into connection with the employers, and by furnishing them with opportunities of taking part in discussions of a general order in mixed commissions? Experience has shown that this is feasible.
II.
The efforts which have been made to remove the causes of hostility which exist in modern society have undoubtedly had some effect, although the peacemakers may be much deceived about the extent of their work. By showing a few of the officials of the syndicates that the middle classes are not such terrible men as they had believed, by loading them with politeness in commissions set up in ministerial offices or at the Musée social, and by giving them the impression that there is a natural and Republican equity, above class prejudices and hatreds, it has been found possible to change the attitude of a few former revolutionaries.[1] These conversions of a few of their old chiefs have caused great confusion in the mind of the working classes; the former enthusiasm of more than one Socialist has given place to discouragement; many working men have wondered whether the trades union organisation was not becoming a kind of politics, a means of getting on.
But simultaneously with this evolution, which filled the heart of the peacemakers with joy, there was a recrudescence of the revolutionary spirit in a large section of the proletariat. Since the Republican Government and the philanthropists have taken it into their heads to exterminate Socialism by developing social legislation,
- ↑ In the matter of social "clowneries" there are very few new things under the sun. Aristotle had already laid down the rules of social peace: he says that demagogues "should in their harangues appear to be concerned only with the interest of the rich, just as in oligarchies the government should only seem to have in view the interests of the people" (loc. cit.). That is a text which should be inscribed on the door of the offices of the Direction du Travail.
