Articles by Engels in the Labour Standard 1881

Two Model Town Councils


We have promised our readers to keep them informed
of the working men's movements abroad as well as at home. We have now and
then been enabled to give some news from America, and today we are in a
position to communicate some facts from France -- facts of such importance
that they well deserve being discussed in our leading columns.

In France they do not know the numerous systems of public voting
which are still in use in this country. Instead of having one kind of suffrage
and mode of voting for Parliamentary elections, another for municipal,
a third for vestry elections and so forth, plain Universal Suffrage and
vote by ballot are the rule everywhere. When the Socialist Working Men's
Party was formed in France, [1] it was resolved to nominate
working men's candidates not only for Parliament, but also for all municipal
elections; and, indeed, at the last renewal of Town Councils for France,
which took place on January 9 last, the young party was victorious in a
great number of manufacturing towns and rural, especially mining, communes.
They not only carried individual candidates, they managed in some places
to obtain the majority in the councils, and one council, at least, as we
shall see, was composed of none but working men. [2]

Shortly before the establishment of the Labour Standard,
there was a strike of factory operatives in the town of Roubaix, close
on the Belgian frontier. The Government at once sent troops to occupy the
town, and thereby, under the pretext of maintaining order (which was never
menaced), tried to provoke the people on strike to such acts as might serve
as a pretext for the interference of the troops. But the people remained
quiet, and one of the principal causes which made them resist all provocations
was the action of the Town Council. This was composed, in its majority,
of working men. The subject of the strike was brought before it, and amply
discussed. The result was that the Council not only declared the men on
strike to be in the right, but also actually voted the sum of 50,000
francs, or £2,000, in support of the strikers That subsidy could
not be paid, as according to French law the prefect of the department has
the right to annul any resolutions of Town Councils which he may consider
as exceeding their powers. But nevertheless the strong moral support thus
given to the strike by the official representation of the township was
of the greatest value to the workmen.

On June 8 the Mining Company of Commentry, in the centre of France
(Department Allier), discharged 152 men who refused to submit to new and
more unfavourable terms. This being part of a system employed for some
time for the gradual introduction of worse terms of work, the whole of
the miners, about 1,600, struck. The Government at once sent the usual
troops to overawe or provoke the strikers. But the Town Council here, too,
at once took up the cause of the men. In their meeting of June 12 (a Sunday
to boot) they passed resolutions to the following effect: --

1. Whereas it is the duty of society to ensure the existence of those
who, by their work, permit the existence of all; and whereas if the State
refuses to fulfil this duty the communes are bound to fulfil it, this Council
resolves to take up a loan of 25,000 francs (£1000) with the consent
of the highest rated inhabitants, which sum is to be devoted for the benefit
of the miners whom the unjustifiable discharge of 152 of their body has
compelled to strike work.

Carried unanimously, against the veto of the Mayor alone.

2. Whereas the State, in selling the valuable national property of
the mines of Commentry to a joint-stock company, has thereby handed over
the workmen there employed to the tender mercies of the said company; and
whereas, consequently, the State is bound to see that the oppression exercised
by the company upon the miners is not carried to a degree threatening their
very existence; whereas however, the State, by placing troops at the disposal
of the company during the present strike, has not even preserved its neutrality,
but taken sides with the company,

This Council, in the name of the working-class interests which
it is its duty to protect, calls upon the sub-prefect of the district.

To recall at once the troops whose presence, entirely uncalled for, is
a mere provocation; and

To intervene with the manager of the company and induce him to revoke the
measure which has caused the strike.

Carried unanimously.

In a third resolution, also carried unanimously, the Council,
fearing that the poverty of the commune will frustrate the loan voted above,
opens a public subscription in aid of the strikers, and appeals to all
the other municipal councils of France to send subsidies for the same object.

Here, then, we have a striking proof of the presence of working
men, not only in Parliament, but also in municipal and all other local
bodies. How differently would many a strike in England terminate if the
men had the Town Council of the locality to back them! The English Town
Councils and Local Boards, elected to a great extent by working men, consist
at present almost exclusively of employers, their direct and indirect agents
(lawyers, etc.), and at the best, of shopkeepers. No sooner does a strike
or lock-out occur than all the moral and material power of the local authorities
is employed in favour of the masters and against the men; even the police,
paid out of the pockets of the men, are employed exactly as in France the
troops are used, to provoke them into illegal acts and hunt them down.
The Poor Law authorities in most cases refuse relief to men who, in their
opinion, might work if they liked. And naturally so. In the eyes of this
class of men, whom the working people suffer to form the local authorities,
a strike is an open rebellion against social order, an outrage against
the sacred rights of property. And therefore, in every strike or lock-out
all the enormous moral and physical weight of the local authorities is
placed in the masters' scale so long as the working class consent to elect
masters and masters' representatives to local elective bodies!

We hope that the action of the two French Town Councils will open
the eyes of many. Shall it be for ever said, and of the English working
men too, that "they manage these things better in France"? The English
working class, with its old and powerful organisation, its immemorial political
liberties, its long experience of political action, has immense advantages
over those of any continental country. Yet the Germans could carry twelve
working class representatives for Parliament, [3] and
they as well as the French have the majority in numerous Town Councils.
True, the suffrage in England is restricted; but even now the working class
has a majority in all large towns and manufacturing districts. They have
only to will it, and that potential majority becomes at once an effective
one, a power in the State, a power in all localities where working people
are concentrated. And if you once have working men in Parliament, in the
Town Councils and Local Boards of Guardians, [4] etc.,
how long will it be ere you will have also working men magistrates, capable
of putting a spoke in the wheel of those Dogberries who now so often ride
roughshod over the people?