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182 In the Belgium elections all the influence of the priests and of the owners of land is exercised against the Socialists. The credulity of the country folk leads them to accept from priests some remarkable interpretations of socialistic aims, and a common conservatism in the country results in advanced ideas taking root very slowly. The working men’s party in Belgium strongly favors woman’s suffrage. The organization of Belgium women into unions of political societies has not, however, made much progress.

In Austria, where the conditions of suffrage are unfavorable to Socialists, they have returned only 11 members to the Reichsrat. Although the party shows a total strength of nearly 1,000,000 votes, the class system of voting gives it small representtion. The recognized party organization has expelled the extreme revolutionists, and has taken up the interests of the peasantry. As a natural sequence the party has become anti-Semitic, as the Jews are the great land-owners of the country. It has been said that two Jews own a quarter of the agricultural land of Hungary, a statement which is hardly within the facts. The Rothschilds are said to own one-third of the farming land of Bohemia, which is perhaps another exaggeration. But in any event such accumulation of enormous tracts of land has led the Socialist party to take a strong anti-Semitic position. The agrarian interests are naturally violently opposed to the socialist doctrines. They have secured legislation authorizing employers to dismiss without wages any working man suspected of being a Socialist agitator, and are not above seeking any unfair advantage in combating what they regard as a national danger.



Socialism is an unimportant element in the politics of Holland, although so far as it does manifest itself it is revolutionary in character. In recent municipal elections the Socialists met with losses. They have practically no influence in national politics there.

In Sweden there is only one Socialist member of Parliament, and in Switzerland there is also one. Although socialism has shown no vitality in the Scandinavian countries, there has been a great development of coöperative enterprise there. This is true particularly of Denmark’s dairy interests. The first of the Danish coöperative dairies was started about a score of years ago. They have been so well managed and produced such satisfactory results, that four-fifths of the dairy interests of the country are now handled by co-operative organizations, and the exports of Danish butter have grown in value from $5,000,000 to more than $30,000,000. Co-operative organization has been extended with great success to other agricultural interests. There are coöperative meat-packing concerns with 65,000 members that have shown good results. Success has also attended the handling of poultry and other farm produce. The great develop