This is why thoughtful Socialists the world over, including several of the Belgian leaders (Vandervelde, Huysmans, De Brouckère and Bertrand) have been so dubious about the strike. They have seen that the burden of the contest will fall about equally on employers and employes. But the Liberal employers are playing for a splendid stake—Belgium; while the Socialists are playing only for such incidental and secondary benefits as will accrue to them from Liberal control of the country. Naturally they have had far more dread of the costs and risks which the strike involves.
But whether the strike was to be lost or won it has been clear that it would interest the world’s millions of Socialists more deeply than ever in the possibilities and the limitations of the general strike.
All Socialists favor the political general strike, most Socialists favor the general strike against war—including the conservatives like Keir Hardie and Jean Jaurès. The moderate Swedes had an economic general strike a few years ago and this form is favored also by the majority of French and Italian labor unionists. And now the British unionists are voting on the question whether they will all quit work each day after eight hours—which would mean a general lock-out, or practically a general strike.
Whether the Belgians win or lose will not affect the momentum of the movement. If they win, general strikes for a few years will take a predominantly political character, and we shall see the general political strike resumed in Hungary within a few months and doubtless declared in Prussia before many years. If they lose these British, French and Italian movements toward economic general strikes will have the field.
The historian of the future when writing of our generation will have to give a central position—perhaps the central position—to the general strike.
[1]. See The Survey for October 5, 1912.
[2]. It is now reported that the opponents of the law, which goes into effect August 1, have started an effort to secure the 19,535 signatures necessary for a petition to have the law submitted to a referendum vote.
[3]. Drawn from a case record of the New York Charity Organization Society.
[4]. Number based not on total number of cases but on scholarship, conduct and attendance cases, respectively.