Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/45

 Rh to them the duty of improving themselves, not for the sake of personal advancement, "but in the interests of all." At the same time teachers were instructed in future to exclusively employ "the experimental and scientific method, that which starts from facts physical, moral, and intellectual."

The delegation which did most work and which succeeded more than any other in giving expression to the Socialistic principles embodied in the revolution of the 18th of March was undoubtedly that of "Labour and Exchange," presided over by our Austrian comrade Leo Frankel. This delegation systematically set to work to collect and arrange information concerning the condition of labour, and the precise relations existing in all trades between employer and workman. It was also entrusted with the revision of the Customs and the transformation of the fiscal system. Its report recommended the return of pledges to all necessitous persons and the suppression of the pawnshops since the Revolution of the Commune implied the speedy establishment "of a social organisation giving serious guarantees of support to workmen out of employment." The Commune, it proclaimed, implied the rescue of workmen from the exploitation of capital.

The Labour department further procured the prohibition of night work for bakers, and made fines and stoppages of wages illegal. At its instigation the Commune decreed the confiscation of factories and workshops not in actual use, and their immediate handing over to trade-syndicates of workmen to be conducted on a co-operative basis. This decree, although defective enough in its details, nevertheless, for the first time in history, affirmed the principle of the expropriation of the capitalist class by the working class, and it is for this reason of epoch-making importance. Unfortunately time and circumstances did not allow of its being carried into effect.