The Spell of Belgium

by Isabel Anderson

The Belgian Constitution provides for two kinds of schools, State and “free.” The latter, corresponding to private schools in our country, were not under Government control, and were, indeed, generally under the management of the clergy. Prior to 1878 the Church had also, step by step, gained a certain amount of influence in the State schools, but in that year the Liberals came into power and suppressed clerical inspection. As a result of this, six years later, the Liberals went down to defeat and did not regain their power. From that time on, the curriculum of the State schools included religious instruction, although it was not compulsory.

It seems strange now to remember that only a very short time ago one of the burning issues in Belgium was militarism. Then they were facing much the same question which is before us today in this country: Should they have a large standing army, with all the burden of service and taxation that it entailed, or should they try the system in use in Switzerland? There every man is equipped, and drilled for a short time each year, but there is only a very small regular army. The Belgians compromised by blocking up all the entrances to their country by means of strong fortifications, with the idea that no invader would gain enough by crossing their territory to make it worth the trouble. If they had had the army too, the story might have had a somewhat different ending.

The year that we were there, there was much fear as to the result of the elections. The talk was such as to make you feel that the end of the world was at hand if the Clericals failed to win, and that if they did win, there would surely be a revolution. Our own papers had greatly exaggerated accounts of the trouble in Brussels following the elections, with stories of sieges and revolutions and all kinds of violence. But although the riots themselves amounted to little, they were of such significance as a part of the general social and political unrest throughout the world that I insert an account of them here.

The general elections were held in Belgium on Sunday, the second of June, 1913, and resulted in the maintenance in power of the clerical conservative Government. The dissolution had been brought about by the gradually diminishing majority of the Clericals in Parliament till they had kept themselves in office by an excess in the Chamber of Deputies of only six votes.

It was expected that the elections would be very close, owing to the alliance which had been formed for this campaign between the two opposition parties of Liberals and Socialists. It was the surprise of the election that the returns for the new Parliament showed a substantial gain for the party in power. It seemed that the Clericals had come back from the country with a majority of sixteen in the Chamber, while in the Senate their supremacy was also maintained.

An explanation of these gains was afterwards found in the defection of many Liberals at the last moment because they feared the alliance with the Socialists and preferred, after all, as the lesser of the two evils, the Clerical ministry, such as Belgium had prospered under for nearly thirty years. Liberal officers of the army could not bear alliance with the anti-monarchical party, moreover, and the high finance and commerce—the Liberal bourgeoisie—feared radical changes.

The defeated parties raised the cry of corruption, and of the advantage which the plural vote gave the government forces, since it was the educated and official classes and the rural population which benefited by the allowance of a second or third vote. Afterwards a more active campaign than ever was waged in favour of the “one man, one vote” suffrage by those out of power. Throughout the rural communities the Clericals developed a well-organized machine in the “Boerenbonden,” or agricultural syndicates, which might have been subventions of the Government but were generally in the hands of the priests.

A more immediate result of the conclusive character of the elections was that many of the demonstrations that were feared in case of a close vote lapsed through lack of heart and of excuse for agitation. The Government had expressed a determination to maintain the peace, and troops were held in readiness in their barracks; civil guards were also ordered under arms during certain hours of the day when trouble was especially likely, and were bivouacked in the parks and the courts of public buildings, as evidence to the people of serious preparations for the repression of disorder.

There were small riots in Brussels, resulting in a few wounds and arrests, but these seem to have been more or less formal, and the work of the rougher element. In some of the other cities, especially in the industrial parts of Belgium, and in the Borinage, or colliery district, there were disorders and strikes more or less serious. In Liège there was a riot with several deaths resulting.

But everywhere the result of the election was accepted more quietly than had been feared. The leaders of the defeated parties showed selfcontrol and attempted to restrain their following, so that the rioting and strikes were more the result of the excitement of the masses, who were taking advantage of the excuse which politics always gives for breaking out into disorder, than of agitation with any immediate political effect in view.