Clemenceau, the Man and His Time

by H. M. Hyndman

Taking a wide view of the whole question, I hold Jaurès’s opinion to be the right one. But Clemenceau had to deal with an immediate practical difficulty of a very serious kind indeed. The lights went out at six o’clock. Night was coming on. No time could be lost in negotiating with the engineers. Still less was nightfall the period when a public service could be instituted in hot haste. The matter was settled in that form and for that occasion. But none the less the real point at issue was not thus easily disposed of. Clemenceau was right in preventing Paris from being left all night in darkness. Jaurès was right in claiming that the State should have a more definite and consistent policy than that of dealing with differences between wage-earners and employers by such hand-to-mouth methods.

It was just at this point that, notwithstanding all adverse criticisms in regard to the instability of Ministries, and the scenes of apparent disorder which sometimes arise, the French National Assembly displayed its immense superiority to the Parliaments of other countries when serious matters of principle were involved. The desire to get to the bottom of a really dangerous question, to hear the arguments on both sides taken, as far as possible, out of the narrow limits of personal or party politics, puts the French Assembly on a very high level. From the point of view of economic development France is far behind Great Britain, America and Germany. The great factory industry and the legislation growing out of it are not nearly so far advanced. But, in the wish and endeavour to investigate the principles upon which the future regulation of society must proceed, France gives the lead.

This openness of mind and anxiety to let both views have fair play have grown under the Republic in a wonderful way. Where else in the world would men of all parties and all sections allow the two chief orators of the Left—Jaurès, the Socialist leader of the opposition, Clemenceau, the Individualist Minister—to debate out at length, in two long sittings, the issues between genuine Socialism and that nondescript reformist Collectivism which goes by the name of Socialistic Radicalism: the latter really meaning, to Socialists, capitalism palliated by State bureaucracy.

This was indeed a great oratorical duel, and those who contend that oratory has lost its significance and virtue in modern times would have to admit that they were wrong, not only in this particular case, but in regard to other speeches delivered by the two chief disputants afterwards. The debate itself was a contrast between styles just as it was a conflict of principles. Jaurès was an orator of great power and wonderful capacity for stirring the emotions. His voice, his face, his gestures, his method of argument and fusing of forcible contentions into one compact whole made so great an impression that he could capture a large audience with the same ease, even on subjects remote from the immediate matter of his address—as once he held the Assembly entranced by a long digression on music in the course of a fine speech on the tendencies of the time.

If it might be urged that he occasionally used too many words to express his meaning, this was easily forgiven by his countrymen, on account of his admirable turn of phrase and his understanding use of the modulations of the French language. However prejudiced his hearers might be against him (and his personal appearance was not such as to disarm an opponent), they had only to listen to Jaurès for ten minutes to feel interested in what he had to say. From this to admiration and excitement was no long step. Short, stout and somewhat cumbrous in figure, wearing trousers nearly halfway up his calves, with a broad, humorous, rather coarse face, his eyes full of expression and not wanting in fun, troubled with a curious twitching on the right cheek which affected his eye with a sort of wink, Jaurès was certainly not the personality anyone would have fixed upon as the greatest master of idealist and economic Socialist oratory in France, and perhaps in Europe. But his sincerity, his eloquence soon overcame these drawbacks on the platform and in the tribune, just as his bonhomie and good-fellowship did in private life. He had been a Professor of Literature in the University of Toulouse, and was a man of wide cultivation. But his learning never made him pedantic, nor did his great success turn his head. Gifted with extraordinary vitality, his powers of work were quite phenomenal. To say that he “toiled like a galley-slave,” for the cause to which he devoted himself, was no exaggeration. Yet he was always fresh, always in good spirits, always ready to contribute wit and vivacity to any company in which he found himself. Add to this much practical good sense in the conduct of his party and the affairs of the world, and all must admit that in Jaurès the Socialist party of France had a worthy chief and Clemenceau a worthy antagonist. The galleries, like the Assembly itself, were always crowded when either orator was expected to address the House.

Jaurès dealt with the development of society from the chaos of conflicting classes and mutual antagonisms to the co-ordination of common effort for the common good. This can and should be a peaceful social evolution. Property for all means a universal share, not only in politics, but in the production and the distribution of wealth. This could not be obtained under the conditions of to-day, where those who possessed no property but the labour in their bodies were at the mercy of the classes who possessed all else; where only by strikes in which the State took the side of the employers could the wage-earners obtain an infinitesimal portion of their rights. By collectivism, leading up to Socialism and general co-operation, every individual would have a direct interest in and be benefited by the general social increase of wealth, due to the growing powers of man to produce what is useful and beneficial to all.

Socialism substitutes order for anarchy, joint action of every member of society for the mutual antagonism which is now the rule. Legal expropriation with compensation will gradually put the community in control of its own resources. Our task is to convince the small proprietor and the small bourgeoisie that they will benefit by the coming transformation. Incessant social reform on Socialist lines would lead to the realisation of Socialist ideals in a practical shape. Such strikes as that at Courrières, followed by the military intervention of the State, at M. Clemenceau’s direction, and repression of the strikers, displayed the injustice of the existing system and proclaimed the necessity for accepting the higher view of social duty by which all would benefit and none would suffer.

The speech thus briefly summarised was delivered at two sittings of the Chamber, and was listened to with profound attention by those present, the great majority of whom were directly opposed to Socialist views. No higher tribute could have been paid.

Clemenceau rose to reply to the Socialist leader a few days later. Twenty years had passed over his head since I last described his personal appearance, his vigorous individuality and his incisive, clear-cut, witty conversation and oratory. Time had affected him little. He was still the same energetic and determined but ordinarily cool political fighter that he had shown himself in the eighties of the last century. His head was now bald, and his moustache grey, but his eyes looked out from under the heavy white eyebrows with all the old fire, and the alertness of his frame was apparent in his every movement. Though many years older than his Socialist challenger, there was nothing to choose between them in regard to physical and mental vigour. Jaurès had been eloquent and persuasive; he brought in the ideals and the strategy of the future to illuminate the sad truths of the present. He relied upon the history of the past and the hopes of humanity ahead to constitute a policy of preparation for coming generations of Frenchmen, while applying the principles he advocated, as far as possible, to the events of the day. Clemenceau confined his answer, which also extended over two sittings of the Chamber, to the matters immediately in hand and the criticisms on his method of dealing with them. This sense of practicality, not devoid of sympathy with the disinherited classes of our day, gave the Minister of the Interior a great advantage and precisely suited his style. The interval between the two speeches also told in favour of Clemenceau. The ring of Jaurès’s fine sentences had died down in the meantime. His glorious aspirations were discounted hour by hour by the continuance of the conflict, whose existence he himself could not but admit, which formed, in fact, part of his case, and in a way strengthened his indictment. Yet this had to be dealt with all the same.

Clemenceau began his oration with a glowing tribute to Jaurès’s passion for social justice. But his magnificent eloquence has eliminated the whole of the bad side of life. He rises to the empyrean, whence he surveys creation through a roseate atmosphere which is raised far above plain facts. “For myself, I am compelled to remain in the valley where all the events which Jaurès leaves out of his picture are actually taking place. That accounts for the difference in our perspective. I am accused of attacking the workers and of doing worse than other Governments. I have never attacked the workers, I have never done them wrong. The duty of the Government is to maintain tranquillity. This I have done without injury to the toilers, though I had to face 85,000 strikers in the Pas de Calais and 115,000 in Paris—the largest number ever known on strike at the same time in France. I went down to Courrières to ensure liberty. We have all of us here to go through our education in Liberty. Education is not a matter of words, but of deeds. Those deeds form part of the education. The working classes become worthy of taking over the responsibility of Government for themselves when their own deeds are in accordance with the law. If speeches alone could teach administration, the Sermon on the Mount would have dictated practical politics for centuries.