THE FEDERATION OF BOURSES DU TRAVAIL. (1892-1902)
The _Bourses du Travail_ met an important want in the syndical life of
France. The local syndicats were generally poor and could accomplish but
little in their isolation. The _Bourse du Travail_ furnished them with a
center where they could easily come to a common understanding and plan
common action.
The first _Bourse du Travail_, as indicated above, was opened by the
Municipal Council of Paris in 1887. In 1892 there were already fourteen
Bourses in existence. Their number increased as follows:
_Year_ _Bourses du Travail_
1894 34
1896 45
1898 55
1899 65
1900 75
1902 96
Outside of Paris, the initiative of creating a _Bourse du Travail_ was
generally taken by the workingmen themselves. The local syndicats would
elect a committee to work out statutes and a table of probable expenses
and income. The project of the committee would then be submitted to the
general assembly of the syndicats. The assembly would also elect an
administrative council, a secretary, treasurer and other officers. The
statutes, the list of adhering syndicats, and the names of the
administrative officers would then be presented to the municipal
authorities, and the _Bourse du Travail_, which in fact was a local
federation of unions, would be formally constituted.
In many places, local federations existed before 1887. These simply had
to assume the new title to transform themselves into _Bourses du
Travail_. The municipalities would then intervene and grant a
subvention. Up to 1902 inclusive, the municipalities of France spent
3,166,159 francs in installing _Bourses du Travail_, besides giving the
annual subventions. In 1902, the subvention received by all the _Bourses
du Travail_ of France from the municipalities amounted to 197,345
francs, and 48,550 francs besides were contributed to their budget by
the Departments.[84] The readiness of the municipal councils to
subsidize the _Bourses du Travail_ was due mostly, if not always, to
political considerations.
[84] _Annuaire Statistique_.
Though soliciting subventions from the municipalities, the syndicats
insisted on being absolutely independent in the administration of the
Bourses. The first Congress of the _Bourses du Travail_ in 1892 declared
that:
Whereas the _Bourses du Travail_ must be absolutely independent in
order to render the services which are expected from them;
Whereas this institution constitutes the only reform which the
workingmen have wrested from the ruling class;
The Congress of _Bourses du Travail_ of 1892 declares that the
workingmen must reject absolutely the meddling of the
administrative and governmental authorities in the functioning of
the Bourses,--an interference which was manifested in the
declaration of public utility;
Invites the workingmen to make the most energetic efforts in order
to guarantee the entire independence of the _Bourses du Travail_,
and to refuse the municipalities if they or the government desire
to interfere with their functioning.[85]
[85] Seilhac, _Congrès Ouvriers_, p. 231.
The municipalities, on the contrary, wanted to have some control over
the funds they furnished. The result was more or less friction. In 1894,
the Congress of the _Bourses du Travail_ decided to demand that the
Bourses be declared institutions of public utility; this, it was
thought, would put them under the protection of the law and make
impossible any hostile act on the part of the administration. But the
next year the fourth Congress of the _Bourses du Travail_ reversed the
decision of the preceding Congress and declared for complete
independence.
As the _Bourses du Travail_ became more aggressive, the difficulties
with regard to the municipalities increased. At the fifth congress of
the _Bourses du Travail_ (1896) in Tours, a report was presented showing
the Bourses how they could exist without the subvention of the
municipalities. The question of financial independence was brought up at
later Congresses, but received no solution. The Bourses could not live
on their own resources, while they continued the activities which
brought them now and then into conflict with the municipal authorities.
The program which the _Bourses du Travail_ gradually outlined for
themselves has been classified under four heads: (1) Benevolent
Services, or as the French term it _Mutualité_; (2) _Instruction_; (3)
_Propaganda_; and (4) _Resistance_.[86]
[86] On the _Bourses du Travail_ see, F. Pelloutier, _Histoire des
Bourses du Travail_, 1902; Ch. Franck, _Les Bourses du Travail et la
Confédération Générale du Travail_, 1910; P. Delesalle, _Les Bourses du
Travail et la C. G. T._ (Paris, 1910).
The services of _Mutualité_ included finding employment for workingmen
out of work (_Placement_), assistance to workmen who go from city to
city in search of employment (_Viaticum_), aid to other unemployed
persons, sick benefit, etc. The Bourses paid particular attention to
the service of _placement_. Pelloutier, the Secretary of the Federation
of Bourses, wrote:
The Placement is in fact the first and greatest advantage which the
federative grouping can offer to the workingmen, and it constitutes
a powerful instrument of recruiting. In consequence of the
instability of employment, the use of private employment bureaus
for whose services payment has to be made, soon becomes so onerous
that many workingmen exasperated by the necessity of deducting from
their future wages (which are more and more reduced) considerable
tithes for the services of employment bureaus, prefer often--though
losing thereby--to spend their time in search of a place which will
secure a livelihood. Besides, it is known--and the proceedings of
Parliament have furnished decisive proof--that the habitual
practice of the employment bureaus is to procure the most
precarious employments so as to multiply the number of visits which
the workingmen will have to pay them. It is therefore easy to
understand the readiness with which the unfortunates go to the
_Bourse du Travail_, which offers desired employment gratuitously.
In this manner men who would hold aloof from the syndicats out of
ignorance or indifference, enter them under the pressure of need
and find there instruction, the utility and importance of which
escaped them before.[87]
[87] Pelloutier, _op. cit._, pp. 87-88.
The services of instruction comprised the founding of libraries, the
organization of technical courses, the arrangement of lectures on
general subjects (economic, literary, historical, etc.), workingmen's
journals, bureaus of information, etc.
The propaganda of the Bourses had for its general aim the intellectual
development of the workingman and the extension of the syndical
movement. The Bourses were to support the syndicats in existence,
organize new ones, promote the adherence of single syndicats to their
national federations, carry on a propaganda among the agricultural
laborers and perform other functions of a similar character.
The services of resistance consisted in lending material and moral aid
to the workingmen in their economic struggles. The Bourses regarded
themselves mainly as societies of resistance whose principal function
was to support the workingmen in struggle. The other functions were
considered subordinate to this main service.
Every Bourse carried out this program only in proportion to its means.
The Bourses differed a great deal in number of adherents, in financial
resources, in command of organizers, etc. Some consisted of a few
syndicats with a few dozen members only; others comprised tens of
syndicats with thousands of organized workingmen and with a budget
running into the thousands.
A few figures may help to form some idea of the extent of the services
rendered by the _Bourses du Travail_ during the period considered in
this chapter. The number of positions filled by the Bourses were as
follows:
_Applications _Offers of _Placed at _Placed away
_Year_ for employment_ employment_ residence_ from residence_
1895 38,141 17,190 15,031 5,335
1898 83,648 45,461 47,237 38,159
1902 99,330 60,737 44,631 30,544[88]
[88] _Annuaire Statistique_.
The service of _viaticum_ was organized differently by different
Bourses. Some paid one franc a day, others one and one-half and two
francs. In many Bourses the traveling workingmen received part only of
the _viaticum_ in money, the rest in kind (tickets to restaurants,
lodging, etc.). The reports of the Bourses presented to their Congress
at Paris in 1900, contain some information on the subject. The Bourse of
Alger spent from 600 to 700 francs a year on the service of _viaticum_.
The Bourse of Bordeaux distributed during certain months about 130
francs, during others, only 60; other Bourses spent much less. The
following table presents the amounts spent in successive years by the
Bourse of Rennes:
_Assistance_
_Year_ _Passing Workmen_ _Francs_ _Centimes_
1894 25 37 50
1895 22 33
1896 47 60 50
1897 41 81
1898 (till Sept.) 32 64
In organizing technical courses, the _Bourses du Travail_ pursued the
aim of fighting "the dominant tendency in modern industry to make of the
child a laborer, an unconscious accessory of the machine, instead of
making him an intelligent collaborator."[89] Again in this respect the
services of the Bourses varied. In the Bourse of Etienne, 597 courses of
two hours each were attended by 426 pupils from October 1, 1899, to June
30, 1911. The Bourse of Marseilles had in 1900 courses in carpentry,
metallurgy, typography and others. The Bourse of Toulouse organized 20
courses and had its own typographical shop.
[89] Pelloutier, _op. cit._, pp. 121-2.
Nearly all Bourses organized their own libraries, some of which
consisted of several hundred volumes, while the library of the _Bourse
du Travail_ of Paris contained over 2,000 volumes. Besides, every large
Bourse had its periodical, weekly or monthly.[90]
[90] There were 23 in 1907. Franck, _op. cit._, pp. 127-8.
The _Fédération des Bourses du Travail_ was formed in 1892 to
systematize and to unify the activities of the Bourses. Though it owed
its origin to political motives, the Federation soon devoted its main
energies to the economic functions of the Bourses which it tried to
extend and to strengthen. This turn in its policy the Federation owed
chiefly to Fernand Pelloutier, who became secretary of the Federation in
1894 and who remained in this post till his death in 1901.
Fernand Pelloutier (1867-1901) came from a bourgeois family and was
educated in a Catholic school.[91] He entered political life at an early
age in a provincial town (St. Nazaire), as an advanced republican, but
soon passed into the socialist ranks. Though a member of the _Parti
Ouvrier_ (Guesdists), he defended the general strike in 1892 before a
socialist Congress in Tours. This caused his break with the _Parti
Ouvrier_. In 1893 he came to Paris and here came under the influence of
the Anarchist-Communists, whose ideas he fully accepted and professed to
his last day.
[91] On the life of Pelloutier see Maurice Pelloutier, _F. Pelloutier.
Sa Vie, son Oeuvre_ (Paris, 1911).
Pelloutier was appointed secretary of the Federation of Bourses in order
to assure the political neutrality of the organization. As indicated in
the previous chapter, the Federation owed its birth largely to the
political interests of the Allemanists. The Federation, however, soon
found itself composed of various elements--Blanquists, Guesdists,
etc.--but the economic interests which stimulated the growth of the
Bourses were strong enough to create a desire on the part of the
workingmen to avoid political dissensions and quarrels. An anarchist at
the head of the Federation seemed to guarantee the necessary neutrality.
Fernand Pelloutier realized the expectations placed in him. He was
disgusted with politics and his "dream was to oppose a strong, powerful
economic action to political action."[92] The Federation of Bourses
became his absorbing interest in life. To it he devoted most of his time
and energy. He proved himself a man of steady purpose, of methodical
procedure, and of high organizing abilities. He has been recognized as
the most able organizer of the working class that modern France has
produced. His services to the development of the syndicalist movement
have been recognized by men of various opinions and political
convictions. M. Seilhac wrote of him in 1897, "a young man, intelligent,
educated, sprung from the bourgeoisie, has just entered the Federation
as Secretary; M. F. Pelloutier has led the Federation with a talent and
a surety of judgment which his most implacable enemies must acknowledge.
Having passed through the 'Guesdist' school, M. Pelloutier violently
broke away from this intolerant and despotic party and was attracted by
pure anarchism. The Federation owes its rapid success in great measure
to him."[93]
[92] P. Delesalle, _Temps Nouveaux_, 23 Mars, 1901.
[93] Seilhac, _Congrès Ouvriers_, p. 272.
In 1892 the Federation was formed by ten Bourses out of the fourteen
then in existence. Its growth was as follows:
_Year_ _Bourses_ _Syndicats_
1895 34 606
1896 46 862
1897 40 627
1898 51 947
1899 54 981
1900 57 1,061
1902 83 1,112
The Federation was represented by a Federal Committee in Paris. Each
Bourse had the right to a delegate in the Committee, but a single
delegate could represent several Bourses. As the Federal Committee was
in Paris, the delegates were not members of the Bourses they
represented. They were chosen by the Bourses from a list sent to them
by the Secretary of the Federation and made up of men either personally
known by him or recommended to him. This gave rise to dissatisfaction,
and it was decided that the secretary should complete the list of
candidates with remarks on their political attachments, so that the
Bourses might choose representatives expressing exactly their opinions.
In this way the Federal Committee came to be composed of various
political elements. In 1899 there were 48 Bourses in the Federation; of
these three were represented in the Federal Committee by Blanquists,
eleven by Allemanists, five by Guesdists. The last named soon left the
Federation; the rest did not adhere to any party. "Within the group of
their representatives particularly," wrote Pelloutier, "must one look
for those convinced libertarians[94] whom the Bourses have maintained as
delegates regardless of the reproaches of certain socialist schools, and
who, without fuss, have done so much for some years to enhance the
individual energy and the development of the syndicats."[95] The
Committee had no executive officers, not even a chairman. The business
was done by the secretary, an assistant secretary and a treasurer. The
first received 1,200 francs a year. Each session began with the reading
of the minutes of the preceding session, and of the correspondence; then
the discussion of the questions raised by the correspondence, inscribed
on the order of the day, or raised by the delegates, occurred. A vote
took place only in cases, "extremely rare", when an irreconciliable
divergence of views sprang up. The meetings took place twice a month.
[94] The anarchists in France call themselves _libertaires_.
[95] Pelloutier, _op. cit._, p. 151.
Pelloutier wrote:
The suppression of the chairmanship and of useless voting dates
only from the entrance of the libertarians into the Committee, but
experience soon convinced all members that between serious and
disinterested men there is no necessity of a monitor because
everyone considers it an honor to respect the freedom of discussion
and even, (without wavering from his principles) to conduct the
debate in a conversational tone.
The Federal Committee proceeded in a methodical way. Between 1894-1896
it devoted itself mainly to propaganda and to organization. It invited
the local syndicats and unions of syndicats to constitute themselves
into _Bourses du Travail_. To guide them Pelloutier wrote a little
pamphlet on _The method of organizing and maintaining Bourses du
Travail_. After 1895 the Federal Committee thought the multiplication of
Bourses too rapid. The Committee feared that the Bourses were
constituting themselves without sufficient syndical strength and that
they were putting themselves at the mercy of a dissolution or of an
unsuccessful strike.
The Committee, therefore, thought it wise if not to moderate the
organizing enthusiasm of the militant workingmen, at least to call
their attention to the utility of extending to arrondissements,
sometimes even to an entire department, a propaganda which was till
then limited to a local circle. Two or three Bourses per
Department, wrote Pelloutier, would group the workingmen more
rapidly and at the cost of less efforts than seven or eight
insufficiently equipped and necessarily weak.[96]
[96] F. Pelloutier, _op. cit._, p. 77.
In 1897, at the Congress of Toulouse, Pelloutier read two reports in
which he invited the _Bourses du Travail_ to extend their activities to
the agricultural population and to the sailors. These reports reveal a
thorough study of the conditions in which these two classes of the
population spend their lives, and contain indications how to attract
them to syndical activity. Pelloutier recommended the Bourses to create
commissions which should be specially devoted to agricultural problems
and which should train propagandists for the country. He also
recommended the institution of homes for sailors in the ports.
Some Bourses acted on the suggestion of Pelloutier and since then dates
the propaganda carried on by some Bourses among the wood-cutters, the
wine-growers, the agricultural laborers, the fishermen, sailors and
similar groups of the working population.
From 1898 to 1900 the Federal Committee was trying to systematize the
services of the _placement_ and of the _viaticum_. The suggestion came
from some Bourses, which particularly felt this necessity. Some Bourses
had already been placing workingmen at a distance through
correspondence. They wanted to generalize this by having the Federal
Committee publish statistics of the fluctuations of employment in the
various Bourses. On the other hand, the Bourses had difficulties with
the service of _viaticum_. The diversity of conditions in this respect
gave rise to dissatisfaction, while the Bourses were unable to control
abuses. The secretaries could not know the number of visits paid them by
workingmen, nor the amounts received by each.
At the Congress of Rennes (1898), the Federal Committee presented a plan
of a "federal viaticum", and in 1900, the _Office national de
statistique et de placement_ was organized. The "federal viaticum" was
optional for members of the federation, and though presenting certain
advantages for the Bourses, was accepted by very few of them. Organized
in 1899, it functioned unsatisfactorily.
The _Office national_ began activity in June, 1900. It was organized
with the financial aid of the government. In 1900, after the Universal
Exhibition, Paris was overcrowded with unemployed workingmen, and the
government thought it could make use of the Federation of Bourses to
disperse them over the country. Before that, in November, 1899, the
Federal Committee had addressed the government for a subsidy of 10,000
francs to organize the _Office national_. In June, 1900, the Government
granted 5,000 francs. The _Office_ began to publish a weekly statistical
bulletin containing the information on the fluctuation of employment
sent to the Federal Committee by the Bourses. The _Office_, however, did
not give the expected results. In organizing these services, the
Federation of Bourses always kept in mind the interests of the
syndicats. It directed workingmen to employers who satisfied the general
conditions imposed by the syndicats. The _viaticum_ also served to
diminish competition among workingmen in ordinary times, or during
strikes.
In all its activity the Federal Committee generally followed the same
policy. It called the attention of one Bourse to the experiments and to
the achievements of others; it made its own suggestions and
recommendations and it carried out the decisions of the Congresses. It
did not regard itself as a central organ with power to command.
Constituted on a federalist basis, the Bourses expected from the Federal
Committee merely the preliminary study of problems of a common interest,
reserving for themselves the right to reject both the problems and the
study; they considered even their Congresses merely as _foyers_ where
the instruments of discussion and of work were forged.[97]
[97] F. Pelloutier, _op. cit._, p. 154.
The activity of the Federal Committee was handicapped by insufficiency
of means. The financial state of the Federation between 1892 and 1902
may be gathered from the following table:
_Receipts_ _Expenses_
_Francs_ _Centimes_ _Francs_ _Centimes_
1892-1893 247 209 45
1893-1894 573 95 378 95
1894-1895 1,342 55 960 07
1895-1896 2,380 05 1,979
1896-1897 2,310 75 1,779 45
1897-1900 6,158 75 5,521 45
1900-1901 4,297 85 3,029 71
1901-1902 5,541-- 85 4,320 80
The Bourses paid their dues irregularly and Pelloutier complained that
with such means the Committee could not render all the services it was
capable of and that it was necessarily reduced to the rôle of a
correspondence bureau, "slow and imperfect in its working."
Whatever others may have thought of the results obtained by the
Federation of Bourses, the leaders themselves felt enthusiastic about
the things accomplished. Pelloutier wrote:
Enumerate the results obtained by the groupings of workingmen;
consult the program, of the courses instituted by the _Bourses du
Travail_, a program which omits nothing which goes to make up a
moral, complete, dignified and satisfied life; regard the authors
who inhabit the workingmen's libraries; admire this syndical and
co-operative organization which extends from day to day and
embraces new categories of producers, the unification of all the
proletarian forces into a close network of syndicats, of
co-operative societies, of leagues of resistance; consider the
constantly increasing intervention into the diverse manifestations
of social life; the examination of methods of production and of
distribution and say whether this organization, whether this
program, this tendency towards the beautiful and the good, whether
this aspiration toward the complete expansion of the individual do
not justify the pride the Bourses du Travail feel.[98]
[98] F. Pelloutier, _op. cit._, pp. 170-1.
This feeling and the preoccupation with socialist ideals led Pelloutier
and other members of the Federation to think that the _Bourses du
Travail_ could not only render immediate services, but that they were
capable of "adapting themselves to a superior social order". Pelloutier
thought that the _Bourses du Travail_ were evolving from this time on
the elements of a new society, that they were gradually constituting a
veritable socialist (economic and anarchic) state within the bourgeois
state,[99] and that they would, in time, substitute communistic forms of
production and of distribution for those now in existence. The question
was brought up for discussion at the Congress of Tours (1896) and two
reports were read on the present and future rôle of the _Bourses du
Travail_. One report was written by Pelloutier, the other was prepared
by the delegates of the Bourse of Nimes, Claude Gignoux and Victorien
Briguier (Allemanists).
[99] F. Pelloutier, _op. cit._, p. 160.
The report of the Bourse of Nimes starts out from the idea that no new
plan of a future society need be fabricated; that the _Bourses du
Travail_ show themselves already capable of directing the economic
activities of society and that with further growth they will become more
and more capable of so doing. The natural development of the Bourses, it
held, leads them to investigate the number of unemployed in each trade;
the causes of industrial perturbation, the cost of maintenance of each
individual in comparison with wages received; the number of trades and
of workingmen employed in them; the amount of the produce; the totality
of products necessary for the population of their region, etc., etc.
Now, it further set forth, with all this information at hand, and with
all this economic experience, each Bourse could, in case of a social
transformation, assume the direction of the industrial life of its
region. Each trade organized in a syndicat would elect a council of
labor; the syndicats of the same trade would be federated nationally and
internationally. The Bourses, knowing the quantity of products which
must be produced, would impart this information to the councils of labor
of each trade, which employ all members of the trade in the manufacture
of necessary products. By their statistics, the Bourses would know where
there is excess or want of production in their regions, and would
determine the exchange of products between the territories which by
nature are adapted for some special production only. The report
presupposed that property would become "social and inalienable"; and the
assumption was that the workingmen would be stimulated to develop the
industrial powers of their regions and to increase the material welfare
of the country. The report concluded:
This summary outline gives those who live in the syndical movement
an idea of the rôle which falls and will fall to the _Bourses du
Travail_. It would not do to hurry decisions; the methodical
pursuit of the development of our institutions is sufficient to
realize our aim, and to avoid many disappointments and
retrogressions. It is for us, who have inherited the thought and
the science of all those who have come before us, to bring it about
that so many riches and so much welfare due to their genius should
not serve to engender misery and injustice, but should establish
harmony of interests on equality of rights and on the solidarity of
all human beings.[100]
[100] F. Pelloutier, _op. cit._, p. 163.
The report of the Federal Committee, prepared by Pelloutier, contained
the same ideas but emphasized some other points. "We start out from the
principle," read this report, "that the task of the revolution is to
free mankind not only from all authority (_autorité_), but also from
every institution which has not for its essential purpose the
development of production. Consequently, we can imagine the future
society only as a voluntary and free association of producers."[101] In
this social system the syndicats and the Bourses are to play the part
assigned to them in the report of the Bourse of Nimes.
[101] F. Pelloutier, _op. cit._, pp. 163-4.
The consequence of this new state, of this suppression of useless
social organs, of this simplification of necessary machinery, will
be that man will produce better, more and quicker; that he will be
able, therefore, to devote long hours to his intellectual
development, to accelerate in this way mechanical progress, to free
himself more and more from painful work, and to arrange his life in
greater conformity to his instinctive aspirations toward studious
repose.
Pelloutier laid emphasis on the idea that this future state was being
gradually prepared and was dependent upon the intellectual and moral
development of the working-class; he conceived it as a gradual
substitution of institutions evolved by the working-class for those
institutions which characterize existing society. He believed that the
syndicalist life was the only means of stimulating the power and the
initiative of the workingmen and of developing their administrative
abilities. His report, quoted above, concluded: "And this is the future
in store for the working-class, if becoming conscious of its
intellectual faculties, and of its dignity, it will come to draw only
from within itself its notion of social duty, will detest and break
every authority foreign to it and will finally conquer security and
liberty."[102]
[102] Seilhac, _Congrès Ouvriers_, p. 317.
This conception of the syndicat has since become fundamental with
revolutionary syndicalists. Formulating it, the _Fédération des Bourses
du Travail_ really laid the foundations of what later became
revolutionary syndicalism. The "Federation of Bourses" also made the
first step in the propaganda of anti-militarism and in outlining a
policy of opposition to the State. The latter ideas, however, were at
the same time developed in the General Confederation of Labor and will
be considered in connection with the history of that body in the next
chapter.
From 1894 to 1902 the _Fédération des Bourses du Travail_ was the
strongest syndical organization in France. Pelloutier claimed 250,000
members for it, but the figure is exaggerated. There is no way, however,
of finding out the true figures.
Conscious of its comparative strength, the Federation of Bourses at
times ignored, at times dominated the General Confederation of Labor.
These two organizations were rivals. The General Confederation of Labor
had adopted at Limoges (1895) statutes according to which the
Confederation could admit not only National Federations of Syndicats,
but single syndicats and single Bourses. This was obnoxious to the
Federation of Bourses. The latter wished that the General Confederation
should be composed exclusively of two federal committees; one
representing the Federation of Bourses; the other representing the
National Federations of trade. Until this was accepted, the Federation
of Bourses, at its Congress in Tours (1896), refused to give any
financial aid to the General Confederation in view "of the little
vitality" which it displayed.
The General Confederation of Labor modified its statutes year after
year, but no harmony between the two organizations could be established
for some time. In 1897, the Federation of Bourses joined the General
Confederation, but left it again in 1898.
The friction was due partly to personal difficulties, partly to the
differences of spirit which prevailed in the central committees of the
two organizations. After 1900, however, the two organizations, though
distinct, co-operated, and the question of unifying the two
organizations was more and more emphasized. In 1902, at the Congress of
Montpellier, this unity was realized; the Federation of Bourses entered
the General Confederation of Labor, and ceased to have a separate
existence.