

66 



BELGIUM. 



creased the import duty on vinegar, and abol- 

 ished the stamp-tax on insurance policies. 



Labor Strikes. The vote of the Chamber was 

 the signal for strikes among the workmen all 

 over the country, which had for their object 

 the redress of political grievances. By quit- 

 ting work the laboring-class not only intended 

 an imposing political demonstration, but ex- 

 pected to force their employers to join them 

 in their demands. Chief among these was 

 universal suffrage, or a wide extension of the 

 franchise. This reform they wished to have 

 immediately accomplished by the dissolution 

 of the Chambers and the convocation of a Con- 

 stituent Assembly. Another urgent demand 

 was a general amnesty for all who were con- 

 victed for offenses connected with the labor 

 disturbances of the year before. The aboli- 

 tion of substitution in the army was also de- 

 sired, and an income tax instead of duties on 

 consumption, the removal of the high property 

 qualification for the Senate and other reforms 

 were urged. The strikes began in the coal- 

 mines, and spread to the metal-workers of 

 Lonvain, Centre, Brussels, and other places, 

 the carpenters, tailors, painters, and other me- 

 chanics of Brussels, the quarrymen atTournai, 

 and the iron-workers in the large foundries 

 of the Seraing, Charleroi, and other districts. 

 Collisions with the gendarmes occurred at 

 La Croyere, where two miners were killed and 

 several wounded ; La Louviere, where dyna- 

 mite was used by the strikers in an attempt 

 to blow up a cafe, and against workmen who 

 would not join them ; and Brussels, where dy- 

 namite outrages occurred, and where several 

 policemen and rioters were wounded. Later 

 severe collisions between troops and strikers 

 occurred in Ghent, and dynamite outrages 

 were perpetrated in the Centre district and 

 elsewhere. Many agitators, including a French 

 anarchist named Jahn, were arrested. Troops 

 were stationed at Seraing and other places, and 

 two classes of reserves were called out. At 

 Morlanwelz the coal-mine proprietors agreed 

 to unite with their workmen in demanding the 

 adjournment of the cattle-tax project by the 

 Senate, the pardon of the convicted rioters of 

 1886, and the establishment of councils of con- 

 ciliation and a laborer's benefit fund. The 

 French authorities closed the frontier within 

 the Department of the Nord, and arrested and 

 conducted to Paris the Belgian socialist leader, 

 de Fuisseaux. Fauviaux, a noted socialist, was 

 arrested at Quaregnon, and a leader named 

 Loor in the mining districts. After two or three 

 weeks the strikes subsided, and by the 1st of, 

 June nearly all had returned to work. 



The Progressist and Radical associations in 

 a congress at Brussels on May 29 adopted a pro- 

 gramme embodying modification of the senato- 

 rial tax qualification, lay education, separation 

 of Church and State, equal military burdens, 

 an income-tax instead of taxes on consump- 

 tion, responsibility of employers for accidents, 

 councils of arbitration, professional syndicates, 



an invalid fund for workmen, the democratic 

 organization of credit, equality of the French 

 and Flemish languages, and the right of voting 

 for all who can read and write. In July the 

 Chamber voted down a proposal for obligatory 

 military service, upon which the Opposition 

 moved a revision of the Constitution for the 

 extension of the electoral franchise. The pro- 

 posal, which is the third one of the kind since 

 the Constitution was framed, was rejected by 

 83 votes against 33, all the Liberals voting for 

 it, and all the Clericals in the negative. 



Labor Legislation. A new law for the sup- 

 pression of drunkenness prescribes the punish- 

 ment of fine and imprisonment for persons 

 found drunk on the streets and for liquor-sell- 

 ers who furnish drink to intoxicated persons 

 or to children, and abolishes the right to re- 

 cover debts incurred in a liquor-shop. An act 

 regulating the payment of workmen's wages 

 provides that two fifths of the pay of working- 

 men and of clerks' salaries, not exceeding 1,200 

 francs, are inalienable, and one fifth is exempt 

 from seizure by legal process. The Chamber 

 passed a bill, introduced by M. Frere-Orban, 

 instituting councils of industry for the recon- 

 ciliation of the interests of employers and 

 laborers in cases of conflict. The truck sys- 

 tem was abolished by a bill providing for the 

 payment of wages in cash. 



Fishery Riots Belgian fishermen have for 

 years carried on a warfare against the English 

 steam-trawlers by cutting their nets with grap- 

 nels. Finding that their better-equipped com- 

 petitors were ousting them from their own 

 market, they felt aggrieved because, while 

 foreign fishermen have free access to the Bel- 

 gian markets, they themselves must pay heavy 

 duties in France, and are excluded from the 

 London market by a combination of middle- 

 men. A British cruiser which was stationed on 

 the fishing-grounds to protect the English boats 

 from piratic outrages was unable to capture 

 the users of the submarine cutting-apparatus ; 

 but evidence was produced before Belgian 

 tribunals on which some of the misdemeanants 

 were convicted and fined, a result which fur- 

 ther inflamed the minds of the fishing popula- 

 tion. The Britisli Government subsequently 

 increased the naval force in the North Sea to 

 five steamers and four sailing cruisers. On 

 August 23, when the crew of. three English 

 smacks were landing their cargoes at Ostend a 

 crowd gathered, destroyed a part of the fish, 

 and broke the windows of a proprietor of 

 English fishing-boats. The gendarmerie in- 

 terfered, and were beaten off, but came again 

 in greater force, and charged the rioters with 

 their bayonets, wounding many of them and 

 killing three. The civic guards were called 

 out, but during the next day fishermen attacked 

 some English smacks in row-boats, and would 

 not leave them in obedience to a formal sum- 

 mons, whereupon the artillery fired, killing 

 two and fatally injuring three. The women 

 took an active part in the disturbances, and 



