Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/825

 NOTES AND MEMORANDA 803 accepted not as a matter of tactics. but as the honest and substantial policy of the party. He declared Bebel's position to be an ambiguous position. He described the old leader's Sibylline prophecy. as he termed it. about the transformation day as the purest fantasy.. saying that neither the political nor the economic presuppositions existed for it yet. He put it in the same line with the notions of certain others of their comrades. that the day would come in 1898 or 1893. or with the first European war. Though he professed himself a sincere believer in Socialism. he owned he saw little good in trotting out the old catechism in every speech they delivered. and he urged that they should pursue social reforms for the sake of the reforms them- selves. recognising. to use his own words. a gradual and peaceful socialisation by progressive transition as the way prescribed by Nature herself. It is plain therefore that Yon ollmar would banish Socialism and revolution to the next age ov even further. and his speech is an im- portant indication how strongly the present constitution and circum- stances of the German Socialist party is forcing it into a course of rational and positive reform. The speech. moreover. was well received. frequently and much applauded. and a motion which was made for repu- diating the views expressed in it and in previous speeches delivered by the same speaker elsewhere was withdrawn on a threat of his resigna- tion. Liebknecht said ollmar's policy was Government Socialism. and Bebel said it was National Liberalism. but it is really. as it professed to be. only their own present policy free from ambiguity; and the continuance in the party of Von ollmar and his friends. together with the simultaneous extrusion of the revolutionary young Berliners surely marks another welcome advance this year in moderation. JoH RE THE NEW EAST INDIA FACTORY ACT. TE new East India Factory Act is coming into operation on the 1st of January. amid a cross-fire of complaints from Indian experts. who tell us it does not go far enough to give women the protection they require. and Indian experts. who warn us it will drive women out of factory employment altogether. Some attempt is even made to deny the necessity for any intervention whatever. but that at least seems to be placed beyond reasonable controversy by the revelations contained in the Relort of the Bombay Factory Commission of 1884. The great strongholds of over-work are everywhere the season trade and the small mill. and in India the worst excesses were confined to branches of manufacture which were season trades and small mill trades at the same time the ginning and pressing businesses up-country. These ginning and pressing factories run only eight months in the year. and for two of these they run day and night with a double shift of hands. but during the other six they keep only a single set of hands. and run 3F2