sisted, before and after the outbreak of the war, in their antimilitaristic attitude, and refused to swerve a hairs-breadth, from the principles of the International.

The Social Democratic Labor Party of Serbia took an active part in national elections for the first time in 1904, when it polled a vote of 2,508. In 1907 this increased to 3,133, in 1910 to 9,000, in 1912 to 25,000, and in 1914 to 30,000. In 1912 the comrades Laptchevitch and Kazlerovitch were elected to the national parliament. Laptchevitch delivered a speech before the Skuptchina on October 12, 1912, which caused a great stir on account of his protest against any jealousy between the States of a Balkan federation built upon a progressive and democratic basis. When in May, 1913, the Serbian Prime Minister Paschitch delivered an incendiary speech against Bulgaria, it was the Serbian Social Democracy that entered a strong protest, and presented a plan, complete to the minutest detail, for the creation of a Balkan Federation. In May, 1914, shortly after the end of the second Balkan war, the National Convention of the Serbian Social Democratic Labor Party was held in Belgrad and a resolution was unanimously passed, in the presence of delegates sent by the Bulgarian S. D. P., favoring peaceable cooperation between Serbia and Bulgaria. The Bulgarian comrade Sakasoff had received a splendid welcome. When the great war broke out in August, 1914, the two Socialists in the Serbian Assembly voted against the war and against war budgets. Laptchevitch declared that the blame for the outbreak of the war lay with the capitalists of all nations on one hand and on the other with the government of Serbia, which had tolerated the intrigues of Black Hand organizations like the Narodna Obrana. This speech as well as the vote of the Socialist representatives led to furious attacks by all parties, while the Socialists became subject to bitter persecution by the government.

The war has completely destroyed the political as well as the industrial labor movement. The most prominent Serbian theorist, a deep thinker and great scientist, Tuzowitch, has fallen. The party newspapers have closed down one by one, after countless confiscations and prohibitions. The last paper to cease publication was the official Socialist daily, Radnicke Novine. Party branches and labor unions have been dissolved and destroyed. Splendid work was done by six members of the Belgrad city council, with the Party secretaries Luka Pavitshcevitch and Milan Dragowitsch at their head, in forcing the Belgrad municipal government to provide from the public funds for 25,000 people who had been caught in the Serbian capital,-most of them completely penniless. Small as are the resources of Belgrad, it is gen

erally conceded that only the systematic work of these comrades preserved the Belgrad proletariat from starvation. The labor union movement, Socialist and class-conscious throughout, had on July 1, 1914, 14,300 members, organized in 9 industrial Federations and a number of locally organized unions. The central organization is known as the General Federation.

There had been an exceedingly active strike movement in 1913, which had contributed materially to the growth and development of the economic movement of the Serbian working-class.

The Serbian Social-Democratic Labor Party has joined the Zimmerwald conferences, has endorsed their declarations and was represented at both meetings by delegates.

The Secretary of the S. D. L. P. is D. Papovitch, Servian Social-Democratic Labor Party, Belgrad.

The Secretary of the Labor Federation is P. Pawlowitsch, Radnicke Novine, Belgrad.

SPAIN.

Constitutional monarchy. Parliament (Cortes) of two houses-Congress of Deputies, chosen by popular vote, and Senate, part hereditary, part ex officio, part appointed, part indirectly elected.

Compared with France or Italy, Spain is a backward country. Less than half the people over the age of ten can read. Industry is but little developed. The liberties guaranteed in the constitution are largely illusory, the government being able to control elections to a great extent. Of late there has been progress, a feature of which is the movement for popular self-education launched by the freethinker Francisco Ferrer, who was executed under martial law in 1909.

The working-class movement is practically confined to Madrid, the mining and metal-working region of the north coast, and the commercial and industrial region around Barcelona, where it is complicated with Catalonian nationalism.

Sections of the International were formed in Spain in 1868, but soon fell under the influence of Bakunist Anarchism. Paul Lafargue, Francisco Mora, and a few others upheld the Marxian idea, and in 1879 formed the Socialist Labor Party. Among its founders was a young printer, Pablo Iglesias, who is still its foremost leader.

The party first nominated candidates in 1891, polling 5,000 votes. Its strength grew to 14,000 in 1896, to 26,000 in 1904, and fell to 23,000 in 1907. In 1910 for the first time it formed a coalition with the Republicans. Iglesias was elected in Madrid, with 40,000 votes, more than half of them

Socialist. In 1916 he was re-elected. The party has representatives in more than forty municipal councils.

In 1913 the party had about 12,000 members, and in the fall of 1915 it had 14,332. "El Socialista," published in Madrid, is the central organ, and there are several other weekly papers.

In the beginning, the party took a clear stand in favor of neutrality. Its papers were prosecuted for printing articles against war, militarism, and imperialism, and an attempt to hold a congress to emphasize its views was forbidden by the authorities. More recently, influenced by sympathy with the French Socialists, and perhaps by reaction against Germanophil tendencies in the bourgeoisie, leading elements in the party at Madrid and elsewhere, including Iglesias, have rather decidedly taken the side of the Allies, some advocating participation in the war. It appears that the bulk of the organized working people of the North, as well as the Socialist women and youth at the capital, oppose the party leaders on this point.

even

In April, 1915, the Socialist Women's Group celebrated its ninth and the Young Socialists' Federation its eleventh anniversary.

In 1889 was founded the General Union of Workingmen (Union General de Trabajadores) a federation of trade unions in sympathy with Socialism. Starting with 3,000 members, it grew to 26,000 in 1900, to 42,000 in 1910, and in 1915 it had 398 local unions with 112,194 members, among them 8,000 women. Vicente Barrio is its Secretary, and its organ is "La Union Obrero." There are also some Anarchist-Syndicalist unions outside the federation.

"Liberal" Tyranny.

The difficulties encountered by the labor movement may be judged by the fact that for thirteen months, ending October, 1910, under the "Liberal" ministry of Canalejas, the offices of the General Union and all local labor headquarters throughout the kingdom were kept closed by the police; all the members of the central committee and many other leaders were prosecuted, and a number imprisoned-all because of the campaign waged by the unions against the government's policy of imperialism in Morocco.

Labor Conflicts.

There have been many labor conflicts during the war. In May, 1915, the Asturian miners won an increase of wages and other concessions through the threat of a strike. In July came a general lockout of bakers in Madrid, in which the Socialist women gave the union valuable aid. A pre

ventable disaster in the Rio Tinto copper mines in October, costing a thousand lives, provoked intense excitement; the company replied to protests by blacklisting the agitators, including Socialist members of the town council. There was a long strike of sailors on the northwest coast in the summer and fall, ending in partial victory; the authorities closed the union halls, used police against pickets, and arrested many leaders on charges which the court of appeals afterwards declared groundless. In January, 1916, 8,000 bricklayers, 4,000 metal workers, and many of other trades in Barcelona struck for a 25% wage increase to meet the high cost of living. In February the unrest spread to Murcia; in March the troops fired on strikers in Cartagena, killing five. Despite such repressive measures, a number of victories were

won.

The twelfth national congress of the labor federation, at Madrid in the spring of 1916, gave most of its attention to the questions of unemployment and food prices. It also demanded state insurance against accidents and legislation to protect the Asturian and Galician fishermen.

The co-operative movement is hardly more than a dozen years old. Socialistic co-operatives exist in Madrid, Bilbao, Oviedo, Eibar, Vigo, Algeciras, and Santander, besides the "neutral" ones in Barcelona. In the capital is a "Casa del Pueblo" or People's House, an old ducal palace, bought and remodeled at a cost of $200,000, which houses the central organizations of the party and the labor federation and also the local co-operatives, which latter do a business of several hundred thousand dollars a year.

The war has caused great suffering through high prices and unemployment. The party and the federation have made a joint campaign, with large street demonstrations, to demand relief. In the spring of 1916 the government tardily took measures to fix a maximum price for wheat, promote its importation, and keep down freight charges.

The Secretary of the Socialist Party is Daniel Anguiano, Calle de la Fuentes, Madrid.

The Secretary of the Labor Federation is Vincente Barrio, Calle de Piamonte 2, Madrid.

SWEDEN.

Constitutional monarchy; King has only executive power exercised under advice of a Council of State. The Parliament has two Chambers; the Upper House elected by the municipal Councils, the second by universal suffrage over 25 years of age with proportional system. Members of both Chambers receive about $320 for each session of four months.

The Swedish Social Democratic Labor Party is one of

the Parties whose unity was destroyed by the war. For years there have been differences in the Swedish movement on questions of principles and tactics. Bitter conflicts have taken place between the so-called Young Socialists on the one hand, and the Party and Labor Union movement on the other, conflicts which came to a head at a congress of the Young People's Federation held in Stockholm on March 18 and 19, 1916. It looked at that time as if Sweden would be likely to be drawn into the world struggle. The discussion centered chiefly on an anti-war resolution which disregarded the need of military defense for the purpose of preserving the neutrality of the nation. The resolution also recommended extra-parliamentary mass-action, culminating in a general strike, for the purpose of discouraging all war-like plans on the part of the class in power. The threat of a general strike alone would, the resolution declared, effectually cool the warlike ardor of all military propaganda and should this not be the case, the struggle must be carried to its bitter end. The Resolution closed with the following words: "Our watchword must be 'Peace at all Costs!" After Lindhagen, the Socialist Mayor of Stockholm, had spoken on the necessity of parliamentary action against the war-like spirit of the "Activists" a second resolution was adopted which attacked the majority in the Socialist parliamentary group. A committee of seven was elected with instructions to organize Party Opposition in order to force the Party leaders and the national head of the Swedish Labor Unions to call a special national congress.

Three delegates to this conference, which included 30 representatives from Party organizations and 70 labor union delegates, were later arrested for incendiary, which indictment was later changed to one of high treason by the government. The trial ended in the conviction of a member of Parliament, Z. Höglund, to three years in prison, of Dr. Heden and of the representative of the anarcho-syndicalist organization E. Olielund, to many months of imprisonment. These sentences were later reduced to a third upon appeal after a protest movement had made itself felt. But the Congress had still another effect. The majority of the Socialist parliamentary group voted, by 62 votes against 4, against the proposal of the minority, that it be allowed to represent its own views in Parliament, and further declared that matters had reached a point where a reconciliation between the majority and minority was out of the question; especially since the radical wing had undertaken to issue an opposition newspaper against the Social-demokraten, the official Party paper, and had already established itself as an independent group, holding separate meetings. At the same