THE NEW FORMS OF DEMOCRATIC BELIEF
1.The Conflict between Capital and Labour.
While our legislators are reforming and legislating at hazard, the natural evolution of the world is slowly pursuing its course.
New interests arise, the economic competition between nation and nation increases in severity, the working-classes are bestirring themselves, and on all sides we see the birth of formidable problems which the harangues of the politicians will never resolve.
Among these new problems one of the most complicated will be the problem of the conflict between labour and capital.It is becoming acute even in such a country of tradition as England.
Workingmen are ceasing to respect the collective contracts which formerly constituted their charter, strikes are declared for insignificant motives, and unemployment and pauperism are attaining disquieting proportions.
In America these strikes would finally have affected all industries but that the very excess of the evil created a remedy.
During the last ten years the industrial leaders have organised great employers' federations, which have become powerful enough to force the workers to submit to arbitration.
The labour question is complicated in France by the intervention of numerous foreign workers, which the stagnation of our population has rendered necessary.[13] This stagnation will also make it difficult for France to contend with her rivals, whose soil will soon no longer be able to nourish its inhabitants, who, following one of the oldest laws of history, will necessarily invade the less densely peopled countries.
[13] Population of the Great Powers:--
1789.1906.
Russia......28,000,000 129,000,000
Germany......28,000,000 57,000,000
Austria......18,000,000 44,000,000
England......12,000,000 40,000,000
France......26,000,000 39,000,000
These conflicts between the workers and employers of the same nation will be rendered still more acute by the increasing economic struggle between the Asiatics, whose needs are small, and who can therefore produce manufactured articles at very low prices, and the Europeans, whose needs are many.For twenty-five years I have laid stress upon this point.General Hamilton, ex-military attache to the Japanese army, who foresaw the Japanese victories long before the outbreak of hostilities, writes as follows in an essay translated by General Langlois:--``The Chinaman, such as I have seen him in Manchuria, is capable of destroying the present type of worker of the white races.He will drive him off the face of the earth.The Socialists, who preach equality to the labourer, are far from thinking what would be the practical result of carrying out their theories.Is it, then, the destiny of the white races to disappear in the long run? In my humble opinion this destiny depends upon one single factor: Shall we or shall we not have the good sense to close our ears to speeches which present war and preparation for war as a useless evil?
``I believe the workers must choose.Given the present constitution of the world, they must cultivate in their children the military ideal, and accept gracefully the cost and trouble which militarism entails, or they will be let in for a cruel struggle for life with a rival worker of whose success there is not the slightest doubt.There is only one means of refusing Asiatics the right to emigrate, to lower wages by competition, and to live in our midst, and that is the sword.If Americans and Europeans forget that their privileged position is held only by force of arms, Asia will soon have taken her revenge.''
We know that in America the invasion of Chinese and Japanese, owing to the competition between them and the workers of white race, has become a national calamity.In Europe the invasion is commencing, but has not as yet gone far.But already Chinese emigrants have formed important colonies in certain centres--London, Cardiff, Liverpool, &c.They have provoked several riots by working for low wages.Their appearance has always lowered salaries.
But these problems belong to the future, and those of the present are so disquieting that it is useless at the moment to occupy ourselves with others.
2.The Evolution of the Working-Classes and the Syndicalist Movement.
The most important democratic problem of the day will perhaps result from the recent development of the working-class engendered by the Syndicalist or Trades Union movement.
The aggregation of similar interests known as Syndicalism has rapidly assumed such enormous developments in all countries that it may be called world-wide.Certain corporations have budgets comparable to those of small States.Some German leagues have been cited as having saved over three millions sterling in subscriptions.
The extension of the labour movement in all countries shows that it is not, like Socialism, a dream of Utopian theorists, but the result of economic necessities.In its aim, its means of action, and its tendencies, Syndicalism presents no kinship with Socialism.Having sufficiently explained it in my Political Psychology, it will suffice here to recall in a few words the difference between the two doctrines.
Socialism would obtain possession of all industries, and have them managed by the State, which would distribute the products equally between the citizens.Syndicalism, on the other hand, would entirely eliminate the action of the State, and divide society into small professional groups which would be self-governing.
Although despised by the Syndicalists and violently attacked by them, the Socialists are trying to ignore the conflict, but it is rapidly becoming too obvious to be concealed.The political influence which the Socialists still possess will soon escape them.
