the last election. It may have its faults, but it has one shining merit, and that is that it makes impossible the election of a candidate who is objectionable to a majority of the party members. The present National Executive Committee was elected under provisions very similar to those which the Milwaukee motion seeks to restore, and each member was elected by a minority of the votes, the majority scattering their votes among a multitude of candidates. Victor L. Berger of Milwaukee received the highest number of votes at the last election, but he fell far short of a majority. At the next election, if the referendum is defeated and the present section of the constitution stands, he will, if a candidate, have to choose in which one of seven columns on the ballot his name is to stand. All other candidates who choose can have their names placed in this same column. Each voter will then be required to number the names in each column in the order of his preference, and the candidate opposite whose name the sum-total of figures is lowest will be elected. Now we believe, and we think Comrade Berger is aware, that there are several thousand party members who, if there are thirty candidates in his column, will take pleasure in writing the figures 30 opposite his name. And this is not at all because we attribute improper motives to him or wish him out of the party. On the contrary we have the highest regard for his personal qualities and want to work with him. But we think his views on tactics are inconsistent with the revolutionary aims of the Socialist Party. Of course, the preferential ballot is a two-edged sword that will cut both ways. The Milwaukee comrades, and those who agree with them as to tactics, will doubtless write the largest possible figures opposite the names of those who are known to be uncompromising revolutionists. Thus such comrades as have not thus far been prominent in the controversies over tactics may head the ballot. But even so, this is better than the discarded system which Local Milwaukee would re-enact. For the tendency of the old system was to haphazard voting, each member marking the names of personal friends, or of traveling speakers whom he may have heard or admired. The system of preferential voting will encourage members to look into the public record of each candidate, and see whether he stands for the tactics which the voter believes to be the best for the party. By all means let us vote down the Milwaukee referendum. The Des Moines Referendum. It may be worth while to add a few words on the referendum of Local Des Moines, which is sent out simultaneously with that of Local Milwaukee, since both may receive the necessary number of seconds and be presented for voting at the same time. The proposition, so far as the Constitution is concerned, is far less objectionable, in fact, it is in many respects an improvement on the section in the present constitution. It preserves the principle of preferential voting, and would prevent our present government by minority as effectually as the constitution which it is proposed to amend. It contains, however, a provision for printing the list of candidates on the ballot over and over, as many times as there are candidates. This opens the way to endless confusion both in the marking. and the counting of the ballots. We believe one election should be held under the constitution as it stands; then there will be time enough to amend. Local Portland's referendum, which the Review was almost alone in publicly commending, received nearly 40 per cent. of the votes on its main proposition, and some of its provisions will have to be included in the constitution before long. Meanwhile, let us try the tool we have and see how it works. Postoffice Socialism. No reader of the REVIEW should overlook the stirring events in France, related in our department of International Notes. It is not many years since most of the people in America who thought they were socialists imagined that the postoffice was a small section of socialism already arrived, and that if postoffice methods could only be extended to take in the whole of industry, "the people" would have gained a final victory, and all would be peace and happiness for ever and ever. Most of these comrades have already learned better, but to the few who cling to those ideals, the news from France must come as a rude awakening. The class struggle between wage-workers and capitalists is a stubborn fact that keeps asserting itself in the most persistent and troublesome ways. The wage-workers are obliged to sell their laborpower for a small fraction of what they produce, and they are becoming aware of the fact. Once awakened, they are wholly indifferent to the question of whether the employer that exploits them is a capitalist corporation or a capitalist government; in either case they are ready to fight for better pay and better working conditions. Events in France show that a capitalist government is as ready to fight back as a capitalist corporation. And the moral for socialists is that we may well leave to capitalistic reformers the agitation for extending the functions of government to take in the operation of additional industries. That will come fast enough. Our task, as a party, will be to protect the employes in such industries, as well as the employes of privately owned industries, in their right to organize and to strike. The experience of France may soon be duplicated here. FRANCE. The Government vs. the Workingclass. During the past month the eyes of the civilized world have been centered on France. It is significant that what was passing there, the thing that everyone instinctively felt to be of supreme moment, was neither a military campaign nor an election. The capitalist world knows where the vital struggle of modern society is taking place. talks a good deal about politics and war, but it is the conflict between employers and employed that makes the cold shivers run up and down its spinal cord. The capitalist may well be proud of his classconsciousness. He has few illusions It about the class struggle. Our great American newspapers, for example, have openly recognized from the beginning that in the battle now going on in Paris, the French government represent the bourgeois power of the world. And when, on April 25th, a delegation of French postal employes reached Brussels with the intention of attending a convention of their Belgian confreres, they were met by the police and told to take the next train back to France. More important still is the evidence of an understanding between the English and French governments with regard to the policy of the French ministry. It is understood that this matter was made the subject of discussion on the occasion of King Edward's last visit to Paris. It behooves workingmen to see at least as clearly as the capitalists; to understand that it is their fight that is being waged on the other side the water. Recent events in Paris furnish an excellent opportunity to study the forces of modern society. France is industrially less developed than America, but French men of every class are keenly alive to social tendencies. More than this, French capitalists are not as good politicians as their American prototypes; they express their views and reveal their purposes with a brutal frankness. For both these reasons the French situation offers a good chance to gauge the temper of the capitalist mind, to discover the direction of bourgeois industrial and political organization. On the other hand, here we can learn from actual observation how the proletariat must conduct its fight, where it must concentrate its energy. On the capitalist side two things have been noticeable from the beginning. The first of these is that the majority of the members of the Chamber of Deputies have not even pretended to represent the workingclass. If the 10,000 employes of the post and telegraph were the only workers concerned this attitude on the part of the deputies would not be remarkable. Government employees have long been regarded as the property of the ministry. They are even forced to vote in favor of the government that happens to be in power. Their days are long, their wages are small, they are denied the rights accorded to other workersand have been from the beginning. So they have little to expect in the way of attention. If they stood alone it would be quite natural for the ministry to say, as it actually did, that it was defending the nation as a whole against the demands of a small group. But the working class all over the country made it very clear that it sided with the strikers; that hundreds of thousands of workers were in favor of granting the demands of the postal employes. Did this have any effect? Not the least-till Paris was isolated and business had almost come to a standstill. Not till business was interefered with did the majority of the deputies take notice. On March 22nd, just before the final agreement was concluded, M. Clemenceau told a committee of the strikers that he could not consider the dismissal of M. Simyan, the offending under-secretary; and as to the other demands, he could promise no reform in the treatment of employes-in fact all he could do was to make a declaration of personal good will; the government would be generous! There was not even the least pretense to sympathy or justice. And this attitude of M. Clemenceau the Chamber of Deputies supported by a vote of 344 to 138. But another feature of the governmental policy is even more instructive. the terms of the agreement which ended the first strike were made as vague as possible, and no sooner had the strike been called off than the Prime Minister recommenced his old tactics. Promises counted for nothing; he seemed bent on avenging himself by humiliating the workers. He had given his word for example, not to prosecute anyone for participation in the activities of the strike. On the day that saw the end of the struggle the strikers had had put up posters proclaiming their victory and saying that the work of M. Simyan was to be undone, that he was no longer to be recognized as their superior. At that time, of course, M. Simyan had been so disgraced that everyone took for granted that he was to be dropped. On the 25th M. Clemenceau sent out official notice to the effect that the authors of this poster were to be discovered and punished. Fortunately the employes had anticipated something of this sort; their committee was still intact and they were ready for action. Immediately a great protest meetiong was called and a delegation waited on M. Clemenceau. On the 26th the matter was violently debated in the Chamber. Jaurés was at his best and the ministry was hard put to it for excuses. Finally a motion was passed in favor of giving associations of govern ment employes a legal status, but denying the right to strike. The next day M. Clemenceau backed down completely so far as the affair of the poster was concerned. But just a month later his old policy was again put into operation. Seven postal employes were summoned by per sonal letter and informed that they would be expected to appear before a court to answer to a variety of charges. One was accused of having spoken in a public meeting in favor of organizing a May Day celebration in conjunction with workingmen not governmental employes! Another was to answer for the same crime and in addition to explain why he had called MM. Clemenceau and Briand renegades. The other crimes recited were of like nature. These seven governmental employes had called meetings, advocated working class solidarity and denounced the ministry. No other misdemeanors were alleged-except that in one case a man was charged with having advocated antimilitarism and antipatriotism. On April 30th the ministry formally decided to bring the seven up for trial, and on the following day they were suspended. The trial was set for May 8th. On May 3d a number of other employes were suspended on similar charges. The latest French paper I have seen bears the date of May 7th, so I do not know the details of the trial. But if we may judge from subsequent events it seems clear that the accused were found guilty. This recital makes it plain that the government did not keep its pledges. If it did not promise to dismiss M. Simyan, it certainly did engage itself to reform the administration of the postal department and to refrain from the persecution 1 of individual employes. And these things stake. (3) The government has proved it has not done. Meantime the employes have been alive to every turn in the situation. The attacks of March 25th and April 27th were met by the calling of monster protest meetings. On May 6th a formal statement of the case against the government was printed and spread broadcast. The acts of the ministry were recited in detail and the men were warned to hold themselves ready for another strike. On the same day a committee of employes' association, having been denied an audience by M. Clemenceau, replied by taking the steps necessary to organization as a syndicat, or regular labor union, with the rights of other labor organizations. This deliberate act meant a new struggle. The chamber of deputies took up the whole matter for discussion, but without coming to any conclusion. there was nothing left but to declare a strike; and this was done on May 11th. Enthusiastic meetings were held, and the support of the working class was even more nearly unanimous than before. So At the present writing (May 21st) the struggle is still on. The government is better prepared than it was in case of the former strike. In connection with chambers of commerce, banks, etc., it has arranged a temporary mail service. The general strike which was called ended in apparent failure. Just what the immediate outcome will be it is impossible to say. In the meantime a number of things seem certain. (1) Whatever the immediate result the struggle will go on. The government is blindly determined, and the working class is thoroughly aroused. (2) The fight is being prosecuted on a strictly revolutionary basis. The ministry maintains that the employes must submit to authority; the employes maintain that they have right to a voice in the management of their department. That is, it is the fundamental principle of capitalist organization which is at before the eyes of all the world the reality of the class-struggle. After what has happened no one can possibly main tain that a republican legislative body represents the interests of the working class. All the deputies except the socialists took their stand openly in favor of breaking pledges made to the workers. (4) Events have shown that the revolutionary strike is the best immediate weapon of the proletariat. Appeals to reason, justice, sympathy-all were ineffective. Everything the employes gained was won by the use of industrial power. (5) A number of bye elections which occurred on April 25th showed that the lessons learned in the industrial conflict are to be applied at the ballot box. The socialist vote was increased beyond all expectations. One real fight in which the politicians were forced to line up and show their colors has done more to enlighten the French people than years of propaganda work. ENGLAND. I. L. P. Tactics. The annual conference of the Independent Labor Party met at Edinborough during the Easter holidays. The debates were heated and their outcome spectacular-so spectacular, in fact, that little else has been talked of recently in English labor and socialist papers. Nevertheless the significance of the whole affair is by no means clear. The discussion, of course, centered round the relation of the I. L. P. to the Labor Party. As was expected, the widespread dissatisfaction with the Labor members of Parliament came to effective expression. In the first place, a motion was introduced to break the alliance with the Labor party and hereafter present I. L. P. candidates as socialists. This motion was lost by a rather large majority. The next move of the malcontents took the form of a resolution in favor of greater independence of action within the alliance. At present the I. L. P. is not permitted to run its |