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,*” 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.**” 

Shortly before the establishment of the Labour Standard, there 
was a Strike of factory operatives m 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 

Two Model Town Councils 395 

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 (£1,000) 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. 

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

2. 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,*““* 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,” etc., how long will it be ere you will have also 
working men magistrates, capable of putting a spoke in the wheels 
of those Dogberries who now so often ride roughshod over the 
people?