I have given a fairly detailed account of these affrays—they were no less—between Clemenceau and the Socialists because they are of great importance, not only as explaining the vehement hostility which has since existed between them, but because the points at issue affect every civilised country to a greater or less degree. Capital and labour, capitalists and wage-earners, are at variance everywhere. Their antagonism can no more be averted or bridged over than could the class struggle between land and slave-owners and their chattel slaves, or the nobles and their serfs. Only the slow process of social evolution leading up to revolution can solve the problem. Meanwhile, combination on the one side is met by combination on the other. Outside political action, which is ineffective until the workers themselves understand how to use it, there is no weapon for the wage-earners or wage-slaves but the strike. They suffer, even when they win, far more than the capitalists or employers, who are only deprived of the right to make profits out of their hands, while those same hands are undergoing the pangs of hunger and every sort of privation, not only for themselves but for their wives and children.
Arbitration, when the social conditions have reached the stage where this is feasible, may postpone the crucial battle and smooth over the matter temporarily; but it can do no more than that. A step towards this arbitration was made under M. Millerand’s measure declaring strikes illegal unless decreed by a majority of the employees upon a referendum, and the enactment of an arbitration clause. But when strikes actually take place and the men’s blood is up, then comes the real tug-of-war.
Should the State—obviously the capitalist State to-day—interfere to keep order and maintain the right to work for non-strikers, or should it refrain from interference altogether? When Jaurès and the Socialists were challenged to say what they would do under the circumstances, they failed to answer, as already recorded. This put them in a weak position. An opposition must have a policy which it would be prepared to act upon if it took office. Socialism, however desirable, could not be realised all at once. But it was open to Clemenceau, as to any other Minister entrusted with full powers by the State, to bring at least as much pressure to bear upon the capitalists and employers as upon the strikers, and to insist that they should yield to the demands of the men and continue to work the mines, out of which, by the purchase of the labour-power of the pitmen, they had derived such huge profits. This course was not adopted by the Minister of the Interior, nor does it seem to have been demanded by Jaurès. The troubles in the wine districts arose from different economic causes, and had to be dealt with in a different way. But the truth is that, in periods of transition, no Government can go right. It was Clemenceau’s lot to have to govern at such a period of transition.
[CHAPTER XV]
STRENGTH AND WEAKNESS OF CLEMENCEAU
Strikes and anarchist troubles, however, formidable as they were in the North and in the South, were by no means the only serious difficulties which Clemenceau had to cope with, first as Minister of the Interior and then as Premier. The danger from Germany, as he well knew, was ever present. Anxious as France was to avoid misunderstandings which might easily lead to war, eager as the Radical leader might be to enlarge upon the folly and wickedness of strife between two contiguous civilised peoples, who could do so much for one another, it was always possible for the German Government to put the Republic in such a position that the alternative of humiliation or hostilities must be faced. Less than a year before Clemenceau accepted office, the German Kaiser himself had taken a most provocative step in Morocco, the object of which can now be clearly seen. Germany had no real interests in Morocco worthy of the name. Several years later the German Minister of Foreign Affairs pooh-poohed the idea that Germany, distant from Morocco as she was, with only 200 Germans in the country, and not more than £200,000 worth of yearly commerce, all told, with the inhabitants, could be concerned about political matters in that Mohammedan kingdom.
With France the case was very different. Algeria was adjacent to the territories of the Sultan of Morocco, and, if the wild tribes on the frontier were stirred up against the infidel, the most important French colony was threatened with serious disturbance. It was all-important for France, therefore, that there should be a government at Fez strong enough and enlightened enough to keep peace on the border. Clemenceau, who had always been so stern an opponent of colonial adventures, and had overthrown several Cabinets which he considered were prone to encourage harmful exploits, had himself spoken out very plainly about Morocco. Long before capitalist interests were involved on any large scale the French ownership of Algeria necessitated a definite Moroccan policy. This again brought with it the obligation of constant pressure upon the Sultan to induce him to consider French interests. These interests could be harmonised with those of Spain and Great Britain, and were so settled by special agreements in April, 1904, just a year before the German Emperor’s coup de théâtre startled the world. France’s special interests in Morocco were thus recognised all round, and Germany, far from raising any objection, expressly disclaimed any desire to interfere, so long as “the open door” was left for German goods. But the general antagonism between France and Germany was a matter of common knowledge.
It was natural, therefore, that the Sultan of Morocco, alarmed lest French attempts to introduce “order” and “good government” into his realm might end, as it had always done elsewhere, by destroying his independence, should appeal to the Kaiser, who had proclaimed his sympathy for the Moslem, to help him against the less sympathetic infidel. For a long time these appeals fell upon deaf ears. Even when the Kaiser visited Gibraltar, after an interview with the King of Spain, he refused pressing invitations to cross the Straits and meet envoys of the Moroccan potentate at Tangier. This was in March, 1904. But in March, 1905, when everything looked peaceful, the Kaiser went to Tangier in the Hohenzollern, landed with an imposing suite, met the uncle of the Sultan, who came as a special envoy to the German Emperor, and addressed him in the following terms:—