Translator's Introduction
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times voted against the Socialist party, and as Minister was obliged to receive the Czar, the typical representative of autocracy, when he came to Paris. These acts, the Revolutionists maintained, fully proved their contention that any alliance between Socialists and Bourgeois could only tend to weaken the position of the former; and they wished to expel Millerand from the party. The Reformists, while formally censuring him for his anti-Socialist votes, pointed with satisfaction to the practical reforms he instituted while in office, and argued that so much positive gain justified their theory that alliance was a valuable and necessary method of obtaining their ends.[1]
- ↑ See the report of the Bordeaux Congress published by the Société Nouvelle, Paris, 1904. For a German reformist's estimate of the case, see Von Vollmar's address delivered in Dresden in February, 1901, and translated by R. C. K. Ensor in Modern Socialism. Millerand formulated and succeeded in getting passed a law limiting to ten hours the working day in factories where men, women, and children were employed, and in the departments under his immediate control as Minister he instituted the eight-hour day. He also established certain minimum conditions for all labour on contracts for national public works. His special effort, however, was given to the encouragement and recognition of organised labour. He created Labour Councils, the members of which are elected by organised workers and organised employers. These councils form permament boards of arbitration and conciliation, which may be consulted by private concerns, and must be consulted by the State, and they fix the
