The Spell of Belgium Part 7

The Crown Prince, although only thirteen years old, is in the Belgian army. The Queen entered a meek protest against her husband's taking their son to the front, but he answered, "I have him with me to teach him how serious a thing it is to be a King."

In an interview with Mr. Hall--a journalist whom I met at the Belgian Legation in Was.h.i.+ngton,--one of the most striking things King Albert said was this:

"This war was unavoidable. It had been postponed several times within the last few years, and if it had not been for England's efforts it would have come at the time of the last Balkan crisis. Germany had been piling on armament for years, had been building up a war machine so perfect and so powerful that at a given time it was bound to start itself. When you have built a monster s.h.i.+p, you cannot continue piling on weight all the time, or the day will come when the vessel will slip off the ways of her own accord. This thing has happened in more than one s.h.i.+pyard.

"When the crisis came I had hopes that the protection of international treaties would be sufficient to protect Belgium, but in any case there was no question as to what the Belgian people would do. The violation of our territory united every faction, and although we were taken by surprise we did our best and offered what resistance we could."

Mr. Hall writes: "After the defense of Liege King Albert took the field with his army and fought back all the way to Antwerp. He led both the sorties from Antwerp in person, and fought with the rear guard that covered the retreat of his army to the Yser."

The Germans drove the Belgian army from one position to another until only a strip of Belgium was left. "The King continued to fight in the bogs and marshes of western Flanders, still undaunted, still defiant, still calm and serene."

An Englishman asked a Belgian soldier if King Albert was beloved. The answer was, "No, Monsieur, he is not beloved.... Before the war he was beloved--today he is adored."

Emile Verhaeren wrote in King Albert's book: "At this moment you are the one King in the world whose subjects, without exception, unite in loving and admiring him with all the strength of their soul. This unique fate is yours, sire. No leader of men on earth has had it in the same degree as you.

"In spite of the immensity of the sorrow surrounding you, I think you have a right to rejoice, the more so as your consort, Her Majesty the Queen, shares this rare privilege with you.

"Sire, your name will be great throughout the ages to come. You are in such perfect sympathy with your people that you will always be their symbol. Their courage, their tenacity, their stifled grief, their pride, their future greatness, their immortality all live with you. Our hearts are yours in their very depths. Being yourself, you are all of us. And this you will remain."

CHAPTER VII

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 const.i.tutes 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 a.s.sembly 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 pa.s.s. The lower house had 166 members who served four years and received, not only a railroad pa.s.s, 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 ent.i.tled 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 citizens.h.i.+p.

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 cla.s.ses, 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 cla.s.ses 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!" ill.u.s.trates 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 Const.i.tution 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 diminis.h.i.+ng 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 cla.s.ses 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 Liege 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 ma.s.ses, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 hards.h.i.+ps, and toil for the same end. For the time at least, party differences have been forgotten in a cause immeasurably greater.