2I8
THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY.
tion of 1874 as many as 535,000 electors, or ninety per cent. \
of the whole number, recorded their votes. The collective
property of the Commune is also to be found in existence
under the old institution of the Allmends. There is no standing
army, hardly any taxation, and few police. The Commune is ^
autonomous, and the Canton is formed by the federation of the
Communes. What more could “ Anarchism ” require ? It
is true that they have not yet got Bakunin’s “ Amorphism.” *
The International gained a footing in Belgium in 1865 ;
but it was not until December, 1866, that the first section was f
constituted, at Liège. We see in the report of the delegate, „■
De Paepe, at the Congress of Lausanne, that a very active j
section had been founded at Brussels, and that the working
men’s societies of Ghent and Antwerp were connected with ^
it. At the Congress of Brussels in 1868 the delegate Frère ’
announced that several very large sections had been formed I
in the coal-basin of Charleroi, and that at Verviers “ the free |
labourers ” had joined and had even started a newspaper, the rj
Mirabeau, which, strange to say, still exists. At Bruges a j
section was formed with a journal called the Vooruit, and soon
afterwards there appeared at Antwerp the Werker, which exercised
a great influence over the working men in the Flemish ¡
towns. In December all the sections formed a federation. j
A general council of sixteen members was chosen and a journal J
started, the Internationale. The sections were grouped according
to the coal-basins, and were all to send delegates to the \
general congress held every year. It was almost a reproduc- |
tion of the parent association. The strikes and conflicts which i
resulted therefrom, in the neighbourhood of Charleroi and J:
* [In Switzerland, according to Dr. Zacher rothe Internationale),
the entire body of Socialists of all shades, in 1880, hardly numbered 15,000
out of a population of three millions. They have been unable to organize their ^
forces owing to internal dissensions between the various sections, the split
between the Most-Hasselmann and Hebel-Liebknecht groups of Germany
finding its counterpart in Switzerland. In September, 1883, a congress
(Allgemein Schweizerischer Arbeitertag) was held at Zurich, at which 17^
delegates were present, and an executive committee was formed with the
object of uniting the several groups, viz. the Griitlianer, the Gewerkschaftler,
the German Working Men’s Unions (Deutsche Arbeitervereine), the Swiss
Social Democrats, and the German Social Democrats. By the middle of
November, 1883, it had, however, enrolled only 3680 members.—Tr.\
