The Socialism of to-day

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 835096955

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-28834

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Laveleye, Émile de

Title:: The Socialism of to-day

Place of publication:: London

Publisher:: Field & Tuer

Year of publication:: 1884

Scope:: 1 Online-Ressource (XLIV, 331 S.)

Collection:: Economics Books

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138 THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. rights of the country folk and to obtain a reduction of military service and of the taxes that burdened the land. Among the resolutions passed at the general assembly of the peasant clubs of Bavaria, held at Deggendorf, in October, 1871, may be found the following passage : “ We detest with all our soul the military system which is looked upon as the principal thing for which all else should be sacrificed. It absorbs the living forces of labour, even when they are most indispensable for production, as at harvest-time. Yet the army exists for the nation, and not the nation for the army, just in the same way as the government for the people, and not the people for the government." In the general assembly of Christian Social Associations, held at Essen, on the 29th June, 1870, Herr Witte, one of the delegates, thus enumerates the forces at their disposal : “ Fif teen thousand Catholic peasants are already federated in Bavaria. Fifteen thousand farms form a solid basis of opera tions from which to obtain possession of the country districts. We shall soon have as many, or even more, in Westphalia and in the Rhine country. A hundred thousand master-workmen range themselves under our flag, and eighty thousand gallant journeymen of the Kolpings-Vereine offer us their services. Our societies will soon count their members by hundreds of thousands. We have already a goodly army, and it is only the commencement. Thirty thousand German priests have just put their hands to the work. I foresee a brilliant future.” All this army, of w^hich the orator spoke, was sent forth to the ballot by the clergy, and at the elections by universal suffrage for the Imperial Parliament, in 1870, it gained more than one victory. Thus, at Elberfeld, it beat the Social Democrats, although the latter were on their own ground. In 1871 a ministerial rescript pronounced the dissolution of the peasant clubs of Westphalia, as constituting illegal political associations. They were, however, immediately reconstituted under the name of “ Union of Westphalian Peasants " ( West falische Bauernverein), and, under the presidency of that mem ber of the Ultramontane Centre whom we have already men tioned, Baron von Schorlemer-Alst, the number of members

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