Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 1.djvu/815

 NOTES AND ABSTRACTS 799

age are found than in any other branch of human activity ; thus, in Germany, mines, industries, construction, etc., average of those over 60 years of age 63 per 1000, while the ratio for the entire population is 88 per 1000. Fifty-seven tables summarize an extensive study of the number of aged workers, as to sex, as to various countries, in various industries, in different establishments in the same industry, and as to public charitable assistance of the aged. The exhaustive investigation justifies the following conclusions: (i) the number of aged workmen is not very considerable; (2) the per- centage is smaller as the country is richer; (3) the proportion of aged workmen is greater than that of aged workwomen ; {4) that numbers of aged workmen should be relieved from their work before the time to die; (5) that the care of these should be a public charge. (L'Age des Vieux Ouvriers, by Louis Varlez, in Revue Sociale el Politique, Bruxelles, December 1895.)

Labor in Australia. — Political history in Australia now starts from the failure of the great maritime strike in 1893, and the resulting formation of the Parliamentary Labor Parties, which now either control or hold the balance of power in the Australian colonies. The movement is strongly socialistic, though this may be merely a char- acteristic and not the end. It " is really the incoherent upheaval of the insurgent members of a class, and is the result of the advance of that class to the stage of self- consciousness. Its root is in class feeling and discontent with class status." The programme of the Queensland section, representative of all the colonies, is : one adult, one vote ; land and income tax ; state bank ; shops and factories act ; eight hours' day where practicable; referendum and initiative; taxation of every person according to ability to pay ; the state to find work for the unemployed ; the state to fix the minimum wage; free railways ; free administration of justice. (The Labor Party in Queensland, by Anton Bertram, in T/ie Contemporary Review, March 1896.)

Socialism and the Agrarian Question. — With the laborers in the centralized industries socialism has won its case ; it has now to win the fields. The last German Socialist Congress gave its attention to the agrarian problem. 1 Where the land is held by small proprietors, as in France and Switzerland, socialism can make no headway. But where it is monopolized, the peasants form the advance guard of the revolutionary army. In some of these countries, as Sicily and Hungary, their misery is frightful. Through possibility of unlimited indebtedness the German peasant is exploited. The agrarian question is a most prominent one in German politics. But the parties cannot agree within themselves as to the proper solution. Thus a portion of the Socialist party, led by Bebel, believe in the nationalization of the soil as the only remedy. Others, led by Volmar, consider this a far distant ideal and .stake all upon transitory measures. The committee appointed at the Erfurt meeting in 1894, when the Volmar faction prevailed, recommended to the Breslau Congress the following platform :

1. The suppression of all agrarian hereditary services.

2. Maintenance and extension of proprietorship of the land by communes, prov- inces, etc., under national control.

3. Renting of these lands to syndicates of small farmers.

4. Retaining of mortgages by the state.

5. Credit organized by the state for communes that desire to undertake cultivation.

6. Insurance against fire, insurance of crops and cattle by the state.

7. Maintenance of the right to cut fuel and of idle pasturage for all the inhabi- tants of a commune.

8. The cultivator's right to hunt on hired land as well as on land possessed ; and indemnity to the cultivator for havoc committed by game.

The programme was rejected as neglecting the interest of the proletariat, and augmenting the power of the exploiter, and the programme of nationalization adopted. The agrarian propaganda is for the socialist a necessity and a duty. But will he suc- ceed by expropriating their property, for the peasant loves the soil ? This is the real difficulty of the problem, and the one which is dividing the German socialists. (La Question Agrarie et le Congres de Breslau, by Hubert Langerock, in La Revue Socialiste, February 1896.)