BELGIUM. 



85 



sion of the franchise gave the Clericals their 

 preponderating strength over the Liberals, but it 

 also made the Socialists a great party. The 

 Cabinet had not yet come to a decision on the 

 new electoral bill when invidious accusations 

 were made against King Leopold such as have 

 not infrequently been uttered to the discredit of 

 this once popular monarch. The Prime Minister 

 was opposed to the suggested solution of the 

 electoral question, and when the majority of the 

 ministers, after long deliberation, gave their ap- 

 proval to the plan of uninominal voting he and 

 his colleague, M. Nyssens, Minister of Industry 

 and Labor, tendered their resignations, which 

 were accepted on Jan. 23. M. Van den Peere- 

 boom, Minister of War, took the premiership, 

 while M. Liebart became Minister of Finance in 

 succession to M. De Smet de Naeyer, and M. Coore- 

 man was made Minister of Industry and Labor. 

 The new Premier, a representative of the ex- 

 treme Clericals, announced that the Government 

 was not committed to the uninominal system, 

 and would examine all the schemes for electoral 

 reform. The question was postponed for a time. 

 On March 29 the Socialists provoked a stormy 

 scene in the Chamber when they interpellated 

 the Government regarding the expulsion from 

 Belgium of the French ex-priest Victor Charbon- 

 nel. When the president suspended the sitting 

 the members of the Left advanced in a threaten- 

 ing manner against the Deputies of the Right, 

 and, amid a deafening uproar, abusive epithets 

 were interchanged and challenges to duels of- 

 fered, while in the galleries the spectators fought 

 with the ushers who tried to eject them and with 

 soldiers who were called in to assist. 



In the middle of April a great strike of coal 

 miners began, extending from the Charleroi and 

 central districts to Mons, Seraing, Liege, and 

 other coal fields. The gendarmery of the dis- 

 turbed districts was strengthened, and attempts 

 to interfere with men at work were severely 

 dealt with, so that tranquillity was maintained 

 in most places where the strikers were inclined 

 to be violent, but as a rule they were orderly. 

 There was soon complete cessation of work in all 

 the principal coal mines, and the industrial es- 

 tablishments were compelled to work with a 

 reduced supply of coal, some of them to stop 

 work altogether. In a very few days the situa- 

 tion was relieved by the arrival of large supplies 

 from France, Germany, and Great Britain. The 

 masters, pointing out that wages had been in- 

 creased 20 per cent, in two years, offered to ac- 

 cept the arbitration of the agents at the mines 

 and the workingmen inspectors. The men had 

 no confidence in the proposed arbitration. They 

 held out for nearly a month, but the arrival of 

 coal from abroad in abundance compelled them 

 to give way at last, and return to work without 

 obtaining what they demanded. Just after the 

 collapse of the strike the International Miners' 

 Congress met at Brussels in the great hall of the 

 newly opened Maison du Peuple, the clubhouse 

 and meeting place of the Socialist Labor party. 

 These people's houses have been erected in all 

 the industrial towns of Belgium in connection 

 with co-operative bakeries, which are a valuable 

 prop to the vigorous Socialistic party in Belgium. 

 Every member of the co-operative society, of 

 which there are 18,000 in Brussels, is required 

 to sign a declaration approving the programme 

 of the party. The bakeries of the society in 

 Brussels, distributing 220,000 loaves daily, em- 

 ploy 200 persons, who work eight hours, have 

 a week's vacation every year, earn a minimum 

 wage of 5 francs, besides 2 per cent, of the 



profits, and receive gratuitous medical attend- 

 ance in sickness. These societies are the largest 

 producers of bread in Belgium, and they have 

 compelled the bakers to reduce the price of loaves. 

 Some of the profits are used for political and 

 educational purposes. More recently the Social- 

 ists have started a trade in tobacco, the entire 

 profits of which are devoted to the election fund 

 for Socialist candidates. The Miners' Congress, 

 which assembled on May 22, consisted of 47 dele- 

 gates, representing 1,433,000 miners in Great 

 Britain, France, Belgium, Germany, and Aus- 

 tria. A vote in favor of establishing a legal 

 eight-hour day from bank to bank was opposed 

 only by the delegates of the 30,000 miners of 

 Northumberland, and was carried by the 1,403,- 

 000 others. A motion from the German and 

 Austrian delegates that the law should apply 

 also to surface workers was carried unanimously. 

 The congress adopted unanimously a resolution 

 holding employers liable for all accidents, and 

 forbidding either workmen or employers to con- 

 tract themselves out of the provisions of the law. 

 The electoral reform proposed was an adapta- 

 tion of a complex system of proportional repre- 

 sentation that was put into force in 1892 in the 

 Swiss canton of Ticino, and had been adopted for 

 municipal elections in Belgium. By this plan 

 each party puts forward a list of candidates, as 

 many as they expect with certainty to elect, 

 every elector having as many votes as there are 

 seats to be filled, the upper classes in Belgium 

 twice or thrice as many in virtue of their pos- 

 sessing property, education, or families. Each 

 vote for an entire list, and for no candidate on 

 any other, is put down as a vote for this list. 

 When the votes are counted those candidates 

 are declared elected who receive an absolute ma- 

 jority of the votes cast, and the remaining seats 

 are apportioned by the process of a complicated 

 arithmetical calculation among the various lists 

 in proportion to the number of votes given for 

 them. A number of substitutes are elected along 

 with the regular ticket, and a part of those nomi- 

 nated by the victorious party also obtain seats 

 in addition to the regular candidates, their num- 

 ber being regulated by the excess of the vote over 

 the proportional vote required to seat all those 

 on the regular list. The other supplementary 

 candidates are held in reserve to fill vacancies 

 caused by death or resignation. The bill was 

 therefore intended to do away with by-elections, 

 and in various ways was advantageous to the 

 party in power, which might promote spurious 

 candidatures to divide the votes of its opponents 

 or place moderates on its regular list to be re- 

 placed later by extreme partisans from the sup- 

 plementary list, as was done when this system 

 of voting was first put in practice in Switzer- 

 land. The main grievance in the proposed bill 

 to the Socialists and the Liberals and Radicals 

 was that it prevented their intended alliance in 

 such constituencies as Brussels more effectually 

 than the uninominal system would, and that it 

 was made applicable only to the constituencies 

 where it would impair their chances of winning 

 or was certain to reduce their representation, 

 while in the smaller districts, where it would 

 enable them to take some seats away from the 

 Clericals, the system of voting was left un- 

 changed. The representation of minorities was 

 to be given, indeed, only to the few cities electing 

 six or more Deputies namely, Brussels, Ant- 

 werp, Ghent, Liege, and Charleroi in which the 

 minorities are Clericals. By abolishing second 

 ballots it defeated the proposed coalition be- 

 tween the Social Democrats, the Progressists, and 



