Page:Lars Henning Söderhjelm - The Red Insurrection in Finland in 1918 - tr. Annie Ingebord Fausbøll (1920).djvu/131

 unworthy as it was possible. There was a swarm of "councillors," commissioners, committees, and authorities. And of these there were many who thought power really existed to be abused. Book-keeping and accounts were complicated things; no wonder, therefore, if they often showed all sorts of peculiarities.

A really naïve proof of the inefficiency of the rulers was an energetic appeal from the municipal government at Helsingfors inviting all the working-men of the city to "creative activity." And this was to consist in everyone trying to think out some system or other by which the complicated affairs of the city could be governed. The sixty members themselves of the municipal council declare that they are at a loss how to cope with all the difficulties.

Another trait that shows how little the Red respected their own most sacred principles is this, that they order a longer working-day than the eight hours they had fought so energetically for, and which they had succeeded in establishing by law. It has already been mentioned that the working-hours in the money printing press had been extended to twelve hours. And when all the tailors of the country in March were ordered to work exclusively for the Red Guard, their working-day was fixed at ten hours. It is expressly said that the tailors who refuse are to be sent to the front.

In the meanwhile there was great official satisfaction at all of it. One paper says: "In this country slavery is beginning to be on its last legs. If now the bourgeoisie press could shake off their nose-band, we should be drowned in an ocean of the most disgusting abuse. Only think how this lying press will writhe in their strait-waistcoats when they see one link after another in the chain of slavery being cut away!" Yes, here was the source of the greatest joy: the triumph over an opponent