76 



BELGIUM. 



months' residence in the district was negatived 

 by 115 votes to 26, with 3 abstentions, a tumult 

 arose among the people who thronged the ap- 

 proaches of the National Palace, and the police 

 drove away the crowd with the flats of their 

 swords and made many arrests. The council- 

 general of the Labor party held a meeting in 

 the evening and decided to issue a manifesto 

 proclaiming the necessity for an immediate gen- 

 eral strike. The strike had been anticipated by 

 several thousand miners in the Borinage district, 

 who coupled with the political protest a demand 

 for higher wages. On the following day excited 

 citizens gathered about the Parliament building, 

 which had been surrounded by unmounted 

 police, and the crowd swelled until it filled the 

 park and neighboring streets. A mob of work- 

 ingmen made a rush to break the police line and 

 ascend the steps of the building. They would 

 have succeeded had not the reserve of mounted 

 police charged with drawn swords. The mob 

 met them with volleys of stones, but was finally 

 forced back, many being cut or trampled and 

 several policemen hurt. Similar disturbances 

 took place in the streets near by and in other 

 parts of the city. On the same day riotous 

 miners demolished the buildings and machinery 

 of a coal pit at Cuesmes, near Mons, attacked 

 the Catholic club building, and held possession 

 of the town. A municipal councilor was ar- 

 rested as one of the leaders. At Quaregnon 

 striking miners began to fill with rubbish the 

 shafts of the pits, for the purpose of imprisoning 

 men who were working below, and were dis- 

 persed with difficulty by the gendarmes. The 

 strike spread among the smiths, wood workers, 

 printers, and other trades, especially in the Ver- 

 viers and Louvain districts. In the district of 

 Mons alone 15,000 men went on strike in two 

 days, and in Ghent 20,000. In Brussels and 

 elsewhere the Civic Guard was called out. 



The vote on household suffrage as proposed 

 by the Government was 91 against 65, thus fall- 

 ing short of a two-thirds majority. The amend- 

 ment of De Sraet, regulating suffrage according 

 to the amount of rent paid, though accepted by 

 the ministry, was likewise rejected. Frere- 

 Orban was able to obtain only 18 votes in favor 

 of his proposal to endow with the franchise only 

 those who have an elementary education. After 

 all the various schemes had been voted down, 

 Woeste, the Clerical leader, submitted a proposal 

 for a qualification of 10 francs of taxes, or a 

 rental of 100 francs. The plan of dual voting 

 was brought forward by Prof. Nyssens, of the 

 Louvain University, a member of the Young 

 Right, and in another form by another Clerical. 



On April 13 the rioters at Quaregnon raised 

 barricades, and in Paturages there was a savage 

 encounter with the police. In Brussels several 

 thousand rioters marched through the streets, 

 smashing the windows of unpopular citizens. 

 The Socialist leaders, Volders, Vanderveld, and 

 Maes, were arrested, but were soon liberated. 

 Ex-Minister Woeste was assaulted in the street. 

 An attempt to storm the office of the Catholic 

 journal " Le Patriote " was frustrated by a 

 charge of the Civic Guards. On April 14 the 

 police made a vain attempt to disperse an im- 

 mense crowd in front of the People's Hall, 

 which the burgomaster had ordered to be closed. 



Shots were fired and people struck down and 

 trampled. Attempts to carry out the burgo- 

 master's prohibition against street parades led 

 to fierce collisions. At night workingmen of the 

 Labor party proceeded to open a meeting, in 

 spite of the interdict of the authorities, and when 

 the police interfered and tried to clear the wine 

 shops and coffee houses, barricades were thrown 

 up, the street lamps were extinguished, and 

 in the fighting a great number were injured on 

 both sides. The authorities were unable to carry 

 out the prohibition of public meetings in the 

 capital, but the leaders of the Labor party dis- 

 countenanced the turbulence of their followers 

 and restored comparative tranquillity. A brutal 

 assault was committed on Burgomaster Buls on 

 April 16, and in the evening a desperate conflict 

 took place between the mob and the police. The 

 strike became general, and the newspapers could 

 not appear for lack of compositors. In Mons a 

 dynamite bomb was exploded beside a church 

 on April 16. On the following day rioters took 

 possession of the streets for a labor procession, 

 and when a body of militia, exasperated by the 

 missiles thrown at them, fired into the crowd, 

 killing 4 miners, the strikers charged upon the 

 soldiery. A desperate hand-to-hand conflict 

 ensued, in which the Civic Guard was finally 

 victorious after many had fallen on both sides. 



In Antwerp a thousand dock laborers struck, 

 attempted to stop all work on the wharves, and 

 fired with revolvers upon the gendarmes, who re- 

 turned the fire. The police made several vain 

 attempts to clear the streets. A squadron of 

 mounted police was put to flight, and before the 

 reserves appeared the mob had thrown up barri- 

 cades, which they held with rifles and revolvers 

 against police and militia. After three charges 

 the rioters retreated firing. Several soldiers 

 were hit. On the following day the strikers con- 

 tinued their efforts to hold the wharves and inter- 

 rupt trade, and several times the police charged 

 among them, cutting many with their swords. 

 In Grummont the gendarmerie were able to 

 break up a meeting only after a long struggle, 

 in which a large number of persons were seri- 

 ously injured. A collision occurred also at 

 Courtrai. In Bourgerhout striking candle-mak- 

 ers, assaulting those who remained at work, were 

 charged by the soldiers with fixed bayonets, and 

 4 were killed and 15 dangerously wounded. 



Adoption of Universal Suffrage. The revo- 

 lutionary demonstrations of the populace wrought 

 a sudden change in the character of the delibera- 

 tions of the Chamber. On April 16 Janson and 

 Feron announced that they and 40 other mem- 

 bers of the Left would agree to the scheme of 

 universal suffrage complicated by plural voting 

 proposed by Nyssens. A compromise accepted 

 by the Radicals was sure to stay the revolution- 

 ary tide, and the ministers were confronted with 

 the alternative of abandoning the principles for 

 which they had contended and accepting a meas- 

 ure practically identical with universal suffrage, 

 since the safeguard of plural voting could be 

 abolished at any time in response to a popular 

 demand, or dare the people to a revolution that 

 they could not suppress. The Belgian troops 

 had not been called upon to put down the riots. 

 Their sympathies were with the people, and sev- 

 eral instances of insubordination occurred dur- 



