Page:Eleven Blind Leaders (1910?).pdf/18

 government employer, which had been maintaining toward them exactly the same relationship as any private oppressor and exploiter. Since that event, the movement among government workers in France has become more general, embracing in its scope such categories of employes as teachers, prison wardens, employes in the mints, and even those working in the supply and commissary departments of the army. Some of these, and other divisions of state and municipal employes in France, recently signed a manifesto protesting against the attempts of the Clemenceau ministry to suppress the movement toward organization of government employes, a movement which asserts the right to strike, as well.

The government employes of France are also taking steps to bring about affiliation of their bodies with the unions of private industry organized in the General Confederation of Labor. These events in France, together with comments by union speakers and papers, show that the syndicalists of that country recognize no vital distinction between employers, public or private.

Wherein, we may then inquire, does the extension of capitalist governmental functions to industry in European countries constitute a "step towards socialism?" ———