Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/824

 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL business done of any general interest was the adoption of a new pro- gramme, and a debate on the tactics of the party. The progrsmme was adopted in a lump without a word of discussion on the last day of the sittings and is identical with the draft published in this Youno last quarter, except for the addition of one or two mnor articles, such ms the abolition of capital punishment, free burial, and the repeal of all laws interfering with the equal rights of women. The debate on tactics lasted two days, and brought out essential divisions in the party, but showed an important advance among them in moderation even over last year. The question that really divided them was the question wka is now to be done with their Socialism and their revolution ? Only five delegates stood up for the old revolutionary tradition, and these five delegates, after much embittered recrimination, resigned their member- ship to avoid expulsion, and founded next evening in Berlin a party of their own on the old lines. The general feeling of the Congress was that for the present Socialism and revolution must be laid on the shelf. Bebel put the matter very plainly. The party had obtained about a million and a half of votes at last election, but they could not count on more than 9.00,000 of them as convinced Socialists. The rest cared nothing for the Socialist ideal, but only for this, that, or the other immediate alleviation of their own condition, and they would never, he admitted, have been won to the party at all by preaching the party's ultimate ends. ' The wen and the women who come to us to-day,' he said, ' do they come because they wish to carry out the ultimate ends of social democracy? No; that would be a delusion. The immense majority come because they know that the Social Democrats are the only party that has any heart for the working class.' With only 9.00,000 convinced adherents it was mere folly to think of resorting to force or to dream of instantaneous realisations. They would only become, he said, like the Anarchists a mere sect with no power at their back. They must first convert their party, get them all, he said, made complete Social Democrats, before they could think of anything further, and then besides, with re]altitudes won over by nothing but their hopes of redress for the grievances of their every-day life, how -can they meanwhile be held together except by trying to get them the redress they want ? The present duty of the party was so far clear it was to strive for the practical amelioration of present evils. But at this point a new source of division appeared, for while Bebel regarded the new policy as mainly an affair of tactics, useful for gaining working-class votes to the party, and for affording opportunities of applying Socialist criticism to the present system of things, and while he still confidently held out the prospect of a great day of social account and transformation, which he said was so near that very few in that hall would not live to see it, a younger leader, Yon ollmar, a member of the Imperial Diet, and one of the ablest and most active men in the party, contended that the policy of practical amelioration should be