It was composed of four houses: 1, the nobility (composed of the self-elected heads of the old feudal houses); 2, the clergy (in which were seated members of the clergy and university professors); 3, the Burgherrn (men elected by the towns, where the man with a fortune of $100,000 had one hundred votes, the man with $1,000 one, while the man who had no fortune at all had none), and 4, the house of Land Owners, which was elected by the property owning farmers. A bill had to pass three of these four houses in order to become a law. It is greatly to the credit of the Finnish Social Democracy that it refused to be drawn into the nets of the nationalist agitation, and so maintained its clearly defined class lines.

The Finnish Socialist Convention of 1903 in Forsea established the Party as a political factor. The struggle for direct, universal, and secret suffrage for men and women. was placed in the foreground of the political fight. The right of free speech and free assemblage, the extension of direct legislation and of social legislation, and a strictly Marxian program were adopted. The disastrous outcome of the Russo-Japanese war for Russia strengthened the Russian revolutionary movement to such an extent that the autocrats were forced to relent. Finland profited from this temporary eclipse of Russian despotism. The russification of Finland had been a complete failure and the military law was repealed in consequence of the military strike. Not more than ten per cent of the young men drafted to be soldiers could be forced to join the army. Russia gave in all along the line, but the Finnish patriots refused, with all sorts of insincere excuses to carry out their promise to introduce democratic election laws. The Social Democratic Labor Party grew by leaps and bounds, and in the year of the Russian Revolution, 1905, the great Finnish political general strike was called and carried out. Its unqualified success laid the cornerstone, not only for the most democratic, but for the most Socialist Parliament of the world.

The numerical growth of the Social Democratic Party has gone hand in hand with the political development of the nation. At the time of its organization, in 1899, the Party already had 9,446 members. During the period of the Russian persecutions, 1901, their number was decreased to 5,894, but grew with lightning rapidity after the great Russian Revolution, 1905-06, to 85,000. It was not to be expected that this flood of new members, who joined the Party under the influence of the fervor created by the revolutionary movement, should remain permanent, and so the year 1911 showed a decrease in membership to 48,406, which increased steadily, however, to 51,798 in 1912, to 56,700 in 1914, to 61,300 in 1915.

The number of organizations increased from year to year, as well as the number of Socialist clubhouses. Here, too, Finland leads the world, for there are more Socialist clubhouses and headquarters than churches. The Party's libraries are exemplary and their finances are in good condition. In 1903 the Party was worth 285,098 Finnish marks, in 1912 6,256,886. There are six daily and 10 weekly newspapers.

The eighth Party Convention held at Tammerfors in 1914 took up a question which will probably play an important role in the new Diet: Shall the Socialist group elect one of its members as president of the Landtag? When the Landtag group in 1913 elected Comrade Oskar Tokoi, the convention decided that under ordinary circumstances no Social Democrat should be elected to this office. Only in exceptional cases election should be held permissible, while under all circumstances the office must be vacated as soon as the absolute necessity for its occupation by a Social Democrat shall have ceased. The same convention decided, that the central organ of the Party, Tyonries, should be brought into closer touch with the Party, that the Party should have the right to control its central organ, and to elect its editorial staff through the Executive Committee.

The Socialist vote and representatives have increased as follows:

The labor union movement in Finland grew with the Socialist movement. Both work hand in hand in absolute harmony. The paper, lumber, metal and textile industries are the best organized, some of them having fifty per cent of the workers in their ranks. The total of all workers organized in the General Federation is 40,000. Finland has 8 labor union organs.

The co-operative movement of Finland is strongly developed and owns a large number of co-operative stores and model co-operative manufacturing associations which are conducted on a large scale.

Finnish Social Democratic Party, Puoluetoimikunta, Sirkuskatu 3, Helsingfors. General Confederation O. Tokio, Sirkuskatu 3, Helsingfors.

FRANCE.

Republic with parliamentary government; the legislative power is exercised by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The President of the Republic is elected for seven years by a majority of both Houses, sitting together. The Senate is composed of 300 members, indirectly elected for nine years by an electoral college composed of delegates of municipal councils or Deputies, Councillors General and District Councillors of the Department. One-third retire every three years. There are still a few life members. Senators receive $3,000 per annum. Chamber of Deputies: composed of 602 members, elected on manhood suffrage, every male citizen over 21 years of age (with a six months' qualification) having a vote. The Chamber is elected for four years. Members receive $3,000 per annum.

France has long been known as the nation where political life produces great personalities, brilliant parliamentarians, but parties whose political issues are more clouded, less easily defined, than those of any other European nation. Nowhere else is it possible for the personality of the individual to find so great an opportunity for expression as in France. The brilliant speaker or writer can gather about him a following who care far less for his principles and their application than for his personal force and power. This temperamental peculiarity of the French people was sponsible in no small degree for the countless small groups which for many years were characteristic of the French Labor movement, in the political as well as the economic field. In these circumstances the working-class could not hope to exert the slightest influence upon political and industrial conditions. This was changed only when, through the great personal power of Jean Jaurès, a union of the different Socialist Parties and groups, known as the United Socialist Party was brought about in 1906.

re

The Socialist movement in France is very old. Its beginnings date from 1860, when under the influence of Marx and Engels, the first attempts at socialist organization were made. The Paris Commune of 1871 destroyed the early promise of the movement, for the best known Socialists were either murdered or banished wherever they had not already made their escape. In 1877 it again became possible to carry on systematic socialist organization work. A weekly newspaper, L'Egalité, was published to propagate Marxian socialist ideas. Two years later this movement received the indorsement of a labor union congress held at Marseilles and soon after the Socialist Labor Party was founded, which took part in an election for the first time in 1881; but it did not succeed in electing representatives. In 1883 the Party was again divided into six different main groups, while a few members belonged to no organization at all.

The first great political victory was won in 1893 when 487,000 Socialist votes were cast and 40 representatives

elected. It was at this time that Millerand's entrance into
a capitalist Ministry caused a crisis in the party and once
more split the movement into two main groups, one led by
Jean Jaurès and Viviani who favored Socialist participation
in radical capitalist ministries, the other led by Jules Guesde
and Marcel Sembat, who were their most determined oppon-
ents. These differences over tactics and questions of prin-
ciple, which were often fought out in exceedingly bitter con-
troversies, were hardly favorable to the growth of the
French movement, so that in 1906, the vote was still only
877,999 and the number of Socialist deputies 54. In 1910
the vote jumped to 1,125,887 and 76 deputies were elected.
But at the following election, the desertion of the new "Social-
ist" ministers Briand and Viviani, caused the vote to drop
slightly, although the movement itself came out of the
struggle strengthened and clarified, particularly as the former
extreme wings, led by Guesde and Jaurès, were
complete harmony, at least to all outside appearances.

now in

A number of "independent" Socialists, elected by various small individual groups, have also been elected to the Chamber of Deputies. But they play no part in Socialist activity and stand in no connection with the Socialist organizations. The vote in the more important national elections was as follows:

At first the Party organization made no great progress and even to-day stands far behind that of the other European nations. In 1912, when the Party had already elected 76 deputies to Parliament, it had only 63,358 members in good standing, besides about 20,000, who were more than four months in arrears. Here again the characteristic French individualism, which makes impossible the self-effacement that is necessary for a firm organization must be held partly responsible, although the fact that no inconsiderable part of the Socialist organization is composed of farmers also makes the work very difficult.

The French Socialists possess great influence in the municipalities. In the early nineties, when the German Socialists, for instance, just began to take part in municipal elections, the French comrades had already succeeded in getting control of big industrial centers like Roubaix, Toulon and Marseilles and had then instituted reforms on a large scale. In 1912, when the last general municipal elections were

held, 282 cities and towns fell into the hands of the Socialists and 5,530 Socialists were elected to municipal offices. In Paris, which still retains its distinctly middle class character, and is controlled by a middle class radical nationalism, the Socialists elected only 15 out of 80 councilmen.

The Socialist press of France is comparatively weak. L'Humanité, the central organ, was self-supporting before the war and had about 30,000 subscribers. There were also before the war about 30 weekly papers of strictly party character. Many of them were discontinued soon after the war broke out.

The French Socialist movement, having lost its leader, Jean Jaurès, one of the most brilliant men of France, and after the death of Bebel, the leading member of the International, (he was shot either by a crazed nationalistic fanatic, or by a hireling of the French chauvinists) suffered particularly through the outbreak of the war. When war was declared by Germany Jules Guesde and Marcel Sembat, both formerly emphatic opponents of Socialist ministerialism, immediately became members of the French Ministry, with the consent of the Party. Several months after Albert Thomas joined them as Minister of Munitions. Although it seemed at first as if the French Party stood solidly behind its ministers, the first Zimmerwald Conference already showed that there was a Party minority which vigorously and openly opposed the war-attitude of the Party. The minority was led by the deputy Bourderon and Merrheim, the national secretary of the Metal Workers Federation. Its organ is the Populaire du Centre, which represents the extreme opponents of the war, who are striving to re-establish international relations. Recently there has also appeared a "moderate" opposition, which strives only for a renewal of international connections with the Socialist Parties of Europe and has its own paper Le Populaire, which is edited by Jean Longuet. The French Socialist Party and the Belgian Social Democratic Labor Party are the two European Parties, which absolutely refuse to meet representatives of the German or Austrian parties. The fact that in June, 1916, three Socialist deputies for the first time refused to vote in favor of the new war fund-the deputies Raffin-Dugens, Blanc and Brizon, all members of the Second Zimmerwald Conference-is proof of the influence which the opposition has already gained. The followers of Longuet who already include from 20 to 30 deputies are only waiting for a favorable moment to organize an independent parliamentary group, and to attempt to renew relations with the Social Democracies of Austria and Germany. Whole Federations, as for instance the Seine Federation, those of Haute Vienne and Isére, of Orange (Department Vaucluse),