accidents which take place in their employ, save such as can be shown to have been occasioned by the negligence of employes. The maxi- mum of compensation is one-half of the wages received. One of the principal services which the state has rendered the workingman in Belgium is the creation of the present sys- tem of insurance against invalidity and old age. In 1850 there was established by law a State Annuity Fund (Caisse Generate d'Epargne et de Retraite) into which any person over 18 years of age might make payments for himself or others, thus procuring insurance for an immediate or a deferred life annuity. In 1865 the operation of the scheme was extended, and in 1869 the maximum amount of the annuity was fixed (where it remains) at 1200 francs. In 1891 the government began the granting of bounties in aid of annuities, and by an important law of May 10, 1900, amended in 1903, the principle of state subvention was definitely established, and THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 287 for special appropriations from year to year was substituted a definite and permanent state subscription. The object of the act of 1900 was to encourage thrift among the working- classes and to contribute in their behalf a fund from which the workingman, upon attaining the age of sixty-five, may derive an annuity reaching a maximum of 360 francs, and, in the second place, to assure to workingmen or working- women special grants of 65 francs a year when they are in need. To each franc which the worker lays by the government adds three-fifths of a franc, so that the individual who lays by 15 francs will possess at the end of the year 24 francs. In other words, the state subscription to payments into the Annuity Fund amounts to 60 per cent of the workingman's deposits, up to 15 francs a year. When the deposits are larger, the government contribution is proportionally smaller. When the depositor has to his credit a fund sufficient to con- stitute for him an annuity of 360 francs, premiums from the state cease entirely. Toward the expenses of this system the provinces and many communes make grants, and the national budget carries an appropriation of 15,000,000 francs annually. The number of deposits in 1906 was 2,224,727. In Holland sickness insurance is left to be administered exclusively by some 700 mutual societies, some of which are large, but most of which comprise simply the workingmen of a single locality or of a single trade within that locality. In 1904 a bill providing compulsory sickness insurance for workers receiving a wage of less than 1200 guilders ($480) a year was introduced by the government, but in 1905 a change of ministries caused it to be dropped. In 1906 a new measure on the subject was presented, but it likewise was withdrawn. Through two decades there has been under discussion in Holland the problem of state provision for insurance against invalidity and old age. Commissions have brought in reports and bills have been framed, but no conclusive action has been taken. The most important 288 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE measure of the kind which has been considered recently is a project presented in 1907 for old-age and widows' insurance, stipulating compulsory insurance of workers 16 years of age and receiving a wage of less than 1000 guilders a year. State provision for insurance against unemployment has also been agitated, though in Holland, as in Belgium, unemployment insurance is as yet administered through the trade-unions, subsidized for the purpose by the municipalities. On the side of accident insurance prolonged effort at legislation has achieved excellent results. As early as 1894 a royal com- mission recommended a plan for obligatory accident insur- ance at the expense of employers. A bill based upon this recommendation was withdrawn in consequence of a change of cabinets, and a second measure, presented in 1898, was defeated. A bill submitted in 1900, however, was passed January 2, 1901. By it was established compulsory accident insurance in virtually all branches of industry. The benefits for which provision is made are unusually ample. They comprise free medical attendance and an allowance, in the case both of temporary and of permanent disability, of 70 per cent of the wages, with a maximum annuity for the laborer's family of 60 per cent in the event of his death. The progress of social insurance in the Scandinavian countries has been noteworthy. In Denmark there was established by law of April 8, 1891, a thoroughgoing old-age pension system based on the principle that every person over sixty years of age, whose income is not in excess of a stipulated amount, and who during a period of ten years (changed in 1908 to five) shall not have been in receipt of poor relief, shall be entitled to a pension, to be paid from funds raised by general taxation. In 1905-06 the number of pensioners was 50,000, the average amount of pensions was 152 crowns ($41), and the aggregate outlay was 7,600,000 crowns. Sickness insurance in Denmark is regulated by a law of April 12, 1892, by which official recognition, accom- THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 289 panied by a state subsidy, is granted to hundreds of regis- tered mutual societies, 1 and accident insurance is provided under a statute of January 7, 1898, by which the principle of employers' liability and workingmen's compensation was extended to industries of all kinds, exclusive of agriculture, though insurance is left entirely at the employer's option. In Norway a commission was appointed in 1885 to investi- gate the subject of workingmen's insurance in all of its aspects. In 1890 a bill was presented providing for compulsory in- surance against both sickness and accident, but the resulting measure, put in effect July 1, 1895, applied only to accidents. Under its terms all workingmen engaged in manufacturing are required to be insured by their employers in the insurance department of the state. A second compulsory sickness insurance bill, presented by a commission appointed in 1900, failed to become law. But a measure presented in 1908 by a new commission was enacted September 18, 1909. By it obligatory sickness insurance is established for agricultural as well as industrial workers. The commission advocated, further, a plan for disability and old-age pensions, but upon this portion of the report no action has as yet been taken. The proposition is that pensions shall be paid, beginning at the age of seventy, to all aged persons — irrespective of in- come, the cost to fall upon the communes, the state, and the insured. In Sweden workingmen's insurance was first seriously investigated by a commission appointed in 1884. A bill in 1888 providing obligatory accident insurance of the German type was rejected, as also were two others presented during the ensuing decade. In 1901, however, there was passed an employers' liability measure in accordance with which the employer may or may not insure, but must in any event indemnify his employe in case of accident not due to the 1 Fifteen hundred in 1907, with a membership of 514,000, or upwards of 30 per cent of the adult population. u 290 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE employe's negligence or wilful act. The state does not maintain directly a system of sickness insurance, but under act of 1 89 1 it recognizes, exempts from taxation, and subsidizes some 2300 sickness benefit societies which are required merely to fulfil certain simple conditions. There is likewise no state provision for invalidity and old-age insurance, though the subject has long been agitated and numerous measures relating to it have been discussed and rejected. The problem is at present under consideration by a new commission, and it is significant that, as in Norway, the government has been accumulating through several years a fund which can be made the basis of an elaborate old-age pension system. Workingmen's insurance has been developed less systemati- cally in Switzerland than in some other countries, but the results attained are considerable, and plans are in hand for a coordination and extension of existing insurance institu- tions which will constitute an important step in advance. By a series of measures beginning in 1875 the principle of employers' liability was extended to successive industries and trades. June 28, 1898, there was presented a bill which proposed to establish for the entire country a unified system in accordance with which all workmen should be subject to compulsory accident insurance at the expense of their em- ployers, and all should be required to carry insurance against sickness. The bill was passed by the Federal Assembly, October 5, 1899, but by reason of its interference with exist- ing sickness insurance societies it was rejected by the people through the medium of the referendum. After a period of delay there was presented, December 10, 1906, a new bill by which accident insurance is made compulsory, but in- surance against sickness continues voluntary. The measure was adopted by the legislative chambers June 13, 191 1, and early in 191 2 it was referred to the people and was ratified. There is in Switzerland no federal old-age insurance system, THE SPREAD OF SOCIAL INSURANCE 291 but old-age annuity devices are in operation in several of the individual cantons. The achievement of Italy within the domain of social insurance has been more notable than that of any other Mediterranean country. In Italy, as in France and England, sickness insurance is administered through the agency of mutual societies which provide, as a rule, not only sick benefits, but also accident, old-age, and funeral benefits. In 1886 these organizations were first accorded recognition by the state, and since that date societies which are registered possess corporate powers and in some instances receive subsidies from the national treasury. In 1905 the number of societies was 6535 ; that of members, approximately 1,000,000. The societies are generally very small, and the benefits conferred are meagre. The requisite funds are supplied by monthly premiums, which, as a rule, are uniform for all members. In 1883 the growth of Italian in- dustrialism prompted the establishment of a National Acci- dent Insurance Fund, an institution comducted, with the authorization of the government, by ten of the country's most important savings-banks. Insurance through this agency was made easy and cheap, but was not made obli- gatory upon either employer or employe. The number of policies taken out continued very small, 1 and in 1898 there was passed an important statute by which insurance against industrial accidents is made compulsory at the expense of employers. In 1903 the scope of this measure was broadened, and to-day the Italian workingmen's compensation system is one of the best ordered in Europe. In 1898, likewise, there was enacted an invalidity and old-age insurance law which marked the culmination of twenty years of discussion. The law set up a National Old Age and Invalidity Fund with headquarters at the capital and branches throughout the country, in which working-people are invited to deposit 1 In 1897 the total was but 4311, covering 162,855 workmen. 292 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE their savings. These deposits, supplemented by govern- ment subventions and private and corporate contributions, afford the basis upon which old-age annuities may be procured, beginning according to arrangements at the ages of fifty, sixty, or sixty-five. In 1907 the number of persons insured was 255,127 and the fund amounted to approximately 62,000,000 lire ($12,400,000). Contributions are received in sums as small as one-half lire (10 cents) and may not exceed 100 lire annually. CHAPTER XDC THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR The revolution in industry which took place in Great Britain between 1760 and 1825 and on the continent between 1825 and i860 had the fundamental effect of differentiating for the first time capital and labor and of developing or accentuating sharp antagonisms between the two. The Middle Ages and earlier modern times were by no means without labor problems and labor movements, but not until the appearance of the factory system can there be said to have arisen either that intensity of economic stress or that sharpness of class conflict which have been among the less agreeable aspects of the past hundred years. Stimulated by closeness of contact of large bodies of workingmen in the industrial centres, and impelled by low wages, high prices, long hours, and other disadvantageous conditions, labor began many decades ago to acquire a community of feeling and to attempt by concerted action to induce or compel amelioration, and long before the nineteenth century had drawn to a close the working-classes of most European countries had been welded together as under earlier systems of labor they never had been. Throughout upwards of a century the lot of the working-classes has been improved from time to time by the enactment of remedial legislation and by other exercise of the public powers. ' Labor, however, has relied by no means solely upon this resource. It has organized to advocate state action, to negotiate with or- ganized capital, and to procure the conservation of its own energies. Many agencies have been devised whereby it seeks to defend and propagate its interests. The most im- 393 294 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE portant is the trade-union. A second is the political party. A third of some significance is cooperative production and distribution of goods. The trade-union is a distinctly modern institution. It is essentially unlike the mediaeval guild, because, among other things, the guild was an organization of craftsmen who were at the same time employers and workmen. There were in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries certain combinations of journeymen, i.e., laborers who had served their apprenticeship and were working for wages without yet being eligible to set up shops of their own; but these organizations were ephemeral, and not until near the end of the eighteenth century does it appear that there were in any country durable associations of wage-earners in particular trades, having for their purpose the protection of their peculiar interests and the advancement of their economic status. Beginning with the Devonshire woollen workers in 1700, many groups of English artisans through the eighteenth century formed local organizations, and Adam Smith tells us that in his day people of the same trade seldom met, even for diversion, but "the conversation ends in a con- spiracy against the public or in some contrivance to raise prices." 1 All such combinations were contrary both to the common law and to statute, 2 and the state repeatedly took measures to repress them. But, more or less un- obtrusively, they continued to spring up and to flourish. The closing years of the eighteenth century were especially fruitful in labor combinations, first among the workers out- side, later among those inside, the factory. In 1787 the Sheffield metal workers organized, in 1792 the Lancashire hand-loom weavers, in 1 795 the paper-makers of Kent, and in 1796 the woollen workers of Yorkshire. Frightened by the aspect of the revolution in France and by the growing 1 "Wealth of Nations," Bk. I., chap. 10. 1 Notably the Elizabethan Statute of Apprentices, enacted in 1562. THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR 295 assertiveness of the English industrial classes, Parliament in 1799 passed a sweeping statute designed to strengthen existing anti-conspiracy legislation. The law prohibited absolutely any sort of combination to raise wages, to obtain shorter hours, or to dictate the employment or non-employ- ment of workers. It remained unaltered until 1824; but, despite all effort to enforce it, unions of workingmen not only existed but increased in number and influence. Public repression produced effects quite the opposite of those in- tended, precisely as has a similar policy in Germany in respect to socialism. In 1824 the laws against combination were repealed, although in the following year certain measures of restriction were reimposed. With 1824, however, came to an end the first and formative period in the history of trade-unionism in England — the period of struggle for legal recognition. The according, in 1824-25, of partial protection to as- sociations existing for the purpose of raising wages and regulating the hours of labor led to a rapid multiplication of trade-unions, and in time to a series of efforts to build up some sort of national labor organization. The "Grand National Consolidated Trades Union" of 1834, claiming a membership of half a million, broke up, however, within a few months after its formation, and all other attempts at national organization failed utterly, except in two or three specific trades. A prolonged series of strikes during the thirties reacted unfavorably upon the laboring classes, and with the rise of Owenite socialism and of Chartism trade- unionism was for a time eclipsed. The next important period in English trade-union history extends roughly from 1842 to 1880. It was marked by a general revival of union- ism, the amalgamation of local societies to form national organizations of particular trades, the development of friendly as well as trade benefits, the inauguration of trade- union congresses, and, until late in the period, a general 296 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE abstention from — not infrequently positive opposition to — the employment of political methods. Important among the great labor organizations whose beginnings fall within this period are the Miners' Association of Great Britain and Ireland (184 1), the Amalgamated Society of Engineers (1850), the Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners (1853), the Yorkshire Miners' Association (1858), the Amalgamated Society of Tailors (1866), the Durham Miners' Association (1869), and the National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives (1874). It is worth observing, too, that in 1845 there was established a National Association of United Trades for the Protection of Labor which con- trived to endure through a period of fifteen years. As early as 1848 there was established at Liverpool a "trade council," or federation of the local branches of the various unions existing in the city, and during the next twenty years a similar step was taken in substantially all important industrial centres throughout the kingdom. From these trade councils sprang the annual trade-union congresses of Great Britain to-day. The first of the annual meetings ot the British "parliament of labor" was held at Manchester in 1868, and since 1870 they have been con- tinued uninterruptedly. A series of outrages at Sheffield and Manchester in 1865-66, in which officials of some local trade organizations were implicated, led to the creation in 1867 of a royal commission to investigate "the organiza- tion and rules of trade societies." Following the report of this commission in 1869, there was enacted a series of measures in 1871, 1875, and 1876, whereby, as it proved, the legal position of trade-unions was governed until the passage of the amending act of 1906. The last remnant of penal legis- lation restricting the freedom of association was now swept away. No person thereafter might be prosecuted for con- spiracy to commit an act which would not be illegal if com- mitted by him singly, and the purposes of a trade-union were THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR 297 not to be deemed unlawful simply because they might be shown to be in restraint of trade. By the measures of 1824- 1825 workingmen had been conceded the right to combine; but until 187 1 all combinations in restraint of trade (and most trade-unions were such) were regarded as illegal. After 1880 British trade-unionism entered gradually upon a new phase. The new unionism was the product in part of socialist influence, strongly exerted after 1882, and in part of the conviction that the time had come for active resort to political methods. As early as 1868 two candi- dates sought seats in Parliament as representatives of labor, and at the elections of 1874 there were no fewer than thirteen labor candidates, two of whom were successful. Great industrial upheavals of later years, notably the strike of the London dock laborers in 1889, together with the rise of new organizations composed of unskilled labor and pronouncedly infected with socialism, created strong demand for the positive interference of the state for the improvement of labor conditions and led eventually to the creation of the Independent Labor Party in 1893. Throughout the past two decades the dominating purpose of trade-unionism in Great Britain may be said to have been the acquisition of sufficient power in Parliament to compel the enactment of desired remedial and preventive legislation. The aim of the Independent Labor Party, as set forth in the constitution and rules of the organization, is essentially socialistic, namely, the establishment of collective ownership and control of the means of production, distribution, and exchange; and the working programme of the party as originally announced includes (1) a universal eight-hour day, (2) the abolition of overtime, piece-work, and the employment of children under fourteen, (3) state provision for the ill, the invalid, and the aged, (4) free non-sectarian education of all grades, (5) the taxation of unearned incomes until they shall be extinguished, and (6) disarmament. To this programme 298 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE has been added woman's suffrage, a second ballot in parlia- mentary elections, municipal control of various industries, and a number of other proposed innovations. At the elec- tions of 1895 the party named twenty -eight candidates, but no one of them was successful, and Kier Hardie, its president, lost the seat which he had occupied since 1892. In 1900 it attained, in the reelection of Hardie, its first parliamentary victory, and in 1906, when the tide of radicalism was running high, seven of its candidates and sixteen of its members were elected to the House of Commons. The Independent Labor Party has been throughout its history avowedly socialistic. It has sought and obtained the adherence of thousands of laboring men, some of whom are, and some of whom are not, socialists. But its character is too radical to attract the mass of trade-union members, and alongside of it there has grown up a larger and broader organization known simply as the Labor Party. The trade- union congress of 1899 caused to be brought into existence a body of representatives of all cooperative, trade-union, socialist, and working-class organizations which were willing to share in an effort to increase the representation of labor in Parliament. This body held its first meeting at London in February, 1900. The Social Democratic Federation (socialist) withdrew from the enterprise, but an organiza- tion was formed in which the ruling forces were the polit- ically inclined but non-socialistic trade-unions. The object of the affiliation was declared to be "to establish a distinct labor group in Parliament, who shall have their own whips, and agree upon their own policy, which must embrace a readiness to cooperate with any party which for the time being may be engaged in promoting legislation in the direct interest of labor." The growth of the organization was rapid, and in 1906 the name which had been employed, i.e., Labor Representation Committee, gave place to that of Labor Party. At the elections of 1906 twenty-nine of the THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR 299 fifty-one candidates of this party were elected to the House of Commons. Taking into account eleven members con- nected with miners' organizations and fourteen others who were Independent Laborites or Liberal Laborites ("Lib.- Labs"), the parliament chosen in 1906 contained a labor contingent aggregating fifty- four members. Since 1908 there has been in progress a consolidation of the labor forces represented at Westminster, and although at the elections of 1909 and 1910 some seats were lost, there are in the House of Commons to-day forty-two representatives of labor. About half of them belong to the Independent Labor Party or other socialist organizations. The group is independent of, but friendly toward, the Liberal government; and since the Liberals are constantly in need of the Laborites' support, the legislative power of the group is very considerable. The progress of British trade-unionism within recent years, while not unattended by set-backs, has been enormous. To supplement the activities of the annual Trade Union Congress and of its parliamentary committee, and especially to place organized labor in a position to wage industrial war, if need be, with the employing classes, there was created in 1899 a General Federation of Trade Unions. This organiza- tion is affiliated with similar federations in continental countries. Between 1898 and the end of 1909 the number of trade-unions in the United Kingdom was reduced, through process of consolidation, from 1287 to 11 53. Within the same period the total membership was increased from 1,688,- 531 to 2,347,461. Twice since 1900 trade-unions have been made to feel the weight of adverse judicial decisions in matters of serious import, but in both instances the embarrassment occasioned was largely alleviated by subsequent legislation. In 1901 the House of Lords, in the noted Taff Vale case, held that the members of a trade-union are liable, singly and collectively, for acts committed under the auspices of the union. The Taff Vale Railway Company had been awarded 300 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE by an inferior court £323,000 damages against the Amal- gamated Society of Railway Servants for persuading and intimidating workmen to break their contracts with the railway and aiding and abetting acts of violence whereby railway property was damaged, and on appeal the House of Lords sustained the verdict. The unions, which had always claimed that they could not be sued, professed to regard the decision as a virtual annulment of the status granted them by the legislation of 1871. Announcement of the decision was followed by much agitation, and although a parliamentary commission reported in favor of the main- tenance of the Taff Vale principle, a Trade Disputes Act of 1906 extended to the funds of trade-unions ample protection and largely conceded the claims of the unionists. This act, likewise, extended liberty in the matter of "picketing." The Lords passed the measure, though with very great reluctance. A second extremely important judicial decision affecting trade-unions was the Osborne Judgment of December 21, 1909. This decision arose out of an action brought against the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants by a secretary of a local branch, the object of which was to show that the rule of the organization which compelled a member to sub- scribe to the maintenance of a parliamentary representative belonging to the Labor party was not enforceable. In the first tribunal the decision was against the plaintiff, but in the court of appeal, and eventually in the House of Lords, the lower ruling was reversed. The effect of the Osborne Judgment was to render it illegal for trade-unions to employ in the maintenance of members of Parliament funds derived from dues or other contributions which were obligatory. In view of the rapidly growing legislative activities of the unions in recent years, the consequences of the decision threatened to be serious. Agitation in behalf of relief legis- lation was set on foot, and already the disadvantage imposed THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR 301 upon the parliamentary representatives of labor has been overcome in part through the provision of pay for all members of the House of Commons at the rate of £400 a year. The Osborne Judgment does not, it should be observed, pre- clude the support of labor members from funds raised by trade-unionists, if only subscriptions be voluntary. Trade-unionism is older and has assumed distinctly larger importance in English-speaking parts of the world than elsewhere, yet in substantially all continental countries the principle has taken hold, and in some the organization of labor has attained a high degree of elaborateness. It may be said that, with some exceptions, the trade-unionism of the continent is modelled upon that of Great Britain. Until recently, at least, it was, as a rule, more pronouncedly polit- ical than was the British, but the emphasis which in recent years has been placed upon the political aspect of British trade-unionism has tended to minimize this earlier element of differentiation. In Germany trade-unions are of three principal kinds: (1) Gewerkschaften, or Social Democratic trade-unions; (2) Gewerkvereine, or non-political unions; and (3) Christliche Gewerkvereine, or Christian trade-unions. The guilds of the mediaeval type were abolished throughout Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century, but in time they were replaced by workingmen's organizations (Innungen), representing liberalized adaptations of the guild principle and actively encouraged by the governmental authorities. Trade-unions proper date from 1868. The earliest of them were planned by a congress held at Berlin, in the year men- tioned, under the leadership of two enthusiastic disciples of Lassalle, Fritscher and Schweitzer. These unions were intimately connected with the Social Democratic party, and in 1878 the majority of them were dissolved under the op- eration of Bismarck's law against socialist organizations. Under the name of Fachvereine, however, most of them were 302 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE reconstructed ; and, while abstaining ostensibly from politics, they contrived very effectually to fulfil the purposes of the original organizations. In 1887, after the lifting of the Socialist ban, a general committee of the Gewerkschaften was set up, and three years later there was created a General Commission of German Trade Unions. The membership of the Gewerkschaften increased from 419,162 in 1897 to 743,296 in 1902 and 1,886,147 in 1907. The majority of the unions are organized not merely for the purpose of safe- guarding the interests of labor and promoting the cause of the Social Democracy, but for the administration of sick- ness, unemployment, and other forms of insurance. The second type of German trade-union, the non-political, origi- nated also in 1868. The earliest unions of this kind were founded by Hirsch and Duncker and were modelled directly upon the unions of Great Britain. Not infrequently they are referred to as Hirsch-Duncker unions. Since 1876 Social Democrats have been excluded from their membership. Their growth has not been rapid, and they are in effect little more than benefit societies. In 1907 their aggregate mem- bership was 108,889. The first Christian trade-unions were established in 1894 in protest against the materialism and the socialistic tenets of the Gewerkschaften. The growth of this group has been substantial. In 1907 the aggregate membership was 354,760. In general, the Gewerkschaften are strongest in the building, metal, shipbuilding, and wood- working trades ; the Gewerkvereine in the metal and engineer- ing trades; and the Christliche Gewerkvereine, in the trans- portation and mining industries. Within the past five years the German unions of all types have more than doubled in membership, their aggregate numerical strength falling to-day not far short of three millions. In France the guild system was abolished and combina- tions of workmen, as well as of employers, were prohibited by laws of June 14 and September 28, 1789. Napoleon THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR 303 projected a network of compulsory organizations of employers and employes, with the employers in control, but the plan was never carried fully into operation. During the middle of the nineteenth century workingmen's unions of various sorts came into existence, but all were contrary to the Penal Code until, in 1864, the law upon the subject was somewhat relaxed. In 1884 there was enacted a momentous piece of legislation by which the law was further modified and com- plete freedom of association was established in respect to all industrial organizations (syndicats), whether of employers or of employes. The growth of trade-unions since 1884 has been rapid. In 1890 there were 1006 unions, with 139,678 members; in 1906, 5322 unions with 896,012 members. The unions are strongest in Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, and other industrial centres. Practically all are avowedly socialistic. The Austrian Industrial Code of 1859 sought to compel the organization of employers and employes in common guilds, but the attempt was no more successful than was the similar one of Napoleon half a century earlier in France. In 1869 an uprising of workingmen in Vienna won from the government a limited right of independent industrial com- bination, and thereafter socialistic trade-unionism gradually acquired a permanent footing. The unions which have been formed during the past twenty-five years resemble closely the Gewerkschaften of Germany. The principal centers of Austrian trade-unionism are the industrial and populous districts of Moravia, Bohemia, and Lower Austria. The highest degree of organization has been attained in the print- ing trade and in the textile and metal industries. In 1907 there were 49 central unions, 77 district unions, 5030 local unions, and 501,094 members. Trade-unionism is growing in Hungary, but in 1907 the membership of unions affiliated in the central federation was but 130,192. In Switzerland social and industrial conditions are such that there has been less occasion for the close organization 304 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE of labor than in most other countries. Factory workers very generally own or occupy plots of ground and combine with industry a certain amount of agriculture. The con- trasts of wealth and poverty are less apparent than elsewhere, and the tension between capital and labor is distinctly less pronounced. The federation, the cantons, and the munici- palities have developed systems of public ownership and operation so extensive that a very considerable proportion of workers occupy the position of joint-manager as well as that of employe. The oldest and most important of Swiss labor organizations is the Griiltiverein, organized in 1838 at Geneva. It to-day maintains numerous branches through- out the country; but its efforts are directed more largely toward political and socialistic than toward purely in- dustrial ends. The present Swiss Social Democratic party was founded in 1888, and in this organization the Griilti- verein is at present largely merged. In 1907 the Swiss unions claimed a membership of 50,000 members, besides some 30,000 not affiliated in the central organization. Trade-unionism in Italy is all but inseparable from socialism. There are two kinds of unions, those in which are organized the workers in a particular trade and those composed of the workingmen in all trades within a town. The former concern themselves chiefly with trade disputes, the latter with general questions affecting the welfare of the laboring classes, such as insurance, cooperation, education, and factory legislation. All are affiliated under a central agency of control located at Milan. At the beginning of 1908 there was a total of 2550 unions and of 191,599 members. Or- ganizations of agricultural laborers, which in Italy have attained larger importance than in any other country, contained at the same time 273,698 members. In the Scandinavian countries trade-unions are numerous and compactly organized. All, however, are substantially socialist societies. In Holland a National Labor Secretariat THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR 305 was formed in 1893, and the growth of unionism was for a time rapid. After the general strike of 1903 many unions collapsed, and the vitality of those which survived sank to a low ebb, but in recent years the task of organization has been resumed with vigor. Under law of 1898 trade-unions can be incorporated in Belgium only on condition that their objects are non-political, and they are restricted to the further- ance of the interests of particular trades. In point of fact, however, the numerous unions that exist are associated almost without exception with the Socialist-Labor, Catholic, or Liberal parties, principally with the first-mentioned. An interesting phase of labor enterprise within the past three-quarters of a century has been the growth of the cpr operative movement. Impelled by the waste of competi- tion, the profits derived by middlemen, and the excessive cost of commodities, working-people in a number of coun- tries have been influenced in recent generations to enter into combination for the purchase or the manufacture of products for their own use and to be sold to them directly. The cooperative principle was first carried into successful execution in Great Britain, and to this day that country leads all others in the magnitude of its cooperative organiza- tions. The parent cooperative enterprise in Great Britain was that undertaken in 1844 by the Rochdale Equitable Pioneer's Society. Attracted by the cooperative principles of Robert Owen, a group of twenty-eight weavers of the town of Rochdale, in the year mentioned, subscribed three pence a week to a common fund and began the purchase of sugar and flour at wholesale, eliminating entirely the cus- tomary profits of the retailer. As the venture succeeded its scope was broadened, until in 1902 the Rochdale Society had a membership of 13,000 and a business of £292,000, upon which there was a net profit of £46,000. Members gain admission by the payment of a nominal fee, and the association has become in effect a vast company which owns x 306 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE buildings and grounds, employs buyers and clerks, and conducts a general mercantile business, the profits being distributed from time to time among the members in accord- ance with the amount of monthly purchases made by each. Under the stimulus of this enterprise the cooperative move- ment has spread throughout the British Isles, taking the form not alone of the purchase and distribution of goods, but also of the manufacturing of commodities, and even of banking. There are at the present day 1550 cooperative societies, with an aggregate membership of 2,500,000 people, and a share capital of £35,000,000. The volume of trade which they handle in the course of a year exceeds £110,000,- 000, and the annual profit arising therefrom is more than £12,000,000. Local societies are federated in great whole- sale associations, one in England and one in Scotland, by which commodities are purchased in bulk for such of the local organizations as care to avail themselves of this service. The system has become so elaborate as to justify Lord Rosebery's characterization of it as "a state within a state," and the benefits accruing from it to the laboring masses of the United Kingdom are beyond computation. By good fortune, the cooperative movement has been kept entirely outside the sphere of politics. The success of cooperation in Great Britain has prompted numerous cooperative experiments on the continent, and some of these have achieved noteworthy results, although, on the whole, the working-people of continental countries have exhibited less capacity for peaceful, non-political or- ganization than have their British contemporaries. In France there are more than 2000 distributive societies, but in neither volume nor value of business do they approach the societies of Great Britain. They suffer especially from lack of cohesion. There are more than 300 productive societies, some of which are as much as sixty years old. The prosperity of many of these is to be attributed in part THE ORGANIZATION OF LABOR 307 to government patronage. There are also some 3000 agri* cultural societies whose principal activity is the maintenance of cooperative dairies. Cooperation in Germany dates from the middle of the nineteenth century. The earlier societies, organized for the purchase of raw materials of manufacture, were but indifferently successful, but the later distributive and agricultural associations flourished beyond expectation. Cooperative loan banks have become also very numerous and serviceable. In 1889 a General Agri- cultural Cooperative Union was established, and there is to-day a Cooperative Wholesale Society, resembling the British " Wholesale." January 1, 1905, there were in the Empire 23,221 cooperative societies of all types, with an aggregate membership of 3,409,871. Of the number, 14,272 were "credit," i.e., loan, societies; 3062, agricultural productive societies, and 1806, associations for the purchase of raw materials. Cooperative distributive societies of the British type were developed in Switzerland at an earlier date than in any other continental country, and the cooperative principle, in production, distribution, and banking, is applied in that country to-day upon a very extended scale. The number of cooperative societies is approximately 4500. In Belgium, Holland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden cooperation is widely practised. In Italy, Austria-Hungary, Spain, and even Russia, it is firmly intrenched. There is, indeed, no country of Europe in which the cooperative movement has not attained considerable proportions. The results are by no means confined to the lessening of expenditures, the in- crease of savings, and the amelioration of conditions of liveli- hood. The sense of social solidarity is perceptibly strengthened, and labor is brought to a realization of the highly important fact that the promotion of its essential interests may be attained by pacific and scientific means no less than by aggression and combat. CHAPTER XX WAGES AND SAVINGS One of the achievements for which the century which has elapsed since the close of the Napoleonic wars has been especially remarkable is the amelioration of the lot of the laboring man and of the classes of society dependent upon his earnings. Like all social phenomena, the betterment of labor cannot accurately be measured quantitatively. It has been admittedly very much more considerable in some countries and parts of countries than in others, and the speed with which it has been realized has varied enormously from decade to decade. Upon the general proposition that labor occupies a more favorable position to-day than it occupied in the eighteenth century all students of the subject are agreed; but the point from which labor advance began was so depressed and the labor problem which remains is so stupendous that more enthusiastic social reformers some- times are led to underestimate the ground that has been gained. It must not be forgotten that in virtually all of the social and economic progress of the era the laborer has participated. His legal status has been improved; he has attained religious freedom; his children enjoy enlarged opportunities for education ; when ill, he profits by the advance of medicine and surgery; when he travels, he makes use of the railway and the steamship; when he is at leisure, he may read inexpensive newspapers and books, and there are at his disposal means of diversion of which his ancestors never dreamed. Freedom does not always mean agreeable conditions of living, but if one must be poor, it is better to be poor and free than both a pauper and a slave. 3°8 WAGES AND SAVINGS 309 After the attainment of personal independence, religious liberty, educational opportunity, and political influence the concern of largest weight from the point of view of the or- dinary laborer is his wages ; and not simply the rate of wages, but the purchasing power of wages and the possibility of laying by some portion of one's yearly earnings as a resource upon which to fall back in times of unemployment, illness, old age, or other special stress. During the past hundred years wages have risen quantitatively in almost every part of Europe. The progress of the Industrial Revolution was marked for a time by a diminution of wages. Machinery displaced manual labor; the employment of women and children was substituted for that of men; the supply of labor exceeded the demand, with the consequence that labor became cheap and wages low. From this situation, as has been pointed out, arose discontent, misery, and not infrequent riots. But for the fact that, even in England, the introduction and perfection of mechanical devices was slow, allowing time for the re-absorption of surplus labor in other fields of employment, the transition to the new order could hardly have been accomplished without a general social upheaval. In time, however, the disadvantages in respect to wages disappeared. The increased cheapness of commodi- ties rendered possible by large-scale production gave rise to an enormous expansion of the demand for goods, and with the extension of markets the value of labor tended steadily to be enhanced. The factory acts, also, by regulating the age of employes, hours of work, and other conditions of industry, reduced the aggregate of the available labor supply, and in consequence operated to stimulate the rise of wages paid. Other circumstances, varying in nature in different times and places, contributed to the same end. It is easy to marshal imposing arrays of statistics showing the varying scales of wages that have prevailed in individual fields of employment within the past four or five generations. 310 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE The mere money paid, however, is no dependable criterion of wage values. Wages are worth what they will purchase, and the bald statement of wage rates means nothing unless there be taken into account with it both the prices which the wage-earner must pay for the necessities of life and the standard of comfort in accordance with which he will judge, and has a right to judge, his conditions of livelihood. There was, for example, a period in England when the daily wage of the laborer was but six pence. A statement of this fact is likely to produce an altogether false impression unless it be observed that the price of meat in that period was only a penny a pound, and other provisions were proportionally cheap, and that the standard of living was very much lower than it is to-day. The actual position of the worker was by no means as serious as upon the surface it might appear to have been. The rise of wages during the past century amounted in the majority of employments to a doubling or even a tripling of rates. In England the agricultural laborer in 1825 received a weekly wage of hardly "js. ; in 1850 he received gs. 6d.; in 1870, 155. ; and in 1880, lys. 6d. The rates in France at the dates mentioned were, respectively. 55., gs., 125. 6d., and 14s. 1 The German rates prior to 1850 cannot be ascertained with accuracy, but in the year named the average was 85. 6d. ; in 1870, 105. 6d. ; and in 1880, 125. 6d. The English woollen-weaver in 1825 received 185. a week; in 1880, 305. The French weaver at the same periods received 125. and 24s. respectively. The average wage of spinners throughout Europe in 1830-40 was about 85. 2 d. a week; in 1850-60, however, it arose to 115. id., and in 1872 it stood at 155. 4^. In Italy the workingman received in 1847 an average of only 75. 6d. a week; but in 1866 this average had arisen to 105. and in 1896, to 12s. These are but scattered facts, which might be multiplied 1 The rates in the United States at corresponding periods were gs. 6d., i6s n 20s., and 255. WAGES AND SAVINGS 3U indefinitely. More important than the facts themselves is the relationship sustained between the wages received and the prices necessary to be paid for food, clothing, and shelter, and the relationship of both of these to the standard of com- fort of the working-classes. In point of fact, not only have prices risen considerably during the past hundred years, but the standard of comfort has so changed that, even if prices had remained stationary, the same amount paid in wages would go by no means as far to-day toward the realization of the workingman's desires as a hundred, or even fifty, years ago. The ordinary man to-day expects his food to be of better quality and greater variety than did his grandfather. He expects to be better housed. He expects to be better clothed. He expects his town to be cleaner and more attrac- tive. All of these advantages have to be paid for, and all of them impose, directly or indirectly, larger demands upon the pocket-book of the ordinary citizen. In so far as most European countries are concerned, statistics sustain observa- tion in the opinion that until well within our own day the increase of wages has been ample somewhat more than to keep pace with the increase of prices plus the advance of standards of livelihood. In France the consumption of the costlier commodities, e.g., meat and wines, has undergone very marked increase. In Germany the per capita con- sumption of meat since 1850 has continued steadily to be increased, and the same thing is true in Austria, Switzerland, and even Italy. In 1880 an Englishman earning 31 shillings a week (at that time a fair average) spent upon food about 14 shillings, so that his sustenance cost less than half his wages. In France at the same time the average wage was 20 shillings and the cost of food was 12. In Germany the wage was 16 shillings, the cost of food 10. In Italy the wage was 15 shillings, the cost of food 9. 1 Since 1880, however, 1 At the same time the average weekly wage in the United States was 48 shillings, the cost of food 16. 312 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the increase of wages has failed, on the whole, to keep pace with the increase of the wage-earner's needs, and there has arisen a new aspect of labor conditions which cannot be passed without a word of comment. It is only within days comparatively recent that the people of the United States have begun to discern a fact which to the European has been patent through several decades, namely, that one of the really big problems of the twentieth century is going to be that created by the tendency of prices and social needs to outstrip wages. For during the past genera- tion the scale has tended more and more to be inclined against the purchaser of life's necessities. In every impor- tant country of Europe, if not of the world, there is an up- ward trend in living expenditures which presses more and more relentlessly upon the resources of the wage-earner and the salaried workman. Whether relief is to come through a wiser adjustment of means to ends on the part of the individual consumer, or through the more or less forceful intervention of the state or other corrective agencies, does not appear. But governments of great nations the world over — never more solicitous regarding the welfare of the common man than they are to-day — are being stimulated to institute extended investigations in the hope of hitting upon a remedy for conditions universally recognized to be subversive of national resourcefulness and efficiency. One of the most remarkable of these investigations is that which recently has been carried through by the government of Great Britain. Some six years ago that indefatigable Welshman whose participation in public affairs has lately been so active, Mr. Lloyd George, was President of the British Board of Trade. It is the business of this department, among other things, to bring together from time to time information which may be of service in promoting the social and economic well-being of the British people. The Camp- bell Bannerman ministry, of which Mr. Lloyd George was a WAGES AND SAVINGS 313 member, had committed itself in the campaign of 1906 to the introduction of old-age pensions and to a wide variety of other social reforms, and in pursuance of this programme it was deemed advisable to set on foot a systematic inquiry into existing conditions of living in England, as compared with conditions in the United States and in the more impor- tant of the continental countries. The investigation, carried on under Mr. Lloyd George's direction by consuls, municipal officials, and special agents of the Board of Trade, extended over several years and was probably the most thorough of the kind that has ever been undertaken. During the past four years the results have been given to the public through the medium of a series of portly volumes, comprising one of 1908 for Great Britain, one of the same year for Germany, one of 1909 for France, one of 19 10 for Belgium, and one of 191 1 for the United States. The first important fact made clear by the inquiry is that during the past decade the cost of living in England has risen sharply — probably very little less than in the United States during the same period. In 1909 the Board of Trade secured from trade-unions and cooperative societies data showing the income and principal items of expenditure of two thousand typical families in various parts of the United Kingdom. Taking the figures thus obtained as a basis of comparison, the compilers of the report of 1908 were brought to the con- clusion that in the interim, while there was an increase in wages of from 1 to 2 per cent, the margin that remained after the workingman had paid his rent and supplied his family with food was distinctly smaller than it was in 1904. From 1905 to the end of 1908 wheat rose in price by nearly eleven cents a bushel ; butter, by more than a dollar a hundred- weight; potatoes, by over five dollars a ton. Especially noteworthy was the increase in the cost of meat. Beef and pork were both about a cent a pound higher in 1908 than in 1906, and the rise has gone steadily forward since the report 314 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE was compiled. Only one-fifth of the beef consumed in Eng- land to-day is produced at home, and it is to that fact prin- cipally that the increase of meat prices is to be attributed. The Board of Trade's investigations in Germany were carried on in thirty-five representative cities and towns having an aggregate population of about nine millions. They were planned to cover rents, prices, and wages in rela- tion to a wide variety of trades — engineering, shipbuilding, paper-making, brewing, sugar-refining, coal-mining, metal industries, textile manufactures, dock labor, etc. — to the end that the results obtained might be representative and dependable. The outcome was the establishment of three significant facts : (i) that in Germany, as elsewhere, there is a distinct upward trend in the cost of living ; (2) that, by reason of heavy immigration and the rapid increase of popula- tion, the supply of labor tends constantly to outrun the de- mand, resulting in a minimum advance of wages; and (3) that, as compared with England, Germany is a cheap country for the rich but a dear one for the poor. Unless made with extreme caution, comparisons of conditions of living in various countries are, of course, apt to be misleading. The necessities of one people are the luxuries of another, and, as has been emphasized, relative habits and standards of life are of larger significance than any quantity of figures expressing the sheer cost of bread or meat or clothing. The English workingman, for example, usually maintains a house of his own, or at least half a house, with four or five rooms; the German is more apt to live in a tenement and to have only three or four rooms. In England the owner of the workingman's house pays the local rates, or taxes, and recoups himself by means of the rent which he charges his tenant ; in Germany the ten- ant pays the rates directly, and so enjoys a lower nominal rent. The Englishman drinks tea, eats wheaten bread, and relies for his meat largely upon beef and mutton; the German drinks coffee, eats rye bread, and confines himself principally to pork. WAGES AND SAVINGS 315 Out of a mass of detailed evidence, taking these varying factors as much as possible into account, it is deduced by the Board of Trade experts that an English workingman living in Germany after the fashion to which he has been accustomed in his own country would have to spend $2.19 to get what he now gets for $1.85 in England ; in other words, he would have to increase his expenditure in the ratio of 100 to 118. The normal German rate of money wages per week is only about four-fifths of the English rate, while the cost of rent, food, and fuel is nearly a fifth greater in Germany than in England. In the tremendous race for national effi- ciency in which Great Britain and Germany are to-day engaged these facts give promise of assuming considerable importance. Germany labors under a handicap which is only in part compensated by the unusual frugality and indus- try of her people. A general outcry against the growing cost of living has been more and more in evidence since the sharp depression of five years ago, and it is hardly too much to predict that eventually the government will be obliged to abandon the protectionist, pro-agrarian policy whereby it has hitherto min- istered to the narrow interests of a class whose sole aim is the keeping up of prices on home-grown commodities. The investigations in France likewise revealed distinct advantages on the side of Great Britain. The level of wages in France as compared with that in England is as 75 to 100, the corresponding ratio for Germany and England being 83 to 100. In the building, engineering, and printing trades (which alone were investigated in France) the hours of labor during the week are in relation to the working hours in England as 117 to 100; from which it appears that the average hourly earnings of the French artisan in the selected trades stand to the hourly earnings of the English artisan in the ratio of but 64 to 100. The hourly earnings of the Frenchman are thus but two-thirds of those of the Eng- ishman, and at least 15 per cent lower than those of the 316 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE German in the trades named. In France, as elsewhere, the cost of living is soaring. Rents (allowing for dissimilarities in systems of taxation) have attained a level of only about 98 per cent of those prevailing in England, but sanitary arrangements, including water-supply, are distinctly inferior, and housing conditions are far below the English standard. The quantity of food consumed per family in France is smaller than in England, although, since the French family is on the average only three-fourths as large as the English family, the per capita consumption is probably greater. Certain it is that the per capita expenditure for food in France is very much greater. Milk and butter are practically the only foodstuffs which cost less in France than in England. The remainder attain an average price 18 per cent higher, and since one of the principal causes of dearness is the octroi duties assessed by local authorities upon commodities sold in the markets, the Frenchman cannot hope to economize, as the German may, by using only home-grown products. It is estimated that if an average English workingman, transplanted with his family to France, were to attempt to maintain his accustomed standard of living, his expenditure upon food and rent would be increased by approximately 18 per cent. To meet the increase, however, he would receive lower wages, in the proportion of 75 to 100, although spending 117 hours at labor for every 100 to which he had been accus- tomed in his native country. 1 1 The following table gives some indication (in percentages) of the manner in which French, German, and English families whose incomes range between $7.50 and $8.75 per week apportion their outlay upon standard articles of food : Bread and flour . . . Meat and fish . . . . Milk Butter, lard, etc. . . Fruit and vegetables (other than potatoes) Sugar French 18 30 4-4 11 7 2.7 German 16 32 7-4 14 4 2.2 English 16 29 6.1 11 4 4-3 WAGES AND SAVINGS 317 All of this, however, is but one side of the picture. Over against the unfavorable conditions arising from the increased cost of living must be set the fact that the savings of the masses of the people in most European countries are yearly increasing. Within the past half-century there has been a remarkable development of agencies, public and private, by means of which thrift is encouraged and the surplus earnings of the working-classes are safeguarded. The establishment of systems of social insurance and the exten- sion of savings-banks are but two of the more important means that have been brought to bear. As an illustration of the sort of progress which is being realized in this direc- tion it may be of interest to allude to the position occupied to-day in the world of finance by the "nation of little savers," France, and to point out to what extent the financial power of that nation reflects the prosperity of one of the principal European peoples. Ten years ago the role of the world's banker belonged unquestionably to Great Britain. To-day it belongs no less unquestionably to France. Great Britain is still the richest of European nations, though France is not far behind, and the aggregate of British investments of capital in the outlying world is fully twice that of the French. But the point is that British wealth has come to be largely static, whereas that of France is fluid or dynamic, and when loans are to be floated, industrial enterprises financed, and govern- ments tided over lean years, it is wealth of the latter sort that counts. Until the early nineties British loans and place- ments of capital abroad completely outdistanced those of any other nation, but a variety of circumstances, capped by the war in South Africa, induced a period of prolonged in- activity, from which there has been in recent years only a partial recovery. During some decades France has been ac- quiring gradually a dominance of continental finance, and since 1900 she has been cutting down steadily the prepon- 318 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE derance which the British heretofore have enjoyed in the financing of outlying countries, even of the British imperial possessions. The total of French foreign investments to-day is variously estimated, but it cannot be under 40,000,000,000 francs, or approximately one-fifth of the aggregate placement of investing countries in other lands at the present time. Of this amount, upwards of a quarter is invested in Russia, predominantly in government securities, but to some extent in mining and industrial enterprises; something like three billions have been placed in Spain, half in government securities and half in railroads; about the same amount in Austria, principally in railroads; about a billion and a half each in Italy, Turkey, Egypt, and South Africa; more than a billion each in England, Germany, Portugal, and the Argentine Republic; and upwards of that sum in Brazil, in China, and in the United States. There have been heavy placements also in various other Latin-American countries, as Mexico and Colombia; in the Balkan states, especially Servia; in Holland, Belgium, and Switzerland; and in numerous Asiatic and African states, including the British dependencies. The securities of Japan and of the United States are also fast growing in favor. It was the French who furnished Great Britain with much of the capital by which was financed the Boer war. It was they who made it possible for Russia to fight Japan. It was they who pro- vided Germany with a billion and a quarter francs in 1004- 1905 to assist in the upbuilding of her industrial interests. It was they who supplied borrowers in the United States with enormous sums during the tight-money periods of 1905-06 and 1907-08. Such a grasp, indeed, has France acquired upon the world of finance — especially in Europe, but in no small degree outside — that it would to-day be impossible to float any considerable loan, or to carry off any other great financial operation, without the assistance of WAGES AND SAVINGS 319 the money lords of Paris. The fact is one of tremendous importance, wholly outside of bank and counting-house. It is a preponderating factor in the general international situation. One of the safeguards of European peace un- questionably is the unassailable power of the French nation in the domain of finance and the ramifying interests of the French investing public which would be jeopardized by war. The sources of the phenomenal financial strength of France are numerous. The more important of them can be reduced to three : (1) the magnitude of the accumulated national wealth, (2) the annual savings of the French people, arising from their unparalleled thrift, and (3) an admirable financial system, including the most satisfactory banking facilities in the world. One may make almost any sort of estimate as to the aggregate wealth of France and be able to back it up with the authority of a French economist. M. de Foville puts the figure at 212,000,000,000 francs; Yves Guyot, at 240,000,000,000; Edmond Thery, at 250,000,000,000; and Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, at 262,000,000,000. In any case, for a population of forty millions the amount is stupendous. Broadly speaking, it is considerably more than the wealth of Germany, somewhat under a third less than that of Great Britain, and approximately one-half of that of the United States. As compared with the Italians, the Spaniards, and even the Germans and the Russians, the French people have been advantageously placed for the acquisition of wealth. Conditions of climate and soil have been favorable, mineral resources on the whole abundant, and the physical basis of existence generally satisfactory. The wealth of the nation to-day, however, and the powerful position which the country has assumed in the world of finance, must be re- garded as the achievement of the French people themselves rather than as the product of circumstance. When, in 1871, Bismarck exacted from the prostrate French nation a war 320 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE indemnity of five billion francs, he supposed that the burden of such an obligation would reduce Germany's traditional rival to impotence. No such result, however, ensued. Shorn of two of her richest provinces, distracted by domestic issues and disorders, and carrying the weight of a war expenditure (in addition to the indemnity) of six and a quarter billions, the new republic contrived to borrow at will from her own citizens and abroad, to pay the indemnity within the space of three years, and to enter forthwith upon the ambitious programme of military, naval, and colonial aggrandizement which has brought her into the high station that she occupies among the powers to-day. The capacity for recuperation which France displayed in the teeth of the disasters of 1870- 187 1 was one of the marvels of the nineteenth century- There was, however, nothing miraculous about it. Bis- marck had simply failed to make allowance for the hoards of gold tucked away in the people's stockings. He had overlooked the native thrift and persistence of the French farmer, trader, and artisan. During the forty years that have elapsed since Sedan the population of France has gone steadily on laying by funds for a rainy day. The economists generally estimate the annual savings of the French people at from a billion and a half to two billion francs. At an average interest rate of four per cent, this means a yearly increase of income from capital of sixty to eighty millions. The Frenchman is by nature thrifty. He possesses in a preeminent degree that force d'epargne which ex-Chancellor von Biilow on a memorable occasion lauded with enthusiasm in the Reichstag and commended to his countrymen. France is a nation of little farms, of little incomes, and of little savers. For it is important to observe that the enormous accumulations of surplus capital with which the Paris bankers flood the earth are not, for the most part, the earnings of vast industries, but are rather the aggregated savings of the great masses of the French people WAGES AND SAVINGS 321 — of shopkeepers and artisans, of clerks and laborers, and especially of the small farmers. Singly, they are insignificant ; collectively, they wield untold influence in the affairs of Europe and of the world at large. The thrifty habits of the Frenchman are not left to flourish of their own vigor. They are systematically cultivated and rewarded, by the state, by the great banking institutions, and by numerous private or semi-private agencies. To begin with, the state cordially invites every citizen of the republic to become a holder of government bonds, and it follows up the invitation with a series of arrangements calculated to afford every possible facility to that end. The French na- tional debt to-day is the largest in the world, but this is only one of its claims to distinction. It is held almost exclusively in France, and it is held, not as national debts usually are, in large blocks, and by great financial institutions and men of wealth, but by a vast body of investors which numbers more than three millions and includes a very great proportion of men and women of meagre incomes. In April, 1908, 2,293,450 holdings — seventy-three per cent of the total — were of less than thirty francs. This "democratization" of the national debt has been brought about by the French government through measures deliberately pursued during more than a quarter of a century. M. Caillaux, twice min- ister of finance, has said that, though not in all respects the most economical system open to the state, it has been ad- judged eminently worth while because of its promotion of the spirit of thrift and its tangible identification of the interests of the citizen with those of the nation. Its object is broadly social and political — to enhance the wealth, and consequently the power, of the people, and to promote the solidarity of French citizenship. To attract the maximum number of investors the govern- ment begins by issuing its bonds in nineteen distinct de- nominations, ranging from one, two, three, four, and five francs 322 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE to fifty, one hundred, two hundred, and eventually up to three thousand. By way of contrast it may be pointed out that British consols are issued in but five denominations, ranging from fifty to a thousand pounds. The Englishman cannot therefore invest in a government bond unless he has in hand as much as $250; the Frenchman need possess but twenty cents. In the second place, the Frenchman is afforded the facilities of purchase without administrative charge at more than four hundred offices throughout the country, of cashing his coupons at any one of over six thousand offices, and of converting his small denominations into larger ones, or vice versa, at any time without expense. Rentes are exempt from taxation, and the yield is in the neighborhood of three per cent. The demand for stock is insatiable. The lowliest wage-earner vies with his neighbor in quest of the much- coveted securities, and not infrequently application is made in the name of each member of the family, sometimes for but a single franc apiece. Loans are invariably heavily over-subscribed. Supplementing the devices of the state for the encourage- ment of small savings and investments are those of the great French banks. It cannot be said that the individual French investor knows much about la haute finance. He knows that government stock is absolutely safe, that it is always within his reach, and that it is profitable to hold. Beyond that he is disposed to be guided absolutely by his banking adviser. Nowhere in the world do the great banking institutions give as much attention to the monetary interests of their customers as in France. They advise freely what to buy, and even what and when to sell. If a patron is found to be carrying a bal- ance above what he usually carries, the bank will take the trouble to write him, suggesting profitable lines of investment — a proceeding which is not uncommon in the United States, but which is practically unknown in England. Customers are assured of prompt information respecting opportunities WAGES AND SAVINGS 323 for placing their money to advantage. And the smallest depositor is extended every courtesy and service which is accorded the greatest. Artisans, farmers, and laborers are encouraged systematically to bring in their pittances and to leave them to be employed by the bank in such enterprises as from time to time may give promise of largest and surest returns. The Credit Lyonnais, which in volume of business easily surpasses all other French banks (including the Bank of France itself), deals regularly with several hundred thou- sand clients of this sort, and the Comptoir National d'Es- compte de Paris, the Societe Generate, and the Credit Fon- der de France, carry lists almost as extended. It has been estimated that there are not fewer than a million such in- vestors constantly pouring their savings into the vaults of the great Parisian banks and their provincial branches, and it is chiefly by reason of this situation that the French banks have always at hand a seemingly inexhaustible surplus awaiting the demands of the financial world. The banks get so close to the people that they know precisely the quan- tities of stored-up capital that can be called into play under any given condition. If a loan is to be placed in Russia, they know just how large an amount can be floated and just what stipulations are required to render the transaction a success. It is fundamentally because the French people save every year great masses of money which they are ready to have employed in any profitable venture, and because of the facili- ties which the French banks have worked out for the han- dling of such capital, that Paris has come to be the principal free-money market of the world. CHAPTER XXI PUBLIC EDUCATION The nineteenth century is not uncommonly thought of as an era whose most notable developments were of a material- istic nature. Without question the expansion of business, the growth of wealth, and the improvement of the physical conditions of livelihood which took place during its course surpassed anything of the kind recorded in history. At the same time, however, the progress attained in the non- material aspects of human existence was very great. Less than five generations ago the equality of men before the law was recognized, even in theory, in not half a dozen European countries; to-day, such equality is all but universal, both in theory and in practice. In the eighteenth century, as has been pointed out, the mass of the people in not one European country participated in the conduct of their own government ; to-day there is no governmental system in which the people are not accorded substantial power, and in most systems the ultimate authority is that wielded by the common man. In the eighteenth century freedom of religion was sharply re- stricted, and even in so advanced a nation as England the adherents of certain faiths were excluded from a variety of privileges and rights; nowadays, save in some of the more backward eastern states, all religions are tolerated and re- spected, and the religious disabilities that remain are few and unimportant. At no point, however, was the progress of the century more substantial than in respect to popular education. A hundred and twenty-five years ago the means and methods of educa- tion in European countries were largely such as had been perpetuated from mediaeval times. The conduct of education 324 PUBLIC EDUCATION 325 was left entirely to the Church and to private agencies ; the subjects of study were few and the methods of instruction antiquated ; and for only a small proportion of the youth of the various countries were educational facilities at all avail- able. In continental states education, both elementary and advanced, was in the hands principally of the order of Jesuits, and while the training which was provided equipped the pupil with the accomplishments which the polite world de- manded, inquiry and thought were rather stifled than stimu- lated. The type of education which prevailed was criticised with severity by Milton, Locke, Montaigne, and other in- tellectual leaders, and in the widely influential Entile, pub- lished in 1752, Rousseau developed a wholly original scheme which he commended as a substitute for the fruitless educa- tional policies of his day. The French Revolution involved a forceful assertion of the inherent rights of man, and one of the rights which ultimately was derived from the general principle was that of training for efficient and comfortable living. More and more as time progressed this conception of the inalienable right of the individual to receive in his early years a training which would fit him to meet the needs of his own existence became the dominating social principle of the century. The application of it involved development along at least three fundamental fines. In the first place, the idea gradually became fixed in the various countries that the official agent of public educa- tion should be the state, rather than the Church, and that it is the duty of the state to insist upon the obtaining of at least a minimum of education on the part of all of its citizens. Closely related is the recognized obligation of the state to provide the facilities requisite for technical training and for advanced study. The greatly increased participation of the people in the conduct of government has impressed more force- fully than ever before the need that the public intelligence be maintained at the highest possible level. In the second 326 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE place, there have been very considerable changes in respect to the subjects of study, involving especially the introduction of the natural sciences, the social sciences, and a great variet} of technical and professional subjects. Finally, there has been enormous change in the methods employed in instruction. Rousseau introduced the idea that the method of education should be determined by the nature of the child, and, although the great Frenchman's principle of adherence to nature was responsible in practice for many absurdities, it stimulated the development of child psychology as a subject of investigation and contributed much to the overthrow of the non-flexible and deadening educational practices of earlier modern times. Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1745-1827), the eminent edu- cator of Switzerland and the first of Europeans to preach and practise education for the poor, took as his basal principle the training of the child through the child's own activities, and the eminently practical educational scheme which Pestalozzi developed was carried to a higher stage of development by the originator of the kindergarten, Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel (1782-1852). The tendency of the Pestalozzi- Froebel system to excessive emphasis upon impulse and feel- ing was corrected in part by Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776- 1841), by whom stress was placed more particularly upon intellect and discipline. In relation to method, the funda- mental task of the nineteenth century was that of establishing a vital relationship between the subject-matter of learning and the experience of the individual, with the consequence of an increase of range, depth, and utility of knowledge. The educational history of nineteenth century Europe is too extensive to be sketched here even in outline. It must suffice to speak briefly of the progress which has been achieved in Great Britain and to allude in a word to developments in a few of the more important continental countries. The educational history of Great Britain during the past hundred years falls into three principal periods. The first extends to PUBLIC EDUCATION 327 the passage of the Elementary Education Act of 1870; the second, from that event to the adoption of the Education Act of 1902; the third, from the legislation of 1902 to the present day. During the first of these periods elementary education was predominantly private. It was conducted by religious bodies, with a limited amount of state aid and state supervision, and parents were required to pay fees for the education of their children. In the earlier portion of the century the benefits of the system were extended to but a minority of the population. When, as one writer pointedly asserts, Burke appealed in 1792 to the "free and enlightened' people of England to take up arms against the French Revo lution, much the greater portion of the subjects of Kinj George could neither read nor write. 1 Furthermore, it was seriously argued that the education of the masses was not a thing to be desired. When, in 1807, a member of Parliament proposed that parish schools should be supported at public expense, the objection was raised that the provision of edu- cation for the working-classes would be found "prejudicial to their morals and their happiness; it would teach them to despise their lot in life instead of making them good servants in agriculture and other laborious employments to which their rank has destined them ; instead of teaching them sub- ordination, it would render them fractious and refractory, as was evident in the manufacturing counties ; it would enable them to read seditious pamphlets, vicious books, and publica- tions against Christianity ; it would render them insolent to their superiors." It was not until 1833 that the responsibility of the state for public education was enforced with vigor sufficient to render possible a meagre appropriation in aid of education on the part of the national legislative chambers. The act of the reformed parliament in the year mentioned — the fruit of a decade of agitation led by Lord Brougham — set aside £20,000 1 Robinson and Beard, "Development of Modern Europe," II, 218. 328 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE to be divided between two private associations for the aid of elementary schools. The Established Church clung rigidly to its accustomed monopoly of educational control, and public provision for educational facilities long remained the product, not of any preconceived plan or theory, but of ex- perimentation, compromise, and accident. In 1839 Lord Melbourne's government established a public education office (the Committee of Council on Education) and procured an increase of the annual subvention to £30,000. It planned also a state normal school for the training of teachers, but this design was frustrated by the acerbity of ecclesiastical controversy. In 1847 state aid, which hitherto had been confined to schools giving instruction in the tenets of the Church of England and to schools providing "simple Bible teaching," was extended to schools maintained by Wes- leyans, Roman Catholics, and Jews. In 1856 the vice- president of the Committee of Council on Education was given the status of a minister responsible to Parliament, and in 1858 a parliamentary commission, under the chair- manship of the Duke of Newcastle, was appointed to inves- tigate the state of popular education and to recommend measures such as should be adjudged necessary for the ex- tension of education to the masses. The Newcastle Commission reported in 1861. It was shown that the number of children attending day schools was 2,500,000, which meant an average of one in seven of the total population, as compared with one in nine in France, one in eight in Holland, and one in six in Prussia, where school attendance was compulsory. There were at the time, how- ever, but 1,675,000 children in public schools; but 1,100,000 in schools liable to inspection; and but 917,000 in schools which were in receipt of state aid. And — what was more serious — there were in the kingdom upwards of 2,000,000, children who were not in school at all. Such schools as ex- isted were unevenly distributed, large districts often contain- PUBLIC EDUCATION 329 ing none whatever. By reason of the religious difficulty, the majority of the commission felt obliged to report adversely upon the proposal of a scheme of free and compulsory in- struction, and the only immediate consequence of the com- mission's work was the inauguration of an injudicious plan of paying and promoting teachers in state-aided schools in accordance with the results of their instruction, as revealed by the examination of their pupils. This scheme of payment by results, put in operation in 1862, was not abolished finally until 1904. During the decade 1860-70 the educational problem was discussed widely, and numerous measures relating to the subject were projected. The trade-unions were calling for the education of the laboring masses. The enfranchisement of the workingmen of the boroughs in 1867 lent impetus to the movement, and on all sides was heard the slogan "we now must educate our masters." Finally, the triumph of the North over the South in the American Civil War, and of the Prussians over the Austrians in the war of 1866, seemed unmistakably to emphasize the importance of the common school as an agency of popular intelligence, patriotism, and efficiency. In 1870 the first Gladstone government was able to carry a measure designed to provide England for the first time in her history with a broadly national educational sys- tem. Already the yearly grant of Parliament in aid of edu- cation had risen to £700,000, and the question in 1870 was one simply of increasing this outlay and of broadening the au- thority of the state in educational matters. There was no thought of sweeping away the existing educational order and of replacing it by another which should be universal, symmet- rical, and centralized. The purpose was rather, as was ex- plained by Forster when introducing the bill, "to complete the voluntary system and to fill up the gaps." By the terms of the act England was divided into school districts, and the educational facilities of each district were left to be regulated 330 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE as circumstances might require. If, at the end of a year, a given district should be found to be suitably equipped with schools, no new schools should be established within it. If, however, its school facilities should be found inadequate, local school boards were to be elected within the district with power to establish new schools and to levy local taxes for the purpose. In any case, schools must submit to state inspection, and to all should be extended some measure of public aid. Thus existing church, or "voluntary," schools were incor- porated in the system, and provision was made for two groups of educational establishments, i.e., church schools, supported by tuition fees, voluntary contributions, and parliamentary subsidies, and "board" schools, supported by tuition fees, local taxes, and parliamentary grants. In the shaping of the measure, obstacles were imposed at every turn by the religious question. A considerable wing of the Liberal party insisted that the time had arrived when elementary education should be divorced entirely from ecclesiastical control, but the majority of the nation and of Parliament believed otherwise. The outcome was a com- promise. The church schools were permitted to continue to give instruction in denominational doctrine, but, to the end that these schools might not be effectually closed against adherents of other denominations, a "conscience clause" was inserted, stipulating that where voluntary schools should include in their curriculum denominational instruction, such instruction should be given at the beginning or close of the session, and parents should be free to have their children ex- cused from it. In the board schools, maintained in part by public taxation, religious instruction might or might not be permitted, according as the boards of the several districts should determine ; but if such instruction were authorized, it must embrace "no catechism or religious formulary which is distinctive of any particular denomination," and, at the request of parents, children might be excused from it. PUBLIC EDUCATION 331 Although the act of 1870 was roundly opposed by many elements, being pronounced by John Bright "the worst act passed by any Liberal parliament since 1832," it marked the inauguration of a new era in English education. Within two decades, schools were more than doubled in number, and ac- commodations were provided for substantially the whole of the population of school age. In 1880 a law was passed obliging local educational authorities to make by-laws for the enforce- ment of compulsory school attendance, and in 1891 a measure providing an extra grant for schools remitting tuition fees made public education for the first time free. An act of 1893 made eleven (raised in 1899 to twelve) years the mini- mum age for exemption from school attendance, and another of 1900 authorized the local authorities to extend the upper limit of compulsory attendance from the thirteenth to the fourteenth year of age. In 1889-91 laws were passed authorizing county councils to levy a tax not exceeding a penny in the pound for the support of technical schools, and in 1899 there was legislation empowering the councils to establish special schools or classes for the mentally or physi- cally defective. In 1902 the Conservative government of Lord Salisbury carried an Education Act which, although pertaining es- sentially to matters of administration, possessed large im- portance in the educational economy of the nation. The impetus responsible for the act was supplied principally by the Anglican Church, and it arose from the increasing dis- advantage financially at which church schools found them- selves after 1870 in comparison with board schools. An additional subsidy voted the denominational establishments in 1897 proved inadequate, and agitation for relief was kept up until the enactment of the measure of 1902. By this law the special school boards provided for by the act of 1870 were abolished, and the management of schools of both of the pre- vailing types was vested in the county and borough councils 332 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE which comprise the regular local governing bodies. An schools were to be maintained from parliamentary grants, supplemented by local taxes. The actual control of church schools in each local district was to be exercised by a com- mittee of six, two of whom were to represent the county or borough council, while four were to represent the denomina- tion under whose auspices the school was conducted. Thus the people were to be taxed for the support of both church and non-church schools, but in the control of the former they would have but a minority voice. Although the conscience clause was perpetuated, the meas- ure was vigorously opposed by dissenters and by those who advocate secular education. It was denounced as a device intended primarily to augment the power of the Anglican Church. The execution of the law proved for a time difficult in the extreme. People refused to pay their taxes, and their property was sold by the public authorities to cover their obligations. More than 70,000 persons were summoned to court. Without question, the feeling aroused by the issue was one of the principal causes of the overwhelming defeat which the Conservative government suffered at the elections of January-February, 1906. The Liberal government which succeeded made a deter- mined effort in 1906 to procure the passage of a bill designed to undenominationalize, though not wholly to secularize, popular education. The bill, introduced April 9, 1906, by Mr. Augustine Birrell, President of the Board of Education, stipulated in substance that after January 1, 1908, only schools provided by the local educational authorities should be recognized as public schools ; that they alone should be accorded aid from public funds ; that teachers should be sub- jected to no religious test; and that while denominational religious instruction for those who should desire it might be given two mornings a week in schools taken over by the edu- cational authorities from the ecclesiastical organizations, it PUBLIC EDUCATION 333 should be provided by persons not belonging to the regular teaching staff and without support from the general public. Slightly amended, this measure passed the Commons by a majority of 192. In the Lords the opposition to the "Bir- religious Bill" was overwhelming, and it was only after the measure had been cut to pieces that it could be carried. The amendments added by the Lords — among them one requir- ing denominational instruction during school hours — were re- jected by the Commons by a crushing vote, and, recognizing the impossibility of an agreement between the two houses, the government forthwith withdrew the bill. The subject has continued to be agitated, but no legislation relative to it has been possible. Few public issues in Great Britain sur- pass it in seriousness to-day. A more agreeable fact to record is that, whatever the merits and the faults of the English educational system, the results attained under it have been very satisfactory. As late as 1843 the percentage of men who were illiterate was 32, and that of women, 49; in 1903, the percentages were, respec- tively, but 2 and 3. The number of public elementary schools maintained by the local education authorities July 31, 1910, was, in England alone, 18,865. The accommodations of these schools were ample for 6,506,226 pupils, and the average number actually in attendance was 4,976,416. The "council" schools numbered 6677, with 2,800,078 pupils; the voluntary schools numbered 12,188, with 2,176,338 pupils. The number of schools in Wales was 1833. In the majority of continental countries educational prog- ress within the past few generations has kept pace with that experienced in Great Britain, and in a number of nations the aggregate of progress, if not the level of attainment, represents even more remarkable achievement. In France and in those countries which between 1789 and 181 5 fell under the influence of France a new chapter in educational history was opened by the Revolution and the Napoleonic domina- 334 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE tion. In Italy, Spain, Portugal, and portions of Germany the results were not far-reaching, but in France herself, in Belgium, in Holland, in Switzerland, and in Prussia they were of fundamental and permanent importance. In France the first of the Revolutionary constitutions — that of 1791 — decreed that elementary education should be both com- pulsory and free. The decree was not, and could not be, carried into effect, but, as has been described elsewhere, one of the principal achievements of Napoleon comprised the establishment of a vast, national educational system, centralized in one official teaching body, the Imperial Uni- versity, and based upon the principle of absolute state monop- oly. After 1 81 5 the Napoleonic system collapsed, and during the Restoration popular education fell back under the con- trol of the Church. The essential principles of universality and public regulation, however, did not perish, and in our own day the highly centralized educational system of France bears striking evidence of Napoleonic influence. In 1833 Guizot carried a measure by which was laid the immediate foundation of modern primary education in France. This measure required every commune to main- tain an elementary school and to provide for the pay of teachers. In 1854 the country was divided for educational purposes into sixteen "academies," each presided over by a rector, and thus was instituted an administrative arrange- ment which is characteristic of the French system to-day. The great advance which France has attained in educational matters, however, has come since the German war of 1870- 1871. The victories of Prussia in 1886 and 1870 were re- garded throughout Europe as the achievement, in the final analysis, of the schoolmaster, and the effect, especially in France, was greatly to emphasize the importance of ade- quate educational facilities. The establishment of the Third Republic worked to the same end, for now that man- hood suffrage had become the basis of public power it was PUBLIC EDUCATION 335 felt to be of fundamental importance that the voters be men of intelligence. After the definite establishment of the republic, in 1875, there was much legislation relative to educational matters. In 1878 the communes were compelled to acquire ownership of their school buildings. In 1879 all departments were ordered to maintain training colleges for teachers. June 16, 1881, Jules Ferry carried a momentous statute by which all fees in primary schools and in training colleges were abolished. In 1882 another great measure made school attendance compulsory for all children between the ages of six and thirteen. October 30, 1886, education was made secular by an act stipulating that none but lay persons should give instruction in public school sand replacing by "moral instruction" all distinctively religious teaching in these schools. Finally, in 1889, the greater part of the costs of public education were taken over by the state from the departments and communes, and to teachers was given more clearly than before the status of public officials. The com- pulsory, gratuitous, secular public educational system of France to-day is to be considered one of the great achieve- ments of the Third Republic. Under the operation of it the number of pupils in primary schools has been increased by 850,000, illiteracy has been reduced from 25 per cent to 4 per cent for men and from 38 per cent to 7 per cent for women, and the annual outlay for educational purposes has been trebled. Nowhere has educational progress during the century ex- ceeded that attained in Germany. Throughout the Empire education is general and compulsory, and all of the federated states have adopted, with minor modifications, the very admirable system of educational administration long ago worked out by the kingdom of Prussia. The compulsory school age is from six to fourteen, and in 1906-07 the number of pupils receiving instruction in the Volksschulen, or elementary public schools, of the Empire reached the enor- 336 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE mous figure 9,737,262. The great era of Prussian popular education dates from the reforms of Wilhelm von Humboldt, carried through in 1809-10 during the ministry of Stein. Of the advance that has been realized within the more re- cent portion of that era, some conception may be formed by reference to the single fact that, whereas in 1875-76 the percentage of army recruits in the Empire who could neither read nor write was 23.7, in 1900-01 it was but 0.45. Among the principal countries of western Europe the most backward in educational matters is Italy; yet even there great development has been experienced. Prior to the crea- tion of the Italian Kingdom in 1861, popular education was all but utterly neglected by the governments of the peninsula, and by ecclesiastical and private agencies as well. In the year mentioned more than three-fourths of the population were illiterate, and in Naples and Sicily the proportion rose to more than 90 per cent. The founders of the new national- ity recognized the imperative necessity that this condition be remedied, and in 1877 there was passed a law designed to inaugurate a compulsory educational system. This law was extended in 1904, when three thousand additional school buildings were ordered to be erected. The support of pri- mary education has been entrusted entirely, however, to the communes, and in many instances it continues to be inad- equate, or even entirely lacking. Satisfactory progress will probably be found to require the assumption of all or part of the educational burden by the state. In 1901, however, the percentage of illiteracy throughout the country was 52. This, of course, is very high, but it represents a reduction within forty years of approximately one-third in the propor- tion of the unlettered. CHAPTER XXII THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM No one who contemplates thoughtfully the changes by which the society of western Europe was transformed be- tween 1789 and 1850 can fail to be impressed by two things. The first of them is the pronouncedly individualistic tone of the new regime; the second, the relative advantage which accrued to the middle-class, bourgeois elements of the popula- tion as distinguished from the great mass of landless, money- less wage-earners. One would be rash to affirm that the network of society is less tightly drawn to-day than it was in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. But the most fundamental achievement of the overturn, in France and elsewhere, was the breaking down of status and the establish- ment of what Napoleon characterized so fondly as the car- Here ouverte aux talents, and in the outcome a very great number of ties — feudal, manorial, commercial, industrial, ecclesiastical — by which men had been bound together were severed. In reaction against a system under which but a very small minority of men were free from obnoxious bonds and restraints, the tendency was in the direction of the opposite extreme. The ideal became that of a society in which all should be common citizens of the state, owing implicit obedience, paying taxes, and rendering service, but as between man and man there should be a very wide range of freedom, and with the conditions of everyday life the public authorities should concern themselves little or not at all. To some men this meant new opportunity, business pros- perity, wealth. But to others less shrewd or less fortunate, it meant disappointment, defeat, and new forms of depend- z 337 338 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE ency. During the half-century following the close of the Napoleonic wars there was in France and most other countries a remarkable advance in agriculture, industry, and trade, and in national well-being. But one fact was increasingly patent; namely, that to the great and rapidly growing body of men who lived solely by wages received for daily toil, the reforms of the revolutionary era had brought little of benefit. The laborer owned no land ; hence he had never been called upon to pay a land tax, and the game laws framed in the interest of the noble huntsman had possessed no terrors for him. He raised no grain or grapes ; hence he had never been compelled to submit to legalized robbery at a lord's mill or wine-press. He was not engaged in trade; hence the tolls and tariffs exacted at every boundary crossing did not con- cern him, save perhaps as they may have affected the prices which he was called upon to pay for commodities. He had no lord ; hence he had not been annoyed by being summoned to labor on a lord's demesne. All these and other vexations which had borne heavily upon many men were swept away without appreciably modifying the wage-earner's condition. The mob which stormed the Bastile in 1789 was composed largely of landless, hand-to-mouth people, but before the Revolution had far progressed the fortunes of the move- ment had fallen completely under the guidance of men who were economically and socially of a higher rank — the small traders and manufacturers, the shopkeepers, and especially the small landowners and other men who, if not owners, had at least some interest in land. The consequence was that the wage-earner dropped pretty much out of account, and although, on the whole, he was without doubt better off after the Revolution than before, his lot was by no means so much improved as was that of the man whose bit of land or open- ing in trade afforded him an opportunity for independent prosperity and happiness. As the century progressed, this matter became one of in- THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 339 creased seriousness. The number of wage-earners was at one time comparatively small, comprising chiefly men em- ployed in shops and on farms. With the coming of the industrial revolution, however, the situation was totally altered. In France the introduction of machinery, steam- power, and the factory proceeded rapidly after 1825, and in Germany it assumed large proportions half a generation later. As had happened somewhat earlier in England, profits of manufacture increased, capitalists invested heavily in manu- facturing plants, and large bodies of workingmen were drawn together in the towns to take advantage of the new oppor- tunities for employment. The ranks of the wage-earning classes were swollen by the accession of thousands of people who had been striving unsuccessfully to make a living by agriculture or trade. Being gathered in great industrial centres, the laborers were enabled to acquire mutual acquaint- ance, to discuss together the conditions under which they were compelled to live and labor, and in time to begin the building up of organizations for the promotion of their common interests. On all sides it was apparent that the wealth, not alone of the industrial magnates but also of the bourgeoisie, was fast being increased. Yet wages rose but little or not at all, and the man dependent upon wages was often little more favor- ably situated than he might have been a century earlier. The principal reason why wages did not rise lay in the surplus of labor. Industry grew rapidly, but not so rapidly as the class of men and women who depended upon it for a liveli- hood. Prices continued high, and as between prices and wages the balance tended to be increasingly unfavorable. There were no well-defined lines of promotion for laborers who acquired special skill, and for a man to rise by merit from one variety of employment to another commanding better pay was the exception rather than the rule. On the continent, as in England, too, small regard was paid to san- 340 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE itation and other safeguards of labor, and it was only com* paratively late that it became a recognized function of the state to provide industrial regulation and protection. The individualistic, laissez-faire ideal long operated to prevent public interference in the relations between employer and employe. Free competition meant too often in practice the liberty of the powerful to exploit the weak. Grossly exces- sive hours of work were required, the labor of women and children was widely substituted for that of men, and in France and elsewhere working-people were forbidden by law to enter into any sort of organization intended to effect a change in their existing condition. Throughout the Orleanist period the discontent of the laboring masses in France was steadily increased. Occa- sionally it found expression in insurrection, as, for example, in 1 83 1 when the silk-weavers of Lyons, receiving the meagre wage of 18 sous for a working-day of eighteen hours, rose with the cry "We will live by working or die fighting." Gradually it was forced upon the public attention that a society in which every man is free to do as he likes, barring a few generally recognized offences against life and property, may be very far from ideal ; that it may indeed become the theatre of fearful oppression of the weak by the strong and of pitiless exploitation of the ignorant by the intelligent. Throughout the years 1830-48 there was widespread dis- cussion of the conditions of industry, the relations of capital and labor, and, indeed, of the laws governing, or which ought to govern, the entire social order. From this discussion emerged the first considerable body of principles which may be characterized as socialistic. The term " socialism, " coined in England in 1835, was intro- duced definitely into economic phraseology in a French book published in 184c. 1 The term is one which defies conclusive 1 L. Reybaud, " Etudes sur les Reformateurs ou Socialistes Modernes " (Paris, 1840). THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 341 definition, because it has always meant different things to different men; and few words in any language have ever been more grossly overworked and abused. For present purposes it is sufficient merely to observe that socialism is the antithesis of individualism and that it involves the close organization of men in a state which undertakes the more or less complete control of the production, the distribution, and the consumption of goods. 1 It is based upon the indubitable fact that the result of centuries of social evolution, accen- tuated tremendously by the rise of nineteenth century in- dustrialism, has been to cut off a vast body of men from the possession of land and of capital, and so to render them de- pendent absolutely for a living upon the wages they receive in the employ of other men. It is to this lack of first-hand access to the sources of wealth that the socialist ascribes a very large share of the economic ills of mankind, and it is with a view to the overcoming of this essentially unnatural situation that he advocates the abolition of private property and the vesting of the means of production in a state which, it is supposed, would be able to administer them with equity and in such a manner that no one need lack the means of a comfortable existence. The central doctrine of the socialist creed was voiced in France long before the days of Louis Philippe. The first 1 Two definitions that have been given, one by an English student of the subject, the other by an American, may be cited. "What is characteristic of socialism," says John Stuart Mill, "is the joint ownership by all the members of the community of the instruments and means of production, which carries with it the consequence that the division of all the produce among the body of owners must be a public act performed according to the rules laid down by the community." Fortnightly Review, April, 1870. "The results of the analysis of socialism," says Professor Ely, "may be brought together in a definition which would read somewhat as follows : Socialism is that contemplated system of industrial society which proposes the abolition of private property in the great material instruments of production, and the substitution therefor of collective property; and advocates the collective management of production, together with the distribution of social income by society, and private property in the Iargei proportion of this income." "Socialism and Social Reform," 19. 342 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE of French socialists, in reality, was Francois Noel Baboeuf (1760-97), an active participant in the Revolution who was executed in 1797 in consequence of a conspiracy to over- throw the Directory. It was Baboeuf who founded the first socialist newspaper ever published — the Tribune of the People. The essence of his doctrine is summed up in the declaration, first, that "the aim of society is the happiness of all, and happiness consists in equality," and, second, that "nature has given to every man an equal right to the enjoy- ment of all goods." The equality which Baboeuf advocated was to be actual and absolute, and to bring it about it was urged that the state should form a great common property by taking over the possessions of corporations and public institutions and by absorbing subsequently the property of private individuals by assuming ownership upon the death of present possessors. Within half a century the state would own everything, the individual nothing. Officers elected by the people would conduct all business of produc- tion and distribution, and the era of plenty for all and super- abundance for none would be at hand. So far was the prin- ciple of equality to be carried that all citizens of the new commonwealth were to be required to dress alike, with dis- tinctions only of sex and age, to eat the same varieties of food, and to receive precisely the same education ; and the children were to be separated from their parents and brought up under conditions which would make socialists of them and prevent the natural development of differences of taste and capacity. No more purely idealistic programme was ever enunciated, and it has but to be stated to render its impracticability apparent ; but it is interesting as the first and one of the most radical of French socialistic projects. The greatest name in the history of socialist speculation in the first half of the nineteenth century is that of Count Henri de Saint-Simon. As a youth Saint-Simon served under Washington in the American Revolution. Returning to THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 343 France, he abandoned a promising military career and de- voted himself to the study of politics and social questions. He became wretchedly poor and his health was not good, but through a quarter of a century he labored to evolve a social order which might so commend itself as to win adoption. The hypothesis upon which he built was that the greatest happiness of mankind was yet to be realized. "The imagina- tion of poets," he declared, " has placed the golden age at the cradle of the human race, amidst the ignorance and grossness of the earliest times. It had been better to relegate the iron age to that period. The golden age of humanity is not be- hind us ; it is to come, and will be found in the perfection of the social order. Our fathers have not seen it ; our children will one day behold it. It is our duty to prepare the way for them." The French Revolution, it was urged, had cleared the ground for a new organization of society, and in the vol- umes which came from Saint-Simon's pen — notably " The Catechism of Industry," "The New Christianity," and "The Industrial System" — there were expounded the principles which it was believed should underlie this new organization. These principles were socialistic, but much more moderate and sensible than were the levelling doctrines of Babceuf. The state, it was maintained, should assume control of the pro- duction and distribution of goods ; but there should be kept a strict account of every man's industry and skill, to the end that returns might be made in precise proportion. Equality of distribution was affirmed to be no less unjust than the inequalities at present prevailing, and the supreme object of Saint-Simon was to evolve a plan under which inducements to individual enterprise and thrift would be as compelling as under the competitive system, and yet men should be assured of the fruits of their effort as against other men who might be more shrewd or more powerful. By reason of his scholarliness, his moderation, and his loftiness of character, Saint-Simon deservedly takes high rank among modern reformers. He 344 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE was, however, a thinker rather than a man of affairs, and the first practical experiments with socialistic statecraft were made under the guidance of other men. The first of the experimenters was Charles Fourier, the son of a Besancon cloth-merchant. Fourier's socialism was not quite so thoroughgoing as was that of Babceuf or that of Saint-Simon, for in the ideal society which he conceived a limited field was left for private capital; but his theories were at many points hopelessly fantastic. In respect to the distribution of goods he proposed to fix a liberal minimum to be bestowed upon each citizen of the state, after which all products that remained should be divided among labor, capi- tal, and talent, the first receiving five-twelfths, the second four-twelfths, and the third three-twelfths. The man who worked at what was useful should be given more than he who worked at what was merely agreeable, and he who devoted his energies to labor that was necessary should receive more than either. The one attempt which was made within Fourier's lifetime to reduce his theories to practice, undertaken on a large estate near Versailles in 1832, failed completely. Of subsequent attempts in France all failed save one — a social community founded at Guise under the direction of a wealthy manufacturer, Jean Godin, which survives to-day. After 1840 Fourierism was brought to America, and since the date mentioned, there have been no fewer than thirty-four at- tempts, all unsuccessful, to build up communities founded upon it. The most notable of these was Brook Farm, whose leading spirits were George Ripley, Charles A. Dana, and Margaret Fuller, and with which Horace Greeley, George William Curtis, and Nathaniel Hawthorne had some connec- tion. A contemporary of Fourier, whose social experiments likewise possess special interest for Americans, was Etienne Cabet, author of a volume, " The Voyage to Icaria " (published in 1842), in which is sketched the organization of an ideal commonwealth, and founder of a communistic settlement at THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 345 Nauvoo, Illinois, subsequently removed to the vicinity of Corning, Iowa. Of men belonging to the second generation of French so- cialistic leaders two are of principal importance — Pierre Joseph Proudhon and Louis Blanc. Proudhon, born in 1809, is notable chiefly for his warfare upon the principle of private property. Starting with the assumption that "property is theft, because it enables him who has not produced to con- sume the fruits of other people's toil," Proudhon advocated the adoption of an economic system, whose essential was the possession rather than the ownership of property, and of a governmental system that is hardly to be distinguished from anarchy. Louis Blanc, born in 1813, was a man of far more practical temper. He was, indeed, the first of French social- ists who was able to recruit a party and to lead it to temporary triumph. Throughout the period of the Orleanist monarchy Blanc opposed as a writer the prevailing bourgeois govern- ment as a government by a class and for a class and urged the creation of a state which should be thoroughly demo- cratic in respect both to government and to industry. After the state should have been placed upon a broadly demo- cratic basis it should be recognized that every man has a natural right to labor for his own support, and that, if employment was not to be had at the hands of private individuals, it was the function of the state to supply it. To provide the necessary opportunities for labor, the state should set up national workshops (ateliers sociaux), to be controlled by the workers and to be operated for their benefit. By stages the national workshops should be sub- stituted for the privately owned industrial establishments, and industrial competition should be made to give way to coopera- tive production. Every man should be expected to produce according to his ability and to consume according to his need. Blanc's programme possessed the merits of moderation and 346 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE definiteness, and it was advocated forcefully and vividly. The consequence was that it made a wide appeal, and before the middle of the century there came to be in France a Socialist party of substantial coherence and strength. The revolu- tionary movement of 1848 — in no small measure inspired by the growth of socialist doctrine — afforded Blanc and his followers an opportunity to reduce some of their theories to practice. February 24, 1848, Louis Philippe was obliged to abdicate, whereupon there was set up a provisional govern- ment pending the definite establishment of a republic. One member of this provisional government was Blanc, and from the first the socialist element in it was very influential. The essential object of this element was the reconstruction of society in the interest of the wage-earning classes. The step which seemed for the moment most practicable was the en- forcement of Blanc's fundamental doctrine of the "right to labor," and with such vigor was this demand pushed that the provisional government was brought both to an official recognition of the principle and to the inauguration of meas- ures designed to give the principle effect. There was estab- lished in the Luxembourg Palace a public labor commission, presided over by Blanc and comprising representatives of various crafts, and on the recommendation of this commis- sion the government reduced the working day in Paris from eleven hours to ten, abolished "sweating," and set up a sys- tem of national workshops in which labor at a uniform wage of two francs a day was supposedly to be supplied to all ap- plicants. The number of applicants proved so vast, however, that the government was immediately at a loss to provide adequate labor. The number of working days in the week was reduced to two, and the total weekly wage was fixed at eight francs, but this did not greatly help matters. The government continued to be overwhelmed with applicants; large numbers of men were kept idle most or all of the time ; and, although the aggregate drain upon the Treasury was THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 347 enormous, the wage received by the individual workingman was pitifully meagre. The experiment failed signally, as indeed the majority of the provisional government had expected and intended. Many features of the arrangement were not at all such as Blanc had advocated, but the scheme was represented con- stantly as his, and it was the purpose of his opponents to bring discredit upon both him and it. In a considerable measure the purpose was achieved. In the convention elected April 23, 1848, to frame a new constitution for the country, the socialists possessed little strength, and a new provisional government set up by this body proceeded to abolish the work- shops. The socialistic populace of the capital rose in rebellion, and there ensued some days of the most fearful street fighting Paris had ever witnessed. But the government was trium- phant, and the ground which the socialists had gained was all but completely lost. Moved by the fear that should the socialists acquire the upper hand, they would abolish property in land, the great mass of rural proprietors throughout the country refused, as their descendants largely refuse still, to lend their support to the socialist propaganda, and socialism in France continued to be confined almost wholly to the in- dustrial and floating populations of the towns, principally Paris. The history of socialism in France during the first half of the nineteenth century is replete with thinkers, experimenters, movements, schools, and programmes. That of English so- cialism in the same period is the story largely of the career of one man, the manufacturer-philanthropist, Robert Owen. The earlier activities of Owen in the domain of social reform were confined to the improvement of conditions among his own employes in the Scotch manufacturing village of New Lanark. Within the first two decades of the century he succeeded in transforming a degenerate and wretched popu- lation into a model community of healthy, industrious, and 348 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE contented men and women. In 1817 Owen was invited by a committee of the Association for the Relief of the Manufac- turing and Laboring Poor to communicate his views respecting the causes and remedies of social misery. He embraced the opportunity, and it was at this time that the economic doc- trine for which Owen stands was first formally enunciated. The causes of poverty and social distress Owen held to be inseparable from industrial competition, and it was his belief that with the extension of the competitive system and the increase of the productivity of labor the condition of the working-classes must continually deteriorate. The remedy he found in cooperation. Like Fourier, he advocated the organization of men in groups which should own and use in common all the means of production necessary for the wel- fare of the members of the group. The advantages of such cooperative effort he urged in a multitude of pamphlets and tracts, and he appealed repeatedly to the monarchs of Europe to inaugurate in their dominions the cooperative system. In consequence of his agitation a number of cooperative colo- nies were established in Great Britain, and also some in the United States, notably the settlement at New Harmony, Indiana. These experiments were generally unsuccessful, but the influence of Owen's teaching was enduring, and it is from it that numerous cooperative enterprises in the English- speaking world to-day derive largely their inspiration. At the middle of the century Owen's conception of free competition as essentially a form of warfare, and his pro- posals to ameliorate conditions through cooperation, were taken over by a school of Christian socialists and given fresh vigor and application. The founders of English Christian socialism were Charles Kingsley, Frederick Maurice, and Thomas Hughes. These men revolted against the easy- going laissez-faire principles of their generation and main- tained that it was the business of the state to concern itself vigilantly with the protection of the weak. The economic THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 349 liberalism of Cobden and Bright Kingsley pronounced "the worst of all narrow, hypocritical, anarchic, and atheistic social philosophies." A newspaper, the Christian Socialist, was established in London, and a total of forty-one coopera- tive societies were founded in various parts of the kingdom. These societies failed, but organizations for the distribution of goods through cooperative stores in many instances suc- ceeded, and the influence of Christian socialist doctrine by no means disappeared with the collapse of the formal move- ment. In Germany socialistic thought made small headway until after the middle of the nineteenth century. In his " Closed Trading State " the philosopher Fichte (i 762-1814) advocated state regulation of the production and distribution of goods, but there is no evidence that the proposal was received with interest. In a series of books published between 1838 and 1846 Wilhelm Weitling (1808-71) expounded doctrines that were thoroughly socialistic and made direct appeal to the working-classes; and in 1842 Karl Johann Rodbertus — denominated by one German authority " the first, the most original, and the boldest representative of scientific socialism in Germany" — published his remarkable social- istic treatise "Our Economic Condition." But the real founders of German socialism were Karl Marx (1818-63) and Friedrich Engels (1820-95). These two men formed an intellectual partnership as early as 1842, and until Marx's death they carried on relentless socialistic agitation. In 1848 they issued from Brussels a communist manifesto which, translated into most of the tongues of the civilized world, remains to-day the classic exposition of modern evolutionary socialism. "In savagery," declared Marx, "each man produces separately for himself; in our recent civilization the many produce mainly for the few; in a more perfect state all will produce collectively for all." The changes upon which Marx and Engels most insisted included 350 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE the establishment of republican government, the payment of members of the national parliament, the conversion of "princely and other feudal holdings" into state property, the monopolization of transportation by the state, provision for universal and free education, and state guaranty to all working-people of employment and of care for the incapable. In 1850 Marx published his " Critique of Political Economy," and in 1867 the first volume of his monumental work " Das Kapital," 1 a book which has deservedly been termed the Bible of the German social democracy. During a consider- able portion of his later life Marx was occupied largely with the promotion of the interests of the International Working- men's Association (commonly referred to simply as "the International"), an organization formed originally at London in May, 1864, by British trade-unionists and a number of political refugees representing several of the continental countries. The International extended its activities through- out western Europe and during upwards of a decade it was regarded as a distinct power in politics and legislation. In the early seventies the organization collapsed, principally by reason of the irreconcilable differences which arose be- tween the Marxian evolutionary socialists and the school of individualist anarchists led by Michael Bakounin; but in the closer coordination of the socialism of the various countries its fundamental purpose was at least in part achieved. In Italy, France, Belgium, and portions of Switzerland the fiery doctrines of anarchism attracted for a time numerous adherents, but in Germany the mass of the radical-minded continued to support Marxian socialism. Powerful influence in this direction was wielded by a learned and eloquent disciple of Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-64), who, although active in the cause during but little more than the last two years of his life, is entitled 1 The second and third volumes, completing the work, were left unfinished at Marx's death. They were edited and published subsequently by Engels. THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 351 to be ranked among the really important popular leaders of the century. Under the inspiration of Lassalle there was organized at Leipsic, May 23, 1863, a Universal German Workingman's Association. Six years later there was founded at Eisenach, under the leadership of August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, a Social Democratic party. Be- tween the two organizations there was for a time keen rivalry, but at a congress held at Gotha, in May, 1875, they (together with other existing socialist societies in Germany) were merged in one body, which has continued to this day to be known as the Social Democratic party. The development of socialism in Germany between 1870 and 1880, in respect to both numbers and efficiency of organi- zation, was rapid. At the parliamentary election of 1871 the Social Democratic vote was 124,655 (3 per cent of the total), and two Social Democrats were chosen to the Reichstag. In 1874 the popular vote was 351,952, and nine members were elected; in 1877 it was 493,288, and the number of successful candidates was twelve. By the Emperor William I. and by his Chancellor, Bismarck, as indeed by the ruling classes generally, the progress of the movement was viewed with alarm. Most of the great projects of the Imperial govern- ment were resisted by the Social Democrats and the members of the party were understood to stand in opposition to the entire existing order. Two attempts in 1878 upon the life of the Emperor, made by men who were socialists, but dis- avowed by the socialists as a party, afforded the authorities the desired opportunity to enter upon a campaign of socialist extermination. The policy which Bismarck brought to bear was twofold : relentless repression of socialist agitation and legislation for the amelioration of those conditions by which the working classes were induced to lend socialism their support. At the elections which were held while the anti-socialist reaction was at its height the Social Democrats obtained but 437,158 352 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE votes, and the new parliament was influenced to enact, in October, 1878, a measure of remarkable severity, intended to stamp out every trace of socialist propaganda. All socialist societies were ordered to be disbanded; labor organizations were subjected to rigid police supervision; socialist meetings were prohibited; socialist newspapers were suppressed; the circulation of socialist literature was constituted a penal offence, and every sort of effort to propagate socialist doctrine was made punishable by fines and imprisonment. Martial law might be proclaimed where deemed expedient, and the decree of a police official practi- cally sufficed to expel from the Empire any person accused or suspected of being a socialist. This law, twice reenacted, continued in operation until 1890, and much of the time it was enforced with vigor. At the same time that effort was being made to annihilate organized socialism, the government busied itself with a programme of social reform, which, partaking strongly of the character of state socialism, was calculated to cut the ground from under the Social Demo- cratic forces. The most important steps taken in this direc- tion comprised the inauguration of the various schemes of social insurance — sickness insurance in 1883, accident insurance in 1884, and old-age and invalidity insurance in 1889 — described elsewhere in this volume. Closely related was the institution of state ownership of railways and of the state monopoly of tobacco. For a time the measures of the government appeared to be successful, and the official press loudly proclaimed that socialism in Germany was extinct. In reality, however, socialism thrived on persecution. In the hour of Bismarck's apparent triumph the socialist propaganda was being pushed covertly in every corner of the Empire. A party organ known as the Social Democrat was published in Switzerland, and every week thousands of copies found their way across the border and were passed from hand to hand among determined THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 353 readers and converts. A compact organization was main- tained, a treasury was established and kept well supplied, and with evident truth the Social Democrats declare to-day that in no small degree they owe their superb organization to the Bismarckian era of repression. In 1884 the Social Democratic vote rose to 549,990 (9.7 per cent of the to + al), and the party contingent in the Reichstag was increased to 24. In 1890 the popular vote attained the enormous total of 1,427,298 (19.7 per cent of the total), and the number of Social Democratic representatives was increased to 35. Repression was manifestly a failure, and in 1890 the Reichs- tag, with the sanction of the new emperor, William II., wisely declined to renew the persecuting statute. From their contest with Bismarck the socialists emerged with a popular and a parliamentary strength increased threefold. Since 1890 the growth of the German Social Democracy has been phenomenally rapid. In 1893 the adherents of the party cast a total of 1,876,738 votes and elected 44 repre- sentatives. In 1896 the popular vote was 2,007,076 and the number of members elected was 57. In 1903 the popular vote rose to 3,008,000 (24 per cent of the total, and larger than that of any other single party), and the quota in the Reichstag was increased to 81. In 1907 the popular vote was 3,258,968, but by reason of unusual cooperation on the part of political groups opposed to the Social Democrats the number of representatives elected fell to 43. At the elections of 19 1 2, however, the Social Democratic triumph was un- expectedly overwhelming. The popular vote was approxi- mately 4,400,000 (32 per cent of the total) and the number of Social Democratic representatives rose to no, in a total membership of 397. The socialist candidate in the "palace district" of Berlin was defeated by but seven votes; and when the Reichstag was convened, it was only by dexterous "log-rolling" on the part of the Clerical- Conservative bloc that the election of the socialist leader, August Bebel, to the 354 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE presidency of the chamber was averted. But for the fact that persistent refusal on the part of the government to permit a redistribution of parliamentary seats has operated to prevent the proportional representation of growing urban populations, the strength of the Social Democrats in the Reichstag would long have exceeded the figures that have been given. The supreme governing authority of the German Social Democratic party is a congress composed of six delegates from each electoral district of the Empire, the socialist members of the Reichstag, and the members of the executive committee of the party. This congress convenes annually, and it possesses power to regulate the organization of the party and to take action upon all proposals submitted to it by the party members. The programme of the party was worked over at the congress at Halle in 1890, and at the meet- ing at Erfurt in 1891 all traces of anarchistic influence were eliminated from it, and it was put in shape so effectively that in subsequent times it has required but little modification. The essential object of the party is stated in the Erfurt platform as follows: "Nothing but the conversion of capi- talistic private ownership of the means of production — the earth and its fruits, mines and quarries, raw material, tools and machines, means of exchange — into social owner- ship, and the substitution of socialist production, carried on by and for society in the place of the present production of commodities of exchange, can effect such a revolution that, instead of the large industries and the steadily growing capacities of common production being, as hitherto, a source of misery and oppression to the classes whom they have despoiled, they may become a source of the highest well- being and of perfect harmony. The German Social Demo- crats are not, therefore, fighting for new class privileges and rights, but for the abolition of class government and even of classes themselves, and for universal equality in rights THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 355 and duties, without distinction of sex or rank. Holding these views, they are fighting not merely against the exploi- tation and oppression of the wage-earners in the existing social order, but against every kind of exploitation and op- pression, whether directed against class, party, sex, or race." The more specific demands of the German Social Demo- crats comprise the following : — 1. Universal, equal, and direct suffrage by ballot in all elections for all subjects of the Empire over twenty years of age, without distinction of sex; proportional representa- tion; biennial elections to the Reichstag. 2. Direct legislation by the people through the use of the right of initiative and of veto ; self-government by the people in Empire, state, province, and commune; an annual vote of taxes. 3. Universal military education; substitution of a militia for a standing army ; decision of questions of peace and war by the Reichstag; decision of all international disputes by arbitration. 4. Abolition of all laws that restrict freedom of speech and the right of public assembly. 5. Abolition of all laws that put women, whether in a private or public capacity, at a disadvantage in comparison with men. 6. Declaration that religion is a private matter; aboli- tion of all expenditure of public funds for ecclesiastical pur- poses. 7. Secularization of education; compulsory attendance at public schools ; free education, free supply of educational apparatus, and free maintenance of children in schools and of such students in higher institutions as prove themselves fitted for higher education. 8. Free administration of the law by judges elected by the people; compensation to persons unjustly accused, impris- oned, or condemned; abolition of capital punishment. 356 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE 9. Income, property, and inheritance taxes to meet all public expenses that are to be met by taxation ; abolition of all indirect taxation, customs duties, and other measures which sacrifice the interests of the people at large to those of a small minority. 10. A national system of protection of labor on the basis of a working day of not more than eight hours, the prohibi- tion of the employment of children under fourteen years of age, and the prohibition of night work, except where abso- lutely necessary ; supervision of all industrial establishments and regulation of the conditions of labor by government departments and bureaus; confirmation of the rights of laboring men to form organizations. During the past half-century the progress of organized socialism in most of the important countries of Europe has been rapid. Almost universally the influence of the German Social Democracy has been powerful, and it is not necessary to describe here the various systems that have been brought into existence. The history of socialism in France since 1 87 1 has been especially stormy. During the seventies socialistic effort was directed chiefly toward the influencing of the trade-unions to declare for socialism. In 1879 the general trade-union congress at Marseilles took the desired step, but in the congress of the following year at Havre there arose a schism between the " collectivists " and the " co- opera tivists " which in reality has never been healed. During the eighties and nineties the process of disintegration con- tinued, and there came to be a half-dozen socialist parties, besides numerous local groups of independents. During the years 1 898-1 901 continued effort was made to bring the various socialist elements into some sort of union, and in 1900 a national congress of all French socialist parties and organizations was held at Paris. An incident of the Dreyfus controversy was the elevation of an independent socialist, Etienne Millerand, to a portfolio in the ministry THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 357 of Waldeck-Rousseau, and this event became the occasion of a new socialist breach. The Parti Socialist Francais, led by the eloquent Jaures, approved Millerand's oppor- tunism; the Parti Socialist de France opposed. In 1905, however, these two bodies were amalgamated in the Parti Socialist of the present day, with a programme which calls for the socializing of the means of production and exchange, i.e., the transforming of the capitalistic organization of society into a collectivist or communistic organization. The means by which the party proposes to bring about the transformation is the industrial and political organization of the working-classes. In respect to its aim, its ideals, and its means, the French Socialist party, while ready to support the immediate reforms demanded by laboring people, is to a greater degree than the German Social Democracy a party of class struggle and revolution. In 1885, when the French socialists waged their first campaign in a parliamentary election, the aggregate number of socialist votes was but 30,000. By 1889 the number had been increased to 120,000, by 1898 to 700,000; and by 1906 to 1,000,000. At the election of 1910 the popular vote was increased by 200,000, and the number of socialist deputies was raised from 54 to 77. The modern socialist movement in Great Britain dates from the organization of the Democratic Federation in 1881, or, perhaps more properly, from the reconstitution of that organization under the name of the Social Democratic Federation in 1883. The Federation has had an uneventful history. In 1900 it was associated with other bodies in the formation of the Labor Representation Committee, but, on the ground that it could not work with non-socialists, it early withdrew from that affiliation. Under the name of the Social Democratic party it has undertaken parliamentary candidatures at recent elections upon its own account, but without success. The Independent Labor party, founded in 1893 by Kier Hardie, adopted a broader programme 358 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE than that of the Federation, but it likewise failed to appeal effectively to the mass of Englishmen, and in late years it has worked with the non-socialist Labor party. Besides these two parties, the socialist movement is represented in Great Britain by the Fabian Society, organized in 1883 for the purpose of carrying on, especially among the middle and upper classes, an educational propaganda in behalf of so- cialistic doctrine. This society has published a multitude of well-written tracts upon the principal aspects of theo- retical socialism, and it has achieved considerable success in the domain of municipal reform. It is affiliated with the Labor party, but includes in its membership many Liberals. That the numerical strength of British socialism is still inconsiderable is evidenced by the fact that the total member- ship of the Social Democratic party in 191 1 was approxi- mately 18,000; that of the Independent Labor party, 60,000; and that of the Fabian Society, 2664. Late in 191 1 steps were taken to bring about an amalgamation of the several socialist groups in a British Socialist party. The outcome of the project, however, is as yet uncertain. By reason principally of the industrial backwardness of Austria-Hungary and the difficulty of carrying on propa- ganda among her heterogeneous nationalities, the develop- ment of socialism in the Dual Monarchy has been consider- ably slower than in Germany or France. The official ban against socialist agitation was lifted in 1869, but it was not before the Hainsfeld congress of 1888, which marked the final victory of social democracy over anarchism in the Austrian labor movement, that a coordinated socialist prop- aganda can be said to have been instituted. Upon the occasion mentioned, there was established a United Socialist party, but in time it was found expedient to break up this organization into six self-supporting parties corresponding to the principal racial groups, i.e., Germans, Bohemians, Poles, Russians, Italians, and Southern Slavs. Each of THE GROWTH OF SOCIALISM 359 these parties is independent in respect to organization and agitation, but all are agreed upon general principles and tactics, which are arranged in a common congress every two years. The most effective of the six parties is that of Bohemia. It includes 2500 branches and 120,000 members. At the elections of 1907 — the first since the establishment of manhood suffrage — the aggregate socialist vote in Austria was more than 1,000,000, and the number of deputies elected to the Reichsrat was 87. At the elections of 1911, 80 deputies were returned, including 44 Germans, 26 Czechs, 7 Poles, and 3 Italians. In Hungary no political organization of socialists is permitted, but practically every trade-unionist is a socialist at heart, and the number of such is not under 130,000. In Italy the socialist movement antedates the middle of the nineteenth century. When, however, the International collapsed, in consequence of the schism between the ad- herents of Marx and Bakounin, Italian socialists very generally went over to the side of anarchism, and although socialist political activity began as early as 1882, it was not until 1892 that there was organized a national socialist party similar to the socialist parties of neighboring countries. With the definite casting off of the incubus of anarchism, the socialist movement entered upon a substantial advance, and by 1903 there were 1200 local groups with 42,000 mem- bers, and these were represented by 32 deputies in the national parliament. Since 1903 growth has been rapid, especially among the agricultural portions of the population. The quota of socialist deputies is now 44. Socialism in Holland and Belgium had its origin in the International, but the first political organization of the movement in the former country was effected in 1878 and in the latter in 1885. The Dutch Social Democratic Union made slight headway until, in 1893, its anarchistic wing with- drew entirely from it. Thereafter it grew more rapidly, 360 SOCIAL PROGRESS IN CONTEMPORARY EUROPE although its membership to-day does not exceed 10,000. In Belgium the Socialist Labor party of 1885 cast, at the elections of 1906, a total of 469,094 votes. The more imme- diate object of contention has been the abolition of the exist- ing scheme of plural suffrage; and important results have been attained in cooperative enterprise, notably in connec- tion with the Vooruit established at Ghent in 1880 and the Maison du Peuple founded in Brussels in 1884. The present socialist organization of Denmark, the Social Democratic Union, dates from 1878. In 1906 the socialists cast 77,000 votes and elected 24 members of the upper, and 4 of the lower, legislative chamber. At the elections of 1909 the party polled one-third of the votes cast and increased its previous aggregate by 18,000, although the system of seat distribution precluded them from adding to their parlia- mentary contingent. The Socialist party of Sweden, organized in 1887, polled in 1905 30,000 votes, electing 15 representatives. At the elections of 191 1 it increased its parliamentary strength from 37 to 56. The Norwegian Socialist party, dating also from 1887, polled in 1906 about 45,000 votes and elected 10 deputies. In Switzerland social- ism, connected originally with the International, is organized to-day on Marxian lines. Identified with the party are most of the trade-unions and other labor organizations. Its voting strength in 1906 was 70,000, and seven socialists at present have seats on the National Council. BIBLIOGRAPHY The literature of the subjects touched upon in this book is, in most in- stances, voluminous. The titles which appear in the following list have been selected principally from the more authoritative of recent publications. The general history of Europe since 1789 is covered in detail in two important cooperative works: Ward, A. W., Prothero, G. W., and Leathes, S. (eds.), The Cambridge Modern History, Vols. VIII-XII (New York, 1907-1910). Lavisse, E., et Rambaud, A., Histoire Generate du IV e Siecle a, nos Jours., Vols. VIII-XII (Paris, 1893-1901). Useful briefer treatises are: Hazen, C. H., Europe since 181 5 (New York, 19 10). Robinson, J. H., and Beard, C. A., The Development of Modern Europe, 2 vols. (Boston, 1908). Seignobos, C, A Political History of Europe since 1814. Trans. ed. by S. M. Macvane (New York, 1907). Phillips, W. A., Modern Europe, 1815-1899 (5th ed., London, 1908). Fyffe, C. A., A History of Modern Europe, 3 vols. (London, 1880). Jeffery, R. W., The New Europe, 1 789-1 889 (Boston, 191 1). Andrews, C. M., The Historical Development of Modern Europe, 2 vols. (New York, 1 896-1 898). Andrews, C. M., Contemporary Europe, Asia, and Africa, 1871- 1901 (Philadelphia, 1902). History of All Nations, Vol. XX. Books of a popular character in which are sketched the salient aspects of nineteenth-century development include: Gibbins, H. de B., Economic and Industrial Progress of the Century (London, 1901). Cochrane, C. H., Modern Industrial Progress (Philadelphia, 1904). Mulhall, M. G., The Progress of the World since the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1880). Wallace, A. R., The Wonderful Century: its Successes and its Failures (New York, 1898). 361 362 BIBLIOGRAPHY Wallace, A. R., et al., The Progress of the Century (New York, iqoi). Smart, W., The Economic Annals of the Nineteenth Century (London, 1909). General treatises on social progress include: Loch, C. S., Methods of Social Advance (New York, 1904). Watson, D., Social Advance, its Meaning, Method, and Goal (London, 191 1). Mackay, T., Methods of Social Reform (London, 1896). Rostand, E., L'action sociale par l'initiative privee, 2 vols. (Paris, 1892). Nearing, S., Social Adjustment (New York, 191 1). Willoughby, W. W., Social Justice. A Critical Essay (New York, 1900). Ward, L. F., Applied Sociology (Boston, 1906). Graham, W., The Social Problem in its Economical, Moral, and Political Aspects (London, 1886). Hobson, J. A., The Social Problem (New York, 1902). Harley, J. H., The New Social Democracy (London, 1911). Jones, H., The Working Faith of the Social Reformer, and Other Essays (London, 1910). Jenks, J. W., Governmental Action for Social Welfare (New York, 1 9 10). Ely, R. T., Studies in the Evolution of Industrial Society (New York, 1903). Hobhouse, L. T, Liberalism (London and New York, 191 1). Bliss, W. D. P., The New Encyclopaedia of Social Reform (New York, 1908). Chapter II. The Eighteenth-century Background Cheyney, E. P., The European Background of American History (New York, 1904). Hassall, A., The Balance of Power, 1715-1789 (London, 1907). Perkins, J. B., France under Louis XV., 2 vols. (Boston, 1897). Levasseur, E\, Histoire des classes ouvrieres et de l'industrie en France avant 1789, 2 vols. (2d ed., Paris, 1900-1901). Lecky, W. E. H., History of England in the Eighteenth Century, 8 vols. (London, 1878-1890). Sydney, W. C, England and the English in the Eighteenth Cen- tury, 2 vols. (London, 189 1). Traill, H. D., and Mann, J. S., Social England; a Record of the Progress of the People in Religion, Laws, Learning, Arts, Industry, etc., from the earliest times to the present day, 6 vols, (new ed., London, 1901-1904). BIBLIOGRAPHY 363 Young, A., A Six Weeks' Tour through the Southern Counties of England and Wales (London, 1768). Young, A., A Six Months' Tour through the North of England, 4 vols. (2d ed., London, 1770). Young, A., The Farmer's Tour through the East of England, 4 vols. (London, 1771). Chapter III. The Old Regime in France Tocqueville, A. de, The State of Society in France before the Revolution of 1789 and the Causes which led to that Event. Trans, by H. Reeve (new ed., Oxford, 1904). Taine, H. A., Les origines de la France contemporaine : L'ancien regime (Paris, 1876). Trans, by J. Durand as The Ancient Regime (New York, 1876). Lowell, E. J., The Eve of the French Revolution (Boston, 1892). Dabney, C. W, The Causes of the French Revolution (2d ed., Boston, 1906). Young, A., Travels during the Years 1787, 1788, and 1789, under- taken more particularly with a view of ascertaining the Cul- tivation, Wealth, Resources, and National Prosperity of the Kingdom of France, 2 vols. (London, 1794). Babeau, A., La vie rurale dans l'ancienne France (Paris, 1883). Kovalevsky, M., La France economique et sociale a la veille de la Revolution (Paris, 191 1). MacLehose, S. H., The Last Days of the French Monarchy (Glasgow, 1901). Morley, J., Rousseau, 2 vols. (London, 1873). Morley, J., Voltaire (2d ed., London, 1872). Morley, J., Diderot and the Encyclopaedists, 2 vols. (London, 1878). Sorel, A., Montesquieu (Paris, 1887). Chapter IV. The Revolution in France Rose, J. H., The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era, 1789-1815 (2d ed., Cambridge, 1895). Mathews, S., The French Revolution (New York, 1901). Gardiner, B. M., The French Revolution (London, 1890). Morris, W. O., The French Revolution and First Empire (New York, 1905). Belloc, H., The French Revolution (London and New York, 1911). Stephens, H. M., History of the French Revolution, 2 vols. (new ed., New York, 1902). Stephens, H. M., Revolutionary Europe, 1 789-181 5 (London, 1893). 364 BIBLIOGRAPHY Bax, E. B., The Story of the French Revolution (London, 1890). Aulard, A., The French Revolution. A Political History, 1789- 1804. Trans, by B. Miall, 4 vols. (New York, 19 10). Sybel, H. von, History of the French Revolution. Trans, by W. C. Perry (London, 1867). Sorel, A., L'Europe et la Revolution francaise, 1 789-181 5, 8 vols. (Paris, 1885-1904). Dickinson, G. L., Revolution and Reaction in Modern France (London, 1892). Sloane, W. M., The French Revolution and Religious Reform (New York, 1901). Picard, R., Les Cahiers de 1789 et les Classes Ouvrieres (Paris, 1910). Chapter V. Napoleon and the New Regime Fournier, A., Napoleon the First, A Biography. Trans, by A. E. Adams, 2 vols. (London and New York, 191 1). Rose, J. H., The Life of Napoleon L, 2 vols. (London, 1902). Sloane, W. M., Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, 4 vols. (New York, 1896). Taine, H. A., Les origines de la France contemporaine. Le regime moderne, 2 vols. (Paris, 1 891-1894). Trans, by J. Durand as The Modern Regime (New York, 1 890-1 894). Fisher, H. A. L., Studies in Napoleonic Statesmanship, Germany. (Oxford, 1903). Seeley, J. R., Life and Times of Stein, or Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age, 3 vols. (Cambridge, 1878). Johnston, R. M., The Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy, 2 vols. (London, 1904). Delplace, L., La Belgique sous la domination francaise (Louvain, 1906). Chapter VI. The Transformation of English Agriculture Curtler, W. H. R., A Short History of English Agriculture (Oxford, 1909). Hasback, W., A History of the English Agricultural Laborer. Trans, by R. Kenyon (new ed., London, 1908). Prothero, R. E., The Pioneers and Progress of English Farming (London, 1888). Rogers, J. E. T., A History of Agriculture and Prices in England, 8 vols. (Oxford, 1866-1902). Stubbs, C. W., The Land and the Laborers (London, 1880). Slater, G., The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields (London, 1906). BIBLIOGRAPHY 365 Wallace, A. R., Land Nationalization (London, 1883). Haggard, H. R., Rural, England, 2 vols. (2d ed., London, 1906). Turnor, C, Land Problems and National Welfare (London, ion). Brodrick, G. C, English Land and English Landlords (London, 1881). Johnson, A. H., The Disappearance of the Small Landowner (Oxford, 1909). Cadbury, G., and Bryan, T., The Land and the Landless (Lon- don, 1908). Levy, H., Large and Small Holdings (Cambridge, 191 1). Fay, C. R., Small Holdings and Agricultural Cooperation in Eng- land. Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 19 10. Pratt, E. A., Small Holders: or what they must do to succeed (London, 1909). Green, J. L., Allotments and Small Holdings (London, 1896). Heath, F. G., British Rural Life and Labour (London, 191 1). Jebb, L., The Small Holdings of England (London, 1907). Spencer, A. J., The Small Holdings and Allotments Act, 1908 (London, 1909). Savary, H. R., Les lois agraires anglaises de 1892 et de 1907. Annales des Sciences Politiques, May, 1909. Chapter VII. The Industrial Revolution in England Wood, H. T., Industrial England in the Middle of the Eighteenth Century (London, 1910). Cooke-Taylor, R. W., Introduction to the History of the Factory System (London, 1886). Cooke-Taylor, R. W, The Modern Factory System (London, 1891). Toynbee, A., Lectures on the Industrial Revolution of the Eigh- teenth Century in England (new ed., London, 1908). Beard, C. A., The Industrial Revolution (London, 1902). Cheyney, E. P., Industrial and Social History of England (New York, 1901). Innes, A. D., An Industrial History of England (London, 191 1). Macgregor, D. H, The Evolution of Industry (London and New York, 1911). Warner, G. T., Landmarks in English Industrial History (Lon- don, 1899). Baines, E., History of the Cotton Manufacture in Great Britain (London, 1835). Thurston, R. H., A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine (New York, 1878). Bowley, A. L., Statistical Studies relating to National Progress in Wealth and Trade since 1882 (London, 1904). 366 BIBLIOGRAPHY Chapter VIII. Economic Changes on the Continent Dawson, W. H., The Evolution of Modern Germany (London, 1908). Wagner, A., Agrar- und Industriestaat (Leipzig, 1902). Shadwell, A., Industrial Efficiency. A Comparative Study of Industrial Life in England, Germany, and America, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1906). Chaptal de Chanteloup, J. A. C, De l'industrie francaise, 2 vols. (Paris, 18 19). Weill, G., Histoire du mouvement social en France, 1852-1910 (2d ed., Paris, 191 1). France, Ministry of Agriculture, La petite propriete rurale en France (Paris, 1909). McPherson, L. G., Transportation in Europe (New York, 1910). Kovalevsky, M., Le regime economique de la Russie (Paris, 1898). Lewinski, J. S., L'evolution industrielle de la Belgique (Paris, 1910). Rowntree, B. S., Land and Labor. Lessons from Belgium (London, 19 10). Izart, J., La Belgique au travail (Paris, 1910). Haggard, R. H., Rural Denmark and its Lessons (London, 1911). Roux, P., La question agraire en Italie (Paris, 1910). King, B., and Okey, T., Italy To-day (2d ed., London, 1904). Garlando, F., The New Italy. Trans, by M. E. Wood (New York, 191 1). Marvaud, A., La question sociale en Espagne (Paris, 1910). Clement, H., La depopulation en France (Paris, 1910). Bertillon, J., La depopulation de la France (Paris, 191 1). Ashley, P., Modern Tariff History, Germany, United States, France (2d ed., London, 1910). Dawson, W. H, Protection in Germany, A History of German Fiscal Policy during the Nineteenth Century (London, 1904). Meredith, H. 0., Protection in France (London, 1904). Armitage-Smith, G., The Free Trade Movement and its Results (London, 1898). Cunningham, W., The Rise and Decline of the Free Trade Movement (2d ed., London, 1905). Smart, W., The Return to Protection (London, 1904). Morley, J., Life of Richard Cobden, 2 vols. (rev. ed., London, 1908). Parker, C. S., Sir Robert Peel, 3 vols. (London, 1891-1899). BIBLIOGRAPHY 367 Chapter IX. Political Reform in England to 1832 Oman, C. W. C, England in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1899). Hunt, W., The Political History of England, 1 760-1801 (Lon- don, 1905). Brodrick, G. C, and Fotheringham, J. K., The Political His- tory of England, 1801-1837 (London, 1906). Molesworth, W. N., History of England from the Year 1830, 3 vols. (London, 1871-1873). Walpole, S., History of England since 181 5, 6 vols. (London, 1878-1890). McCarthy, J., The Epoch of Reform, 1830-1850 (New York, 1882). Rose, J. H., The Rise and Growth of Democracy in Great Britain (New York, 1898). Lowell, A. L., The Government of England, 2 vols. (New York. 1909). Todd, A., Parliamentary Government in England, 2 vols. (2d ed., 1887-1889). May, T. E., and Holland, F., Constitutional History of Eng- land since the Accession of George III., 3 vols. (London, 1912). Porritt, E. and A. G., The Unreformed House of Commons, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1903). Kent, C. B. R., The English Radicals, an Historical Sketch (Lon- don, 1899). Walpole, S., The Life of Lord John Russell, 2 vols. (London, 1889). Ilbert, C., Parliament, Its History, Constitution, and Practice (London and New York, 191 1). Chapter X. The Growth of English Democracy Low, S., and Sanders, L. C, The Political History of England, 1837-1901 (London, 1907). McCarthy, J., A History of Our Own Times, 7 vols. (London, 1879-1905). Morley, J., Life of Gladstone, 3 vols. (London, 1903). Hare, T., The Election of Representatives, Parliamentary and Municipal (3d ed., London, 1865). Walpole, S., The Electorate and the Legislature (London, 1892). Gammage, R. G., History of the Chartist Movement, 1837-1854 (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1894). Dickinson, G. L., The Development of Parliament during the Nineteenth Century (London, 1895). 368 BIBLIOGRAPHY Lowell, A. L., The Government of England, 2 vols. (New York, 1909). Courtney, L., The Working Constitution of the United King- dom (New York, 1901). Macy, J., The English Constitution (New York, 1897). Moran, T. F., The Theory and Practice of the English Govern- ment (New York, 1908). Hobson, J. A., New Issues of Democracy (London, 191 1). Schirmacher, K., The Modern Woman's Rights Movement (New York, 191 2). Rees, J. D., Current Political Problems (London, 191 2). Chapter XL Popular Government in Germany and Northern Europe Lowell, A. L., Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, 2 vols. (Boston, 1896). Howard, B. E., The German Empire (New York, 1906). Richard, E., History of German Civilization (New York, 191 1). Henderson, E. F., A Short History of Germany (New York, 1906). Bain, R. N., Scandinavia, a Political History of Denmark, Nor- way, and Sweden, from 15 13 to 1900 (Cambridge, 1905). Boulger, D. C, History of Belgium, 2 vols. (London, 1909). Smythe, C, The Story of Belgium (London, 1900). Chapter XII. Popular Government in the Romance Countries Bodley, J. E. C, France, 2 vols. (New York, 1! Coubertin, P. de, France since 18 14 (London, 1900). Coubertin, P. de, The Evolution of France under the Third Re- public. Trans, by I. F. Hapgood (New York, 1897). Lowell, A. L., Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, 2 vols. (Boston, 1896). Lebon, A., Modern France, 1789-1895 (New York, 1898). Bracq, J. C, France under the Republic (New York, 1900). George, W. L., France in the Twentieth Century (London, 1908). Fisher, H. A. L., The Republican Tradition in Europe (New York, 191 1). Zevort, E., La France sous le regime du suffrage universal (Paris, 1894)- King, B., A History of Italian Unity, being a Political History of Italy from 1814 to 1871, 2 vols. (London, 1899). Thayer, W. R., The Dawn of Italian Independence, 2 vols. (Boston, 1892). Stillman, W. J., The Union of Italy (Cambridge, 1899). King, B., and Okey, T., Italy To-day (2d ed., London, 1904). BIBLIOGRAPHY 369 Orsi, P., Modern Italy, 1 748-1898. Trans, by M. A. Vialls (New York, 1899). Joly, H., L'ltalie contemporaine (Paris, 191 1). Hume, M. A. S., Modern Spain, 1788-1898 (New York, 1899). Clarke, B., Modern Spain, 181 5-1898 (Cambridge, 1906). Guytot, Y., L'evolution politique et sociale de l'Espagne (Paris, 1899). Latimer, E. W., Spain in the Nineteenth Century (Chicago, 1898). Stephens, H. M., Portugal (New York, 1891). Koebel, W. H., Portugal, its Land and People (London, 1909). Chapter XIII. Popular Government in Eastern Europe Drage, G., Austria-Hungary (London, 1909). Rumbold, H., Francis Joseph and his Times (New York, 1909). Colquhoun, A. R., The Whirlpool of Europe (New York, 1907). Andrassy, J., The Development of Hungarian Constitutional Liberty (London, 1908). Knatchbull-Hugessen, E., The Political Evolution of the Hun- garian Nation (London, 1908). Alden, P. (ed.), Hungary of To-day (London, 1910). Majlath, J., La Hongrie rurale, sociale, et politique (Paris, 1909). Drage, G, Russian Affairs (London, 1904). Wallace, D. M., Russia (rev. ed., New York, 1905). Skrine, F. H, The Expansion of Russia, 1815-1900 (Cambridge, 1904). Bruggen, E. von der, Russia of To-day. Trans, by E. Sandwith (London, 1904). Pares, B., Russia and Reform (London, 1907). Baring, M., The Russian People (London, 191 2). Kovalevsky, M., Russian Political Institutions (Chicago, 1902). Harper, S. N, The New Electoral Law for the Russian Duma (Chicago, 1908). Stepniak (pseud.), The Russian Peasantry (new ed., London, i9°5)- Sergeant, L., Greece in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1897). Bickford-Smith, R. A. H., Greece under King George (London, 1893)- Lane-Poole, S., Turkey (New York, 1888). Eliot, C, Turkey in Europe (London, 1908). Abbott, G. F., Turkey in Transition (London, 1909). Berard, V., La revolution Turque, 1876-1908 (Paris, 1908). 37° BIBLIOGRAPHY Chapter XIV. The Rule of the People in Switzerland Vincent, J. M., Government in Switzerland (New York, 1900). Lloyd, H. D., A Sovereign People ; a Study of Swiss Democracy (New York, 1907). Adams, F. O., and Cunningham, C. D., The Swiss Confederation (London, 1889). Winchester, B., The Swiss Republic (Philadelphia, 1891). Lowell, A. L., Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, 2 vols. (Boston, 1896). Baker, F. G., The Model Republic. A History of the Rise and Progress of the Swiss People (London, 1895). Dawson, W. H., Social Switzerland (London, 1897). Crawford, V. M., Switzerland of Today: A Study in Social Progress (London, 191 1). Deploige, S., The Referendum in Switzerland. Trans, by C. P. Trevelyan (London, 1898). Chapter XV. Public Protection of Labor Jevons, W. S.j The State in Relation to Labor (4th ed., London, 1910). Cooke-Taylor, R. W., The Factory System and the Factory Acts (London, 1894). Hutchins, B. L., and Harrison, A., History of Factory Legisla- tion (2d ed., London, 1910). Plener, E. von, English Factory Legislation. Trans, by F. L. Weinmann (London, 1873). Howell, G., Labour Legislation, Labour Movements, and Labour Leaders, 2 vols. (2d ed., London, 1905). Macswinney, R. F., and Bristowe, H. W, Coal Mines Regu- lation Act of 1887 (London, 1888). Alden, M., Child Life and Labor (2d ed., London, 1909). Podmore, F., Robert Owen, 2 vols. (London, 1906). Jones, L., The Life, Times, and Labours of Robert Owen (Lon- don, 1890). Hodder, E., The Life of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury (London, 1886). Gibbins, H. de B., English Social Reformers (2d ed., London, 1902). Clark, V. S., Woman and Child Wage-earners in Great Britain. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 80 (Washington, 1909). Veditz, C. W. A., Child Labor Legislation in Europe. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 89 , (Washington, 1910). Louis, J., L'Ouvrier devant l'Etat. Histoire comparee des lois du travail (Paris, 1904). * / BIBLIOGRAPHY 371 Masse, D., Legislation" du travail et lois ouvrieres (Paris, 1904). Fournier, P. L., Le second empire et la legislation ouvriere (Paris, ion). Cohendy, E., et Grigaut, M., Legislation ouvriere (Paris, 1910). Chatelain, L., La protection internationale ouvriere (Paris, 1908). Gonnard, R., La femme dans l'industrie (Paris, 1906). Chapter XVI. The Care of the Poor Leonard, E. M., The Early History of Poor Relief (Cambridge, 1900). Nicholls, G., A History of the English Poor Law in Connection with the State of the Country and the Condition of the People, 2 vols, (new ed., New York, 1898). Mackay, T., A History of the English Poor Law from 1834 to the Present Time (New York, 1900). Aschrott, P. F., and Thomas, H. P., The English Poor Law System, Past and Present (2d ed., London, 1902). Engels, F., The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844. Trans, by F. K. Wischnewetzky (London, 1892). Booth, C, Life and Labor of the People in London (London, 1889-1902). Booth, C, Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age (London, 1892). Fowle, T. W., The Poor Law (London, 1906). Webb, S. and B. (eds.)., The Break-up of the Poor Law: being Part One of the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commis- sion (London, 1909). Webb, S. and B., English Poor Law Policy (London, 1910). Webb, S. and B., The Prevention of Destitution (London and New York, 191 1). Bosanquet, H., The Poor Law Report of 1909 (London, 191 1). Woods, R. A., English Social Movements (London, 1892). Mackay, T, Methods of Social Reform (London, 1896). Twining, L., Workhouses and Pauperism (London, 1898). Bosanquet, B., et al., Some Aspects of the Social Problem (Lon- don, 1894). Mills, H. V., Poverty and the State, or Work for the Unem- ployed (London, 1886). Drage, G., The Problem of the Aged Poor (London, 1895). Dawson, W. H., The Vagrancy Problem (London, 1910). Hobson, J. A., The Problem of Poverty (4th ed., London, 1899). Chance, W., Children under the Poor Law (London, 1897). Mackay, T., Public Relief of the Poor (London, 1901). Chance, W., Our Treatment of the Poor (London, 1899). Loane, M., The Queen's Poor (London, 1900). 372 BIBLIOGRAPHY Loch, C. S., Charity Organization (London, 1905). Sellers, E., The Danish Poor Relief System (London, 1904). Jaeger, E., Grundriss der Wohnungsfrage und Wohnungspolitik (Berlin, 191 1). Dewsnup, E. R., The Housing Problem in England (Manchester, 1907). Nettleford, J. S., Practical Housing (Letchworth, 1908). Howard, E., Garden Cities of Tomorrow (London, 1902). Sennett, A. R., Garden Cities in Theory and Practice, 2 vols. (London, 1905). Dumont, A., Les habitations ouvrieres dans les grands centres industriels (Lille, 1905). Chapter XVII. Germany and the Common Man Headlam, J. W., Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire (New York, 1909). Dawson, W. H., Germany and the Germans, 2 vols. (London, 1894). Dawson, W. H., The Evolution of Modern Germany (London, 1908). Barker, J. E., Modern Germany. Her Political and Economic Problems, her Ambitions, and the Causes of her Success (2d ed., New York, 1907). Veritas (pseud.), The German Empire of To-day (London, 1902). Dawson, W. H., The German Workman. A Study in National Efficiency (London, 1906). Ashley, W. T., The Progress of the German Working Classes in the last Quarter of a Century (London, 1904). Brooks, J. G., Compulsory Insurance in Germany. Special Report of the Commissioner of Labor, No. 4 (Washington, 1895). Rubinow, I. M., Compulsory State Insurance of Workingmen. Annals of American Academy of Political and Social Science, xxiv, No. 2 (Philadelphia, 1904). Friedensburg, F., The Practical Results of Workingmen's In- surance in Germany. Trans, by L. H. Gray (New York, 1911). Harris, H. J., The German Workingmen's Insurance Code of July 19, 191 1. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 96 (Wash- ington, 191 1). Klein, G. A., Die Leistungen der Arbeiterversicherung des Deutschen Reiches (Berlin, 1900). Zacher, G., Guide to Workmen's Insurance of the German Em- pire (Berlin, 1900). Funne, E., Die Reichsvers'cherung (Berlin, 1911). Lass, L., Arbeiterversicherungsrecht (Berlin, 1904). Stier-Somlo, F., Recht der Arbeiterversicherung (Bonn, 1896). BIBLIOGRAPHY 373 Bodiker, T., Die Reichs-Versicherungs-Gesetzgebung (Leipzig, 1898). Bornhak, C, Die deutsche Sozialgesetzgebung (Tubingen, 1900). Hahn, J., Die Krankenversicherungsgesetz (Berlin, 1905). Lohmar, P., Die Deutsche Arbeiterversicherung (Berlin, 1907). Laband, P., Le droit public de l'empire allemand, Vol. IV. Trans, by M. Boucard (Paris, 1903). Farnum, H. W., The Psychology of German Workingmen's In- surance (Yale Review, May, 1904). Pinkus, N., Workmen's Insurance in Germany (Yale Review, 1 904-1 905). Howard, E. D., The Condition of the German Workingman (Journal of Political Economy, Feb., 1906). Heath, J. St. G., German Labor Exchanges (Economic Journal, September, 19 10). Roberts, E., Experiments in Germany with Unemployment In- surance (Scribner's Magazine, January, 1910). Jenison, M. C., The State Insurance of Germany (Harper's Monthly, October, 1909). Chapter XVIII. The Spread of Social Insurance Willoughby, W. F., Workingmen's Insurance (New York, 1898). Lewis, F. W, State Insurance. A Social and Industrial Need (Boston, 1909). Seager, H. R., Social Insurance. A Program of Social Reform (New York, 1910). Frankel, L. K., and Dawson, M. M., Workingmen's Insurance in Europe (New York, 19 10). Henderson, C. R., Industrial Insurance in the United States (Chicago, 1909). George, W. L., Engines of Social Progress (London, 1908). Campbell, G. L., Industrial Accidents and their Compensation (Boston, 191 1). Alden, P., Democratic England (New York, 191 2). Wilkinson, J. F., Social Questions of the Day (London, 1891). Taylor, F. I., A Bibliography of Unemployment and the Unemployed (London, 1909). Alden, P., The Unemployed (London, 1905). Beveridge, W. H, Unemployment. A Problem in Industry (2d ed., London, 1910). Hobson, J. A., The Problem of the Unemployed (London, 1896). Dawson, W. H., The Vagrancy Problem (London, 1910). Rowntree, B. S., and Lesker, B., Unemployment: a Social Study (London, 191 1). Bliss, W. D. P., The Unemployed in European Countries. Bulle- tin of Bureau of Labor, No. 76 (Washington, 1908). 374 BIBLIOGRAPHY Toynbee, H. V., The Problem of the Unemployed (Economic Review, July, 1905). Schloss, D. F., Insurance against Unemployment (London, 1909). Beauchamp, W., Insurance against Unemployment (Westminster Review, March, 191 1). Gibbon, I. G., Unemployment Insurance (London, 191 1). Webb, S. and B. (eds.), The Public Organization of the Labour Market: being Part Two of the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission (London, 1909). Wilkinson, J. F., The Friendly Society Movement (London, 1886). Wilkinson, J. F., Mutual Thrift (London, 1891). Booth, Charles, Pauperism and the Endowment of Old Age (London, 1892). Booth, Charles, Old Age Pensions and the Aged Poor (London, 1899). Spender, J. A., The State and Pensions for Old Age (London, 1892). Sutherland, W., Old Age Pensions in Theory and Practice, with / some Foreign Examples (London, 1907). v/ Stead, H. F., How Old Age Pensions began to be (London, 1909). Bouffard, F., Les retraites ouvrieres en Angleterre (Paris, 1910). Bardoux, J., Les retraites ouvrieres en Angleterre (Paris, 191 1). Ashley, W. J., The Present Position of Social Legislation in England (Economic Review, October, 1908). Porritt, E., The British National Insurance Act (Political Science Quarterly, June, 191 2). Clark, O., The National Insurance Act of 1911 (London, 1912). United States, Foreign Workmen's Compensation Acts. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 74 (Washington, 1908). Dawson, M. M., The Cost of Employer's Liability and Work- men's Compensation Insurance. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 90 (Washington, 1910). Ruegg, A. H., Employers' Liability and Workmen's Compensa- tion (7th ed., London, 1907). Webb, S. and^B., The State and the Doctor (London, 1910). Levasseur, E., Histoire des classes ouvrieres en France depuis 1789, jusqu'a nos jours, 2 vols. (2d ed., Paris, 1903-1904). Weill, G., Histoire du Mouvement social en France, 185 2-1 902 (Paris, 1904). Fouillee, A., La democratic politique et sociale in France (Paris, 1910). Deschanel, P., L'ceuvre sociale de la troisieme republique (Revue Politique et Parlementaire, March, 19 10). Mabilleau, L., La mutualit6 francaise (Bordeaux, 1906). Campagnole, E., L'assistance obligatoire aux vieillards, aux infirmes et aux incurables (2d ed., Paris, 1908). BIBLIOGRAPHY 375 Henri, R., L'assistance aux vieillards, infirmes et incurables et la loi du i er juillet 1906 (Annales des Sciences Politiques, May, 1906). Levasseur, E., Questions ouvrieres et industrielles en France depuis 1870 (Annales des Sciences Politiques, March, 1907). Lefort, J., Les caisses de retraites ouvriere (Paris, 1906). Arboux, J., La mutualite francaise (Paris, 1907). Courcelle, L., Les retraites ouvrieres et paysannes (Paris, 191 1). Clerc, P., Les societes de secours mutuels et d'organisation des retraites pour la vieillesse en France et en Belgique (Paris, 1910). Lefort, J., L' Assurance contre les greves (Paris, 191 1). Bellom, M, The Present State of Working Class Pensions in France (Economic Journal, December, 1909). Foerster, R. F., The French Old Age Insurance Law of 1910 (Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 19 10). Trier, S., Insurance against Unemployment in Norway and Sweden (Economic Journal, March, 1907). Dubois, J., and Wodon, L., Le developpement des assurance sociales en Belgique pendant les quinze dernieres annees (Brussels, 1905). Soenens, A., La mutualite en Belgique (Brussels, 1901). Torr, H. J., The Belgian Labor Colonies (Economic Review, December, 1903). Jenny, O. H., The Problem of Sick and Accident Insurance in , Switzerland (Yale Review, November, 19 10). ^/Baldwin, F. S., Old Age Pension Schemes (Quarterly Journal of Economics, August, 1910). Zacher, G. (ed.), Die Arbeiterversicherung im Auslande, 13 vols. (Berlin, 1898-1904). Chapter XIX. The Organization of Labor Ghent, W. J., Our Benevolent Feudalism (New York, 1902). McNeill, G. E. (ed.), The Labor Movement: the Problem of To-day (new ed., New York, 1890). Drage, G., The Labor Problem (London, 1896). Gompers, S., Labor in Europe and America (New York, 19 10). Le Bon, G., La democratic et le travail (Paris, 1910). Howell, G., Trade Unionism, New and Old (3d ed., London, 1900). Howell, G., Labour Legislation, Labour Movements, and Labour Leaders, 2 vols. (2d ed., London, 1905). Webb, S. and B., The History of Trade Unionism (new ed., Lon- don and New York, 191 1). Webb, S. and B., Problems of Modern Industry (London, 1898). 376 BIBLIOGRAPHY Webb, S. and B., Industrial Democracy, 2 vols, (new ed., London, 1902). Drage, G., Trade Unions (London, 1905). Pratt, E. A., Trade Unionism and British Industry (London, 1904). Greenwood, J. H., The Law relating to Trade Unions (London, 1911). Cox, H., The Position of Trade Unions (Quarterly Review, Octo- ber, 1910). Weyl, W. E., Benefit Features of British Trade Unions. Bulle- tin of Bureau of Labor, No. 64 (Washington, 1906). Busbey, K. G., The Women's Trade Union Movement in Great Britain. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 83 (Washington, 1907). Lee, W. H., The Great Strike Movement of 191 1 and its Lessons (London, 191 1). Hardie, J. K., The British Labor Party (International Socialist Review, May, 1910). Geldart, W. M., Trade Unions and Parliamentary Representa- tion (Economic Journal, September, 19 10). PoRRiTT, E., The British Labor Party in 1910 (Political Science Quarterly, June, 1910). Humphrey, A. W., A History of Labor Representation (London, 1912). Osborne, W. V., My Case: the Cause and Effect of the Osborne Judgment (London, 19 10). Macdonald, J. R., The Osborne Judgment and Trade Unions (Contemporary Review, November, 1910). Kessler, G., Die Deutschen Arbeitgeberverbande (Leipzig, 1907). Halevy, D., Essai sur le mouvement ouvrier francais (Paris, 1901). Kritsky, M., L'evolution du syndicalisme en France (Paris, 1908). Leroy, M., Syndicats et services publics (Paris, 1909). Hanotaux, G., La democratie et le travail (Paris, 1910). Bour, H., Le syndicalisme ouvrier (Paris, 1910). Louis, P., Le syndicalisme contre l'etat (Paris, 1910). Zevaes, A., Le syndicahsme contemporain (Paris, 1911). Paul, L., Histoire du mouvement syndical en France, 1789-1810 (Paris, 191 1). Acht, A., Der Moderne Franzosische Syndikalismus (Jena, 191 1). Levine, L., The Labor Movement in France (New York, 191 1). Clay, A., Syndicalism and Labor (New York, 191 2). Tavernier, E., The French Strikes and the Confederation Gene- rale du Travail (Nineteenth Century, November, 1910). Duchesne, L., Les syndicats ouvriers beiges (Brussels, 1906). BIBLIOGRAPHY 377 Lloyd, H. D., Labor Copartnership in Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1898). Holyoake, G. J., The History of the Rochdale Pioneers (rev. ed., London, 1900). Holyoake, G. J., The History of Cooperation, 2 vols. (rev. ed., London, 1908). Webb, C. (ed.), Industrial Cooperation, a Peaceful Revolution (4th ed., Manchester, 19 10). Potter, B., The Cooperative Movement in Great Britain (Lon- don, 1898). Pratt, E. A., The Organization of Agriculture (London, 1904). Cernesson, J., Les societes cooperatives anglaises (Paris, 1905). Fay, C. R., Cooperation at Home and Abroad (London, 1908). Jones, B., Cooperative Production, 2 vols. (Oxford, 1894). Gide, C, Les societes cooperatives de la consommation (Paris, 1904). Lucas, L., Des cooperatives agricoles en France (Bordeaux, 1908). Gorju, C, L'evolution cooperative en France (Paris, 191 1). Bertrand, L., Histoire de la cooperation en Belgique (Brussels, 1003)- Neilson, A., Le mouvement cooperatif Danemark (Copenhagen, 1910). Gilman, N. P., A Dividend to Labour. A Study of Employers' Welfare Institutions (Boston, 1899). Chapter XX. Wages and Savings Rogers, J. E. T., Six Centuries of Work and Wages (London, Bowley, A. L., Wages in the United Kingdom in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 1899). Wood, G. H., The History of Wages in the Cotton Trade during the Past Hundred Years (London, 19 10). Chapman, S. J., Work and Wages (London, 1908). Thery, E., L'Europe economique (Paris, 191 1). Scaife, W. B., Work and Wages in France (Forum, September, 1900). United States, Earnings and Hours of Labor in British Textile Industries. Bulletin of the Bureau of Labor, No. 82 (July, . 1909). United States, The Trend of Wages in Germany, 1898 to 1907. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 88 (Washington, 1910). United States, The Cost of Living of Families of Moderate In- come in Germany in 1907-1908. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 88 (Washington, 1910). L T nited States, Reports of British Board of Trade on Cost of Liv- ing in England and Wales, Germany, France, Belgium, and 37S BIBLIOGRAPHY the United States. Bulletin of Bureau of Labor, No. 93 (Washington, 191 1). Bolen, G. L., Getting a Living (New York and London, 1903). Gilman, N. P., Profit Sharing between Employer and Employee (Boston, 1900). Hamilton, J. H, Savings and Savings Institutions (New York, 1902). Wolff, H. W., Our Savings Banks (Economic Review, July, 1904). Chapter XXI. Pubiic Education Monroe, W. S., Bibliography of Education (New York, 1897). Monroe, P., Text-Book in the History of Education (New York, 1905)- Klemm, L. R., European Schools (New York, 1901). Davidson, T. A., A History of Education (New Y T ork, 1901). Greenough, J. C., The Evolution of the Elementary Schools of Great Britain (New York, 1903). Craik, H, The State in its Relation to Education (London, 1884). Sharpless, I., English Education in the Eelmentary and Second- ary Schools (New York, 1902). Balfour, G., Educational Systems of Great Britain and Ireland (Oxford, 1898). Sadler, M. E., Moral Instruction and Training in Schools, 2 vols. (London, 1908). Davies, J. L., The Workingmen's College (London, 1904). Russell, J. E., German Higher Schools; the History, Organi- zation, and Methods of Secondary Education in Germany (New York, 1899). Blondel, G., L'education economique du peuple allemand (Paris, 1908). United States, Industrial Education and Industrial Conditions in Germany. Special Consular Reports, Vol. XXXIII (Washing- ton, 1905). Sabatier, P., Disestablishment in France. Trans, by R. Dell (New York, 1906). Chapter XXII. The Growth of Socialism Engels, F., Socialism, Utopian and Scientific (London, 1892). Bax, E. B., and Morris, W., Socialism, Its Growth and Out- come (2d ed., London, 1896). Macdonald, J. R., The Socialist Movement (London and New York, 191 1). Laveleye, E. de, The Socialism of To-day. Trans, by G. H. Orpen (London, 1885). BIBLIOGRAPHY 379 Kirkup, T., History of Socialism (new ed., London, 1900). Seilhac, L. de, Le monde socialiste (Paris, 1904). Schaeffle, A. E. F., The Quintessence of Socialism. Trans, from 8th German ed. by B. Bosanquet (London, 1908). Schaeffle, A. E. F., The Impossibility of Social Democracy. Trans, by B. Bosanquet (London, 1892). Rae, J., Contemporary Socialism (London, 1891). Bourdeau, J., L'evolution du socialisme (Paris, 1901). Jaures, J., Studies in Socialism. Trans, by M. Minturn (New York, 1906). Leroy-Beaulieu, P. P., Collectivism. A Study of Some of the Leading Social Questions of the Day. Trans, and abridged by A. Clay (London, 1908). Hillquit, M., Socialism in Theory and Practice (New York, 1909). Mallock, W. H., A Critical Examination of Socialism (New . York, 1907). Sombart, W., Socialism and the Social Movement. Trans, from 6th German ed. by M. Epstein (New York, 1909). Leroy-Beaulieu, M. A., ct al., Le socialisme a l'etranger (Paris, 1909). Taylor, G. R. S., Leaders of Socialism, Past and Present (London, 1910). Raine, G. E., Present-Day Socialism and the Problem of the Un- employed (London, 1908). Kelly, E., Twentieth Century Socialism (New York, 1910). Walling, W. E., Socialism As It Is. A Survey of the World-Wide Revolutionary Movement (New York, 191 2). Ely, R. T., Socialism and Social Reform (New York, 1894). Tugan-Baranovsky, M., Modern Socialism in its Historical Development. Trans, by M. I. Redmount (London, 1910). Stoddart, J. T., The New Socialism: an Impartial Inquiry (Lon- don, 1910). Harley, J. H., The New Social Democracy (London, 191 1). Braibant, M., Le socialisme et l'activite economique (Paris, 1911). Lagardelle, H., Le socialisme ouvrier (Paris, 191 1). Le Rossignol, J. E., Orthodox Socialism, a Criticism (New York, 1907). Skelton, O. D., Socialism, a Critical Analysis (Boston, 1912). Guthrie, W. B., Socialism before the French Revolution (New York, 1907). Peixotto, J., The French Revolution and Modern French Social- ism (New York, 1901). Ely, R. T., French and German Socialism in Modern Times (New York, 1883). Booth, A. J., Saint-Simon and Saint-Simonism (London, 1871). 380 BIBLIOGRAPHY Tchernoff, J., Louis Blanc (Paris, 1904). Louis, P., Histoire du socialisme francais (Paris, 1901). Spargo, J., Karl Marx: his Life and Work (New York, 1010). Marx, K., Capital. A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production. Trans, by S. Moore and E. Aveling (London, 1889). Dawson, W. H., German Socialism and Ferdinand Lassalle (Lon- don, 1899). Dawson, W. H., Bismarck and State Socialism (London, 1891). Brandes, G., Ferdinand Lassalle (New York, 191 1). Bernstein, E., Ferdinand Lassalle as a Social Reformer. Trans, by E. Aveling (London, 1893). Villetard de Pruniers, E., Histoire dc Tinternationale (Paris, 1872). Isambert, G., Le socialisme et le mouvement ouvrier en Allemagne (Annates des Sciences Politiques, July, 1908). Andler, C, Les origines du socialisme d'etat en Allemagne (2d ed., Paris, 19 10). Adler, G., The Evolution of the Socialist Programme in Ger- many, 1863-1890 (Economic Journal, December, 1891). Russell, B., German Social Democracy (London, 1896). Bernstein, E., Social Democracy in Germany (International Quarterly, September and December, 1903). Bernstein, E., Evolutionary Socialism: A Criticism and Affirma- tion. Trans, by E. C. Harvey (London, 1909). Barker, J. E., British Socialism. An Examination of its Doc- trines, Policy, Aims, and Practical Proposals (London, 1908). Arnold-Forster, H. O., English Socialism of To-day (London, 1908). Wood worth, A. V., Christian Socialism in England (London, 1903). Gatti, G., Agricoltura e Socialismo (Milan, 1900). Vandervelde, E., Le socialisme agraire ou le collectivisme et revolution agricole (Paris, 1908). Louis- Jaray, G., Le question sociale et le socialisme en Hongrie (Paris, 1909). Majlath, J., The Birth and Progress of Socialism in Hungary (Forum, May, 1910). Nordhoff, C, Communistic Societies in the United States (New York, 1875). INDEX Accidents, insurance against in Ger- many, 260-261 ; provision regarding in Great Britain, 266-268 ; insurance against in France, 280; provisions in other continental countries, 283- 2g2. Agriculture, in eighteenth century, 14 ; in France, 23-29; in England in eighteenth century, 64-68; revolu- tion in England, 70-78; depres- sion, 78 ; legislation upon, 70-82 ; advance in France, 100-101 ; ad- vance in Germany, 103-106 ; ad- vance in Russia, 106-110. Arkwright, Richard, inventor of "water-frame," 87. Austria-Hungary, political develop- ment in nineteenth century, 188— 191 ; electoral reform in Austria, 192-193 ; electoral problems in Hungary, 193-195 ; social insurance, 283-285 ; socialism, 358-359. Babceuf, Francois Noel, socialistic doctrines, 341-342. Balkan states, establishment, 199. Belgium, franchise, 168—170; social insurance, 285-287. Bismarck, Count von, programme of so- cial insurance, 254-262 ; repression of socialism, 351-353- Blanc, Louis, socialistic doctrines, 345- 347- Cartwright, Edward, inventor of power- loom, 88. Chamber of Deputies (France), elec- tion, 181. Chartism, origins, 141 ; demands, 142 ; petitions and demonstrations, 143— 147. Christian Socialism, 348. Church, in eighteenth century, 11-12; in France, 21-22; changes intro- duced by National Assembly, 41-43 ; changes by Napoleon, 53-55. 38 Civil Constitution of the Clergy (France), 42. Cobbett, William, advocate of liberal- ism, 129. Code Napoleon, 51. Cologne, unemployment insurance in, 253- Commerce, in eighteenth century, 13-14; free trade in Great Britain, 122; French protectionism, 123; German protectionism, 123-124. Concordat of 1801, 42-43, 54. Constitution of the Year III, 45. Constitution of the Year VIII, 45. Cooperation, in Great Britain, 305- 306 ; on the continent, 307. Cost of living, in Great Britain, Ger- many, and France, 312-316. Crompton, Samuel, inventor of the "mule-jenny," 88. Declaration of Rights of Man, adopted by French National Assembly, 37 ; contents, 38-39. Denmark, franchise, 1 70-1 71; social insurance, 288—289. Domestic system, in England, 64-66; in Russia, 121. Education, in France under Napoleon, 52 _ 53; reform in Prussia, 59; in contemporary Germany, 248—249 ; development in Great Britain, 326- 333 ; in France, 334. Electoral reform, in Great Britain, 154- 159; in Prussia, 162-165 ; in France, 182 ; in Hungary, 193-195. Enclosure, in England, 73-77. England. See Great Britain. Enlightened despots, 9. Factory system, rise in England, 84- 92 ; nature, 93-99 ; in continental countries, 113-117. Fourier, Charles, socialistic doctrines, 344- France, unification, 15, 43; law and 3 82 INDEX government, 16-18, 51 ; population, 18; nobility, 19-21; Church, 21-22, 53-55 ; bourgeoisie, 23 ; peasantry, 24-2g; causes of Revolution, 30— 34 ; National Assembly, 35 ; Decla- ration of Rights of Man, 37-39; changes wrought by Revolution, 39-45 ; Napoleonic era, 46-50 ; edu- cation, 52-53; agricultural prog- ress, 100-101 ; regulation of guilds, iio-ni; industrial revolution, 113- 115; commercial policy, 123; po- litical development, 174-180; gov- ernmental system to-day, 180-182; insurance against sickness, 279-280; insurance against occupational acci- dents, 280; old age pensions, 280- 283 ; cost of living, 312-323 ; rise of socialism, 340-347, 356-357- Franchise, in England prior to 1832, 130-135; under Reform Act of 1867, 149-150; extension in 1884, 151 ; electoral questions to-day, 154- 159; in Prussia, 162-165; in Ger- man Empire, 165-166; in Holland, 168; in Belgium, 169-170; in Scan- dinavian countries, 170-173; in France during nineteenth century, 176-180; in France to-day, 181-182 ; in Italy, 184-185; in Spain, 186; in Portugal, 187; in Austria, 191- 193; in Hungary, 193-195. Garden Cities, in Great Britain, 244. Germany, effects of French Revolu- tion, 55 ; end of Holy Roman Empire, 57; transformation of Prussia, 57- 60; agricultural advance, 103-106; guilds, 111-112; industrial revolu- tion, 116-119; commercial policy, 123-124; popular government, 160- 162; Prussian electoral system, 162- 165; Imperial electoral system, 165- 166 ; care of the poor, 238-240 ; edu- cation, 248-249; provision for un- employment, 250—254; Bismarck's insurance programme, 254-257; in- surance against sickness, accidents, and invalidity and old age, 258-262 ; trade-unions, 301-302; wages, 310; cost of living, 312-316; develop- ment of socialism, 349-356. Gladstone, William E., reform pro- gramme, 148, 150. Great Britain, economic conditions in eighteenth century, 64-68; rise of capitalism, 69-70; revolution in agriculture, 70-73 ; enclosures, 73- 77 ; agricultural depression, 79-82 ; reasons for industrial revolution, 83-85 J inventions, 84-92 ; rise of factory system, 93-99; commercial policy, 122; political condition in eighteenth century, 125-126; the liberal movement, 127-131; fran- chise arrangements prior to 1832, 130-135; the Reform of 1832, 135- 138; Chartist movement, 141-147; Reform Act of 1867, 147-150; fran- chise extension and redistribution of seats in 1884-1885, 151-153; elec- toral questions to-day, 154-159; beginnings of labor legislation, 217- 220; Factory Act of 1833, 220; later labor legislation, 221-225 ; pooi- laws, 227—235; housing reform, 241- 244 ; workmen's compensation legis- lation, 266-268; old age pensions, 260—271; sickness insurance, 272- 274; insurance against unemploy- ment, 274-279; rise of trade-unions, 294-296 ; trade-unions and labor parties, 297-301 ; cooperation, 305- 306; cost of living, 312-316; de- velopment of education, 326-333 ; socialism, 347-348, 357~358- Guilds, in eighteenth century, 12-13; during Revolutionary and Napo- leonic era, iio-ni; in Germany, ni-112. Hardenberg, reforms, 59. Hargreaves, James, inventor of "spin- ning-jenny," 87. Holland, annexed to France, 56; gov- ernment, 167-16S; social insurance, 287-288. Housing, reform in Great Britain, 241- 244. Humboldt, William von, educational reforms, 59. Independent Labor Party (Great Brit- ain), 297, 358. INDEX 3*$ Industrial revolution, defined, 63 ; antecedent conditions, 64-68; agen- cies, 60-70 ; inventions, 84-92 ; rise of factory system, 93-94; effects of factory system, 94-99; in France, 113-115; in Germany, 116-119; in Russia, 1 1 9-1 21. Initiative, in Switzerland, 201-212. Insurance, in Austria, 283-285 ; in Belgium, 285-287 ; in Holland, 287- 288; in Denmark, 288-289; in Sweden and Norway, 280-290; in Switzerland, 290 ; in Italy, 291-292 ; (France), against sickness, 279-280; against accidents, 280; against old age, 280-283; (Germany), against unemployment, 253-254; Bismarck's programme, 254-257; against sick- ness, 258-260 ; against accidents, 260- 261 ; against old age and invalidity, 261-262 ; (Great Britain), against old age, 260-271; against sickness, 272-274; against unemployment, 274-279. International, founded, 350. Inventions, in England, 84-92. Italy, political development in nine- teenth century, 182-184; govern- mental system, 184-185 ; social insurance, 291-292 ; socialism, 359. Kay, John, inventor of "flying shuttle,'' 86. Labor, legislation in Great Britain, 217-225; regulation in continental countries, 226; discontent in France, 337-34 1 ; rise of trade-unions, 294-301 ; trade-unions on the con- tinent, 301-305; and socialism, 349— 357- Labor exchanges, in Germany, 250- 254; in Great Britain, 274—279. Labor Party (Great Britain), 298. Laissez-faire, 216. Land settlement, in England, 77. Lettres de cachet, 17. Marx, Karl, socialist doctrines, 349- 350. Mining, regulation in Great Britain, 224-225. Napoleon, attitude toward Revolution, 46-48 ; the press, 50 ; taxation, 5 1 ; education, 52-53; the Church, 53- 55; governmental system, 177-178. National Assembly (France), organ- ized, 35-36; adopts Declaration of Rights of Man, 37. Norway, franchise, 171-173. Old Age and Invalidity, insurance against in Germany, 261-262 ; old age pensions in Great Britain, 269- 271 ; old age pensions in France, 280-283 ; provisions in other conti- nental countries, 283-292. Osborne Judgment, 300. Owen, Robert, and cooperation, 347- 348. Parliament (Great Britain), composi- tion prior to 1832, 131; electoral system, 133-135 ; the Reform Act of 1832, 135-138; the Reform Act of 1867, 147-150; franchise extension and redistribution of seats in 1884- 1885, 157-158; electoral questions to-day, 154-159. Peasantry, in eighteenth century, 10; French, 24-29; Prussian, 57-58; emancipation in Russia, 106-110. Poor, early provisions for care of in England, 227-230; eighteenth cen- tury legislation, 230-233; the Poor Law of 1834, 233-235 ; reports of Poor Law Commission, 236-238; care of in Germany, 238-240; care of in France, 240. Poor Law Commission, reports, 236- 238, 275. Population, of Europe, 5-6 ; of France, 18; shift northward in England, 95; of Germany, 119. Portugal, revolution of igio, 187. Press, regulation by Napoleon, 50. Proudhon, Pierre Joseph, socialist doctrines, 345. Prussia. See Germany. Referendum, in Switzerland, 201-212. Revolution, French, causes, 30-34; National Assembly, 35-36; changes wrought by, 39~45- 3»4 INDEX Rochdale Society, 305. Russell, Lord John, introduces Reform Bill, 135 ; opposes further change, 141. Russia, emancipation of serfs, 106-110; industrial revolution, 119-121; po- litical development in nineteenth century, 195-198. Saint-Simon, Henri de, socialist doc- trines, 342-344. Sickness, insurance against, in Ger- many, 258-260; in Great Britain, 272-274; in France, 270-280; in other continental countries, 283-292. Social Democratic Party (Germany), origins, 351; growth, 353; programme, 354-356. Socialism, defined, 341 ; rise in France, 341-342 ; Saint- Simon, 342-343 ; Fourier, 344 ; Blanc, 345-347 ; in England, 347-349 ; rise in Germany, 349; Marx and Engels, 347-348; Bismarck's attempted repression, 35i _ 353; later development in Germany, 353-356; in France, 356- 357- Spain, government, 186. States General, summoned, 30. Stein, reform measures, 58. Sweden, franchise, 171 ; social insur- ance, 280-290. Switzerland, revolutiom'zed in 1798, 56, 201 ; Napoleon's policy regarding, 201-202 ; governmental system to- day, 203-204; initiative and referen- dum, 205-212; social insurance, 240. Taff Vale Case, 299. Taxation, under the Old Regime, 25- 27 ; under Napoleon, 51. Trade-unions, beginnings in Great Britain, 294-296; later phases, 297- 301 ; in Germany, 301-302 ; in other continental countries, 302-305. Turkey, revolution of 1 908-1 909, 198. Unemployment, provisions against in Germany, 250-254 ; insurance against in Great Britain, 274-279. Wages, fluctuations during nineteenth century, 309-312. Watt, James, improvement of steam- engine, 90. Whitney, Eli, inventor of cotton-gin, Young, Arthur, quoted, 67-68. 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