Page:Karl Kautsky - The Social Revolution - tr. Wood Simons (1902.djvu/80

 at eleven hours. When lately Millerand announced in the Chamber the ten-hour day, and that only upon paper and with many restrictions, for those industries in which women and children worked with laborers, and this not for all industries, this was praised as an admirable act of which only a socialist minister was capable. And yet he offered less than the bourgeois lawmakers of a half century ago, for he extended the ten-hour day only to the children for which in England a labor day of six and a half hours had been fixed in 1844.

At the Geneva Congress of 1866 the "International" had already declared the eight-hour day to be the preliminary condition to any fruitful social reform. Thirty-six years later, at the last French Socialist Congress at Tours, a delegate could still arise and declare that the eight-hour day must be placed as our next demand. He only wished to demand "measures preparatory for the eight-hour day," and yet this man was not laughed from the room. On the contrary, he was able to be a candidate at the last election in Paris.

It appears that the only thing in social reform that makes rapid progress is the modesty of the social reformers.

But how is this possible in spite of the increase of socialist representatives in parliamentary bodies? It becomes perfectly clear if one does not look at the matter wholly from one side, but studies the reverse of the medal.