BELGIUM. 



83 



6 Gen. Yandersmissen, the commander, an- 

 nounced that order had been re-established. 

 About 30 strikers altogether were killed by the 

 soldiers in the various disturbed districts. 



The Labor Question. Before the March riots 

 there was no Socialistic party in Belgium, such 

 as exists in France and Germany. There were 

 a few writers and speakers whose utterances 

 awakened sympathy with the revolutionary 

 strivings in the neighboring countries ; but in 

 Belgium trade-unionism and co-operation were 

 the practical aims presented in their teachings. 

 Universal suffrage has long been regarded by 

 the industrial laborers as the means by which 

 they will eventually gain their rights. Shut 

 out from representation, they conceive that 

 they are the victims of class legislation, in 

 spite of the many liberal features in the laws 

 of Belgium. Yet the school question has over- 

 shadowed all others in recent years. The in- 

 dustrial workmen are friends of secularism and 

 state education, and the immediate effect of 

 universal suffrage would be to strengthen the 

 Clerical party. In Liege, where the labor 

 troubles began, there was np organized labor 

 party. The repressive zeal of a senator, who 

 induced the police to interfere in an un- 

 necessary and unusual manner, began the 

 trouble. The riots excited the public mind in 

 Belgium more than any event in recent times. 

 The authorities were at first inclined to believe 

 that propagandists of German Socialism had 

 instilled discontent among the workingmen, 

 and many Germans were expelled as suspected 

 teachers of revolution; but the conviction 

 gradually grew in the public mind that in this 

 wealthy country (which, under the interna- 

 tional guarantee of peace, had grown rich by 

 peaceful arts, while its neighbors suffered from 

 burdensome armaments and exhausting wars) 

 the classes that had produced its wealth were 

 sinking into intolerable wretchedness, and had 

 been driven by blind despair to a Jacquerie such 

 as has hardly been witnessed in this century. 

 The first thoughts of the legislators were to 

 render public order more secure by placing 

 effective restraints on unruly spirits, and thus 

 prevent further outbreaks. Government bills 

 were passed imposing the penalty of imprison- 

 ment from a week to three years for provoca- 

 tions to riot, crimes, or misdemeanors. An- 

 other restricts the sale of firearms and regu- 

 lates the carrying of weapons. One was passed 

 also authorizing the Government to watch over 

 the manufacture, storing, sale, transport, use, 

 and possession of explosives and engines for 

 using them. Authority was given also to ad- 

 vance money at 3| per cent, to persons whose 

 property had been injured in the labor riots. 

 On June 4, a Socialist editor at Ghent, named 

 Anseele, was convicted of contesting the oblig- 

 atory force of the laws in urging the relatives 

 of soldiers to use their influence with them to 

 induce them not to act against the workmen 

 during the strike, and was condemned to six 

 months' imprisonment. The same day Alfred 



de Fuisseaux, a prominent agitator for uni- 

 versal suffrage, was condemned at Brussels to 

 one year's imprisonment for having, in a pam- 

 phlet entitled "Le Catechisme du Peuple," de- 

 nied the obligation of law, attacked the consti- 

 tutional authority of the King, and insulted his 

 person. The last-named prisoner escaped from 

 the country. In July, seventeen men were con- 

 victed for burning the glass-works at Roux in 

 March, and sentenced, two to imprisonment 

 for life, two for fifteen years, three for ten 

 years, and the rest for shorter terms. On Aug. 

 10, Wagener and Butters were sentenced to 

 five years' imprisonment for instigating the 

 rioting *t Liege. The Supreme Court, how- 

 ever, quashed their sentences, though it re- 

 jected the appeal of Schmidt and Failleur, two 

 workmen who were condemned to twenty 

 years' penal servitude for pillage and incen- 

 diarism at Baudoux. 



On April 25, a workmen's congress, at- 

 tended by 500 delegates, from 104 affiliated 

 societies, met at Ghent, and resolved that a 

 demonstration in favor of universal suffrage 

 should take place at Brussels on June 13. 

 The parade, in which from 80,000 to 100,000 

 workingmen were to take part, was prohibited 

 by the burgomaster. The Socialists then de- 

 termined to have a demonstration in all the 

 towns of South Brabant, or, if they were for- 

 bidden, to call a grand congress at Brussels. 

 The provincial demonstrations were prohib- 

 ited; so, on June 13, a congress of 4,500 dele- 

 gates met in Brussels to discuss the action of 

 the authorities in forbidding demonstrations in 

 favor of universal suffrage, although monster 

 parades on the school question had been per- 

 mitted in 1884, and to consider other urgent 

 questions. It was resolved to address a mani- 

 festo to the nation, to contest all elections, and 

 to create co-operative societies everywhere. 

 Such societies were already in successful opera- 

 tion in the Ghent district, founded through the 

 efforts of Anseele, the young Socialist leader, 

 who had just been condemned to imprison- 

 ment for a press offense, and who now presided 

 over the congress. Three resolutions were 

 adopted by acclamation: (1) The agitation in 

 favor of universal suffrage is to be continued ; 

 (2) a general strike to be begun as soon as the 

 Workingmen's party has acquired sufficient 

 strength ; (3) to organize a fresh monster dem- 

 onstration on August 15, the date of the na- 

 tional holiday at Brussels. The workingmen's 

 procession, in Brussels, took place, without 

 hindrance from the authorities, on August 15. 

 There were 2,300 workmen from Ghent; 660 

 from Lige; 4,000 from other collieries ; and in 

 all, 30,000, who paraded the streets in an or- 

 derly manner for four hours. The authorities 

 had forbidden cries or inscriptions for the re- 

 public, but permitted the red flag. The pla- 

 cards demanded universal suffrage and an am- 

 nesty for those who had been condemned on 

 account of the disturbances in March. A com- 

 mission was appointed to investigate the con- 



