against proletarian violence; and in order to heighten their prestige as humanitarians they never fail to shun all contact with anarchists; sometimes, even, they shun this contact with an abruptness which is not without a certain mixture of cowardice and hypocrisy.
When Millerand was the unquestioned chief of the Socialist party in Parliament, he advised his party to be afraid to frighten; and, as a matter of fact, Socialist deputies would obtain very few votes if they did not manage to convince the general public that they are very reasonable people, great enemies of the old practices of bloody men, and solely occupied in meditating on the philosophy of future law. In a long speech given on October 8, 1905, at Limoges, Jaurès strove to reassure the middle class much more than had been done hitherto; he informed them that victorious Socialism would show princely generosity, and that he was studying the different ways in which the former holders of property might be indemnified. A few years ago Millerand promised indemnities to the poor (Petite République, March 25, 1898); now everybody will be put on the same footing, and Jaurès assures us that Vandervelde has written things on this subject full of profundity. I am quite willing to take his word for it!
The social revolution is conceived by Jaurès as a kind of bankruptcy; substantial annuities will be given to the middle class of to-day: then from generation to generation these annuities will decrease. These plans must often seem very alluring to financiers accustomed to draw great advantages from bankruptcies; I have no doubt that the shareholders of L'Humanité think these ideas marvellous; they will be made liquidators of the bankruptcy, and will pocket large fees, which will compensate them for the losses which this newspaper has caused them.
In the eyes of the contemporary middle class every-
