'This committee, he says in his Report, took the matter in hand in 1883, and spent five years over it, getting its project of a law on these subjects into shape only in 1888, on the eve of the election of a new Chamber of Deputies!
'During these five long years, according to Brother Doumer, the Republic was content to let co-operation among working-men take its chances under a law passed in 1867, under the Second Empire. And yet, according still to Brother Doumer, the idea of co-operation among the working classes was an exclusively French idea, and not only an exclusively French idea, but an idea which came to birth only under the Republic of 1848 (he glides silently over the famous experiment of the National workshops of 1848). Is it not really remarkable that the Republicans of 1879 should have been willing to leave this "beautiful and generous" idea at the mercy of a law passed by the Empire, and which—still according to Brother Doumer—left the co-operative societies of working-men without privileges, without favour, and with no particular facilities for constituting themselves and for keeping themselves alive?
'I say the "Republicans of 1879" advisedly, for you will see, if you look at page 5 of this delightful Report, that—still according to Brother Doumer—we really had no republic, in fact, in France till 1879. These are his own words; "the Republic, having been reconstituted, (after the fall of the Empire) first in name, and afterwards in fact, a new impulse was given to co-operation. The ill-will towards all societies of working-men of the Governments of May 21 and of May 16, retarded the movement. It was only in 1879 that, the wounds of the country having been healed and liberty reconquered, we had leisure to occupy ourselves with the question of the organisation of labour."
'Is not this charming? Really, when one remembers what the "wounds of the country" were in 1871, and how those "wounds" were got first through the collapse of the wretched Government of the National Defence, and then through the Commune of Paris, the Governments of May 21 and May 16 may be credited with having done a good piece of work by "healing those wounds" and by "reconquering liberty." Is not this plain?
'But the "wounds having been healed," and "liberty having been reconquered," the true Republic, still according to Brother Doumer, was set free in 1879, to occupy itself with the question of the organisation of labour. Very good.
'1879! that is ten years ago! And only in 1888 do we find the Republic really occupying itself, in the person of Brother Doumer, with this great question, this beautiful and generous idea! How very odd! And what a strange coincidence that Brother Doumer, elected a deputy by the grace of the freemasons in 1888, and wishing to be re-elected a deputy by their grace in 1889, should be the man of destiny called upon to solve this great question!
'He makes this perfectly plain!
'Two Ministers of Public Works, M. de Freycinet and M. Sadi Carnot,' he blandly observes, 'studied measures which might be taken in view of facilitating the concession to societies of working-men of certain public works!
'Ah! This is hard upon M. de Freycinet and M. Sadi Carnot, now President of the ideal Republic! They "studied," did they, "measures which might be taken"! But they never took any such measures! Oh, no! not they!'
'So the first year of the "true Republic" went by, and still co-operation languished under the Imperial law of 1867. Then in 1880 came M. de Lacretelle, who "presented to the Chambers a proposed law tending" to the same end which M. de Freycinet and M. Sadi Carnot had so unprofitably "studied"! Of course the Chamber eagerly adopted it? Not at all! It was never discussed!