The Débat social of February 6 defends the Brussels Association 
Démocratique and its branches.2% We shall permit ourselves a few 
comments on the character of this defence. 

It may well be in the interest of the Belgian radical party to point 
out to the Catholics that they are acting against their own interest in 
denouncing the Belgian radical party. It may well be in the interest 
of the Belgian radical party to distinguish between lower and higher 
clergy and to compensate the clergy in general with compliments for 
the truths it addresses to a part of it. We understand nothing of this. 
We are merely astonished that the Débat could overtook the fact that 
the attacks of the Flemish Catholic papers against the associations 
démocratiques were printed immediately in the Indépendance,? and 
the Indépendance is not, as far as we know, a Catholic newspaper. 

The Débat social declares that the Belgians are demanding political 
reforms through the democratic associations. 

We realise that the Débat has forgotten the cosmopolitan >character 
of the Association Démocratique for a moment. Or perhaps it has 
not even forgotten it. It has merely remembered that a society 
which strives to promote democracy in all countries will work first 
on the country in which it resides. 

The Débat social is not content with saying what the Belgians want 
of the associations démocratiques; it goes further, it says what the 
Belgians do not want of them, what one consequently should not want 

if one belongs to the Association, which the Belgians have founded to 
demand political reforms. Avis aux étrangers!< 

‘The political reforms which the Belgians wish to demand through the democratic 
associations,” says the Débat, ‘‘are not those utopias pursued by certain democrats in 

countries where the social institutions permit no hope of any effective reforms, where 
it is therefore just as reasonable to think of castles in the air as of the modest well-being 
of the already free nations. He who possesses nothing does just as well in dreaming of 
millions at a stroke as of a hundred talers of rent or profit.” 

Here the Débat is evidently speaking of the Communists. 

We should like to ask it if the “modest well-being” of “free” 
England manifests itself in the Poor Rate growing faster than the 
population. 

We should like to ask it if by the “modest well-being of the free 
nations” it understands the destitution in Flanders. 

We should like it to let us into the secret whereby it intends to 
replace wages with a 100 talers of profit or rent. Or does it understand 
by the “modest well-being of the free nations” the modest well-being 
of the free capitalists and landowners? 

We should finally like to ask it if it has been charged by the 
Brussels Association Democratique to give the lie to those utopians 
who do not believe in “the modest happiness of the free nations” 

However, the Débat social is evidently not speaking of Communists 
in general, but of the German Communists, who, because political 
developments in their homeland do not allow them to found a 
German alliance or a German association libérale,?*! sink in despair 
into the arms of communism. 

We remind the Débat that communism originated in England and 
France, and not in Germany. 

German communism is the most determined opponent of all 
utopianism, and far from excluding historical development in fact 
bases itself upon it—for the time being we give this assurance to the 
Débat social in return for its own assurance. 

Germany is retarded in its political development, it still has a long 
political development to undergo. We should be the last to deny this. 
On the other hand, however, we believe that a country of more than 
40 million inhabitants, when it prepares for a revolution, will not 
seek the model for its movement in the radicalism of small free 
countries. 

Does the Débat understand by communism the throwing of class 
antagonisms and of class struggle into sharp relief? In that case, it is 
not communism which is communistic, but political economy and 
bourgeois society. 

We know that Robert Peel has prophesied that the class 
antagonism in modern society must erupt in a terrible crisis.*°? We 
know that Guizot himself in his History of Civilisation* believes he is 

setting forth nothing but particular forms of the class struggle. But 
Peel and Guizot are utopians. Realists are men who regard the mere 
statement of social facts as an offence against benevolent worldly 
wisdom. 

The Débat social is quite free to admire and to idealise North 
America and Switzerland. 

We ask it whether the political constitution of North America 
could ever be introduced in Europe without great social upheavals. 
We believe, for instance, if the Débat will pardon our boldness, that 
the English Charter,”” if it were to be put forward not by individual 
enthusiasts for universal suffrage but by a great national party, 
presupposed a long and arduous unification of the English workers 
into a class, and that this Charter is being striven for with quite 
another purpose and must bring about quite different social 
consequences than the constitution of America or of Switzerland 
ever strove for or ever brought about. In our eyes those people are 
utopians who separate political forms from their social foundation 
and present them as general, abstract dogmas. 

The manner in which the Débat social attempts to defend the 
Association Démocratique by simultaneously eliminating “certain 
democrats” who are dissatisfied with the “modest well-being of the 
free nations” is demonstrated yet again when it comes to speak of the 
discussions on free trade held within the Association." 

“Six sittings,” says the Débat, “were devoted to the discussion of this interesting 
question, and many workers from the various workshops of our city asserted here 
principles which would not have been out of place at the famous congress of 
economists held in Brussels in September last.” * 

Before this the Débat notes that the Association voted almost 
unanimously that absolute free trade between all nations should be 
considered as a goal of democracy. 

After this, in the same issue of the Débat we find a thoroughly 
commonplace speech by M. Le Hardy de Beaulieu, scraped together 
from the most decayed leavings of the English free-trade cookshop. 

And to round off, Cobden is glorified.*” 

After this presentation in the Débat social, will anyone doubt that 
the Association voted by a great majority for free trade in the sense 
of the Congress of Economists and of the bourgeois free traders?