POLITICS AND PLURAL VOTING
Belgian politics had a peculiar fascination for me from the first. It
began perhaps with my amazement at their system of plural voting, which
was different from anything of which I had ever heard. But the more I
learned of the various issues and parties, the stronger the spell
became. The little country was working very hard trying to solve its
many problems, and was so fearless and original in some of the methods
it used that you could not help but admire its pluck and spirit.
To any casual traveler it must have seemed that the country was divided
against itself. It had two languages, one based on French, the other a
Low German dialect, and the people themselves were of two different
races. The Walloons have Latin blood, while the Flemings are of Teutonic
ancestry. In spite of all this, they lived together in peace for many
years, and during the past year have stood shoulder to shoulder against
their common enemy.
Another extraordinary thing about political conditions there was, that
while ninety-nine per cent. of the people were Roman Catholics,
Socialism flourished. That these two bitterly opposed organizations
should both grow strong in the same soil was even more surprising--on
the surface--than the bi-lingual and bi-racial patriotism of the
country.
"Thanks to Belgium's very advanced capitalistic development," said M.
Vandervelde in this connection, "it constitutes a curious laboratory of
social experiment."
The Clerical party had been in power twenty-eight years when we were
there, and the diplomats rarely came in contact with the members of any
other faction. I do remember seeing a big Socialist parade, held on the
first of May; it was made up, apparently, of quiet and orderly men. On
the other hand, the country seemed to swarm with priests. In addition to
those who lived there, many thousands had come in a few years before
when they left France.
There were practically only two political parties: the Clerical, which
was the conservative or Church party, and the Liberal, which was closely
allied with the Socialists and Democrats. The members of these last
three factions formed indeed a coalition, or "bloc," which frequently
contrived to check the work of the opposition, despite the fact that
they had but eighty representatives to the Clericals' eighty-six. This
coalition had been gaining steadily for the past twelve years.
The national assembly was composed of a Senate and a Chamber of
Deputies, both of which were, in the main, elective. The former had 102
members who served eight years without pay, except a railroad pass. The
lower house had 166 members who served four years and received, not only
a railroad pass, but $800 a year besides.
Belgium was divided into nine provinces, whose governors were appointed
by the King, just as the governors of our territories are appointed by
the President. These provinces were subdivided into 342 cantons, much
like our counties, and these again into over two thousand communes.
Every two years the country voted in sections for half of each house. A
majority of the five Flemish provinces went Clerical, while the four
Walloon districts went Liberal.
Every man old enough to do so was compelled by law to go to the polls
and cast his vote or votes when election day arrived. If for any reason
he was absolutely unable to go, he must send a written explanation of
his absence.
Belgium's novel method of voting was adopted some twenty-odd years ago,
as a compromise between the existing property qualification and the
equal suffrage which the Socialists were demanding. Like most
compromises, it was not wholly satisfactory to any one. Up to the time
when the war turned the attention of the people to more important
matters than politics it was the cause of a great deal of controversy.
But as conditions stood in 1893, the system of plural voting was a
masterpiece of diplomacy, for each of the three parties--Clerical,
Liberal and Socialist--had its own ideas as to the sort of persons who
should be granted the ballot, and of course no two agreed as to the
necessary qualifications.
The Clericals wished to have the franchise granted on the basis of
occupation and property; the Liberals thought it should be bestowed on
all who were sufficiently educated to use the power intelligently; the
Socialists, however, insisted upon universal suffrage for men and women
alike, without preference or favour.
The Clericals got their wish outright--property and professional rights
were recognized generously. The Liberals also got what they wanted--a
vote for every man with a college education. The Socialists got half of
their demands, which was all that they could reasonably have expected
at a time when votes for women were not being widely advertised.
But of the three parties, only the first has shown any measure of
satisfaction with the arrangement, for plural voting plays into the
hands of the Church. Indeed, the only hope of the Clerical party was
said to lie in its maintenance, while the great hope of the Liberal wing
lay in its overthrow.
Briefly, the system of plural voting is this: Every male citizen of
Belgium who had reached the age of twenty-five years was qualified to
cast--and by law must cast--one vote. Every man of thirty-five who had
children and paid at least $1 a year income tax, might cast two votes,
while those without children could get this second vote if they had real
estate amounting to $400, or $20 a year income from state securities.
Any man who had filled a public position, who had a profession, or who
held a college diploma, was entitled to a third vote, or to two in
addition to his first manhood suffrage. This third vote could also be
obtained by a property qualification. No one might have more than three
votes in all.
This was the way it would work out in an individual case: A workman at
twenty-five receives one vote. He marries, becomes the head of a
family, and at thirty-five receives a second vote. Then, if he buys a
house--even if it is mortgaged--he gets a third. It can easily be seen
how such a system might encourage thrift and industry, and even
responsible citizenship.
Indeed, on the face of it, this system of plural voting seems nearly
ideal. A writer in the _Contemporary Review_ seriously advocated its
adoption in England. It has the advantage of putting the weight of power
on the educated classes, while still giving to every man some share in
the government. Our own "one man, one vote" appears rather crude and
arbitrary by contrast with this carefully graded electorate.
For all that, it did not work out very well in practice. The educated
upper classes were not always disinterested, and they were nearly always
conservative. Poor men are naturally adventurous when they see a chance
for gain, but when comfortable they are more and more inclined to hang
back, reluctant to risk their present comfort for any hazardous
improvement. The story of a young captain of militia who got separated
from his company in a strike riot and cried--"Where are my men? I am
their leader--I must follow them!" illustrates this point. There was a
lively agitation for electoral reform while we were there.
At the root of much of the political strife was the question of schools.
Should the Church share with the State in the education of the children,
or should the public schools be purely secular?
The coalition of liberal parties demanded for every child up to fourteen
years of age a compulsory education, which must be followed by two years
of training along some technical line. They insisted, moreover, that
every commune should be bound to provide adequate schools, from which
both religion and politics must be barred. Although they never achieved
this, the steady gain of the coalition in recent years has been
attributed to their stand in educational matters.
The Belgian Constitution provides for two kinds of schools, State and
"free." The latter, corresponding to private schools in our country,
were not under Government control, and were, indeed, generally under the
management of the clergy. Prior to 1878 the Church had also, step by
step, gained a certain amount of influence in the State schools, but in
that year the Liberals came into power and suppressed clerical
inspection. As a result of this, six years later, the Liberals went
down to defeat and did not regain their power. From that time on, the
curriculum of the State schools included religious instruction, although
it was not compulsory.
It seems strange now to remember that only a very short time ago one of
the burning issues in Belgium was militarism. Then they were facing much
the same question which is before us today in this country: Should they
have a large standing army, with all the burden of service and taxation
that it entailed, or should they try the system in use in Switzerland?
There every man is equipped, and drilled for a short time each year, but
there is only a very small regular army. The Belgians compromised by
blocking up all the entrances to their country by means of strong
fortifications, with the idea that no invader would gain enough by
crossing their territory to make it worth the trouble. If they had had
the army too, the story might have had a somewhat different ending.
The year that we were there, there was much fear as to the result of the
elections. The talk was such as to make you feel that the end of the
world was at hand if the Clericals failed to win, and that if they did
win, there would surely be a revolution. Our own papers had greatly
exaggerated accounts of the trouble in Brussels following the
elections, with stories of sieges and revolutions and all kinds of
violence. But although the riots themselves amounted to little, they
were of such significance as a part of the general social and political
unrest throughout the world that I insert an account of them here.
The general elections were held in Belgium on Sunday, the second of
June, 1913, and resulted in the maintenance in power of the clerical
conservative Government. The dissolution had been brought about by the
gradually diminishing majority of the Clericals in Parliament till they
had kept themselves in office by an excess in the Chamber of Deputies of
only six votes.
It was expected that the elections would be very close, owing to the
alliance which had been formed for this campaign between the two
opposition parties of Liberals and Socialists. It was the surprise of
the election that the returns for the new Parliament showed a
substantial gain for the party in power. It seemed that the Clericals
had come back from the country with a majority of sixteen in the
Chamber, while in the Senate their supremacy was also maintained.
An explanation of these gains was afterwards found in the defection of
many Liberals at the last moment because they feared the alliance with
the Socialists and preferred, after all, as the lesser of the two evils,
the Clerical ministry, such as Belgium had prospered under for nearly
thirty years. Liberal officers of the army could not bear alliance with
the anti-monarchical party, moreover, and the high finance and
commerce--the Liberal bourgeoisie--feared radical changes.
The defeated parties raised the cry of corruption, and of the advantage
which the plural vote gave the government forces, since it was the
educated and official classes and the rural population which benefited
by the allowance of a second or third vote. Afterwards a more active
campaign than ever was waged in favour of the "one man, one vote"
suffrage by those out of power. Throughout the rural communities the
Clericals developed a well-organized machine in the "Boerenbonden," or
agricultural syndicates, which might have been subventions of the
Government but were generally in the hands of the priests.
A more immediate result of the conclusive character of the elections was
that many of the demonstrations that were feared in case of a close vote
lapsed through lack of heart and of excuse for agitation. The Government
had expressed a determination to maintain the peace, and troops were
held in readiness in their barracks; civil guards were also ordered
under arms during certain hours of the day when trouble was especially
likely, and were bivouacked in the parks and the courts of public
buildings, as evidence to the people of serious preparations for the
repression of disorder.
There were small riots in Brussels, resulting in a few wounds and
arrests, but these seem to have been more or less formal, and the work
of the rougher element. In some of the other cities, especially in the
industrial parts of Belgium, and in the Borinage, or colliery district,
there were disorders and strikes more or less serious. In Liège there
was a riot with several deaths resulting.
But everywhere the result of the election was accepted more quietly than
had been feared. The leaders of the defeated parties showed selfcontrol
and attempted to restrain their following, so that the rioting and
strikes were more the result of the excitement of the masses, who were
taking advantage of the excuse which politics always gives for breaking
out into disorder, than of agitation with any immediate political effect
in view.
The Premier of the continued Government was Baron de Broqueville, an
astute and moderate man. But there were able and fanatic elements in the
Clerical party which it was feared might try to force legislation,
especially in the matter of education. This would prove such an
aggravation to the more liberal thinkers in the country as to lead to
further disorders.
[Illustration: BARON DE BROQUEVILLE.]
But when the war broke, all differences of opinion were forgotten, and
every man, Clerical or Socialist, gave himself without reserve to the
common cause of his country's need. Baron de Broqueville and M.
Vandervelde worked side by side in the Cabinet. The Government was moved
from Brussels to Antwerp, as the invaders drew near, and on again from
Antwerp to Ostend and later to Havre. But in the narrow strip of Belgian
soil which still remains, the King and his Ministers daily share the
same dangers and hardships, and toil for the same end. For the time at
least, party differences have been forgotten in a cause immeasurably
greater.