264 
THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
The Evolutionist-Collectivists or Possibilists are much the 
most numerous among the Socialist working men, and they 
are continually gaining ground on the Irreconcilables, the Anar 
chists and Jacobins, who look upon them as traitors and 
cowards. In order to give a more precise idea of their 
principles, I shall here reproduce the most important passages 
from one of their programmes issued at the National Congress 
at Havre in 1880 :— 
“Whereas the emancipation of the productive classes is the emancipa 
tion of all human beings irrespective of sex or race, and whereas the producers 
can never be really free until they possess the means of production, and 
whereas there are only two forms under which the means of production can 
belong to them . (i) the individual form, which has never existed as a general 
fact, and which is being more and more circumscribed by industrial prepress ; 
(2) the collective form, the material and intellectual elements of which are 
furnished by the very growth of capitalistic society : the French Socialist 
working men, while announcing, as the aim of their efforts regarding the 
economic order, a return to the collective ownership of all the means of 
production, have decided to take part in elections with the following 
programme :— 
“ Economic Progra7nme. 
‘ (i) One day of rest in the week ; reduction of the labour of adults to 
eight hours per day ; prohibition of the employment of children under 
fourteen years of age in factories. (2) A minimum rate of wages to be fixed 
by law every year according to the local price of food. (3) Equal wages 
for the two sexes, for equal work. (4) General, scientific, and professional 
education of all children, who should be maintained at the cost of the State 
and the Communes. (5) Maintenance by the Community of old people 
and disabled workmen. (6) Liability of employers for accidents. (7) 
Workmen to have a voice as to the speeial regulations of factories. (8) 
Revision of all contracts that have alienated public property (e.g. banks, rail 
ways, mines), and the management of the State workshops to be entrusted 
to those working in them. (9) Abolition of indirect taxes, and the substitu 
tion of a progressive tax on all incomes exceeding 3000 frs. (;¿'i2o). 
Suppression of all hereditary succession, except in the direct line to the 
extent of 20,000 frs. {£^qo). (io) Reconstitution of Communal property, 
(il) Application by the municipalities of funds at their disposal to the 
construction on Communal lands of buildings of various kinds, such as 
working men s houses, stores for the deposit of goods, etc., to be let to the 
inhabitants without profit to the municipalities.”