The Labor enquirer., 1886-06-12
Strikes the Earthquakes That
Precede the 0utbursts of
the Volcano.
Those at the Bottom of the Social
Ladder are Slowly Mount
ing to the Top.
Let us Not Despise ANY Movement
That Tends to Promote Organ
ization or Education.

The following is an extract from an
interview with M. Emile Zola, the au-
thor of Germinal, as printed in the Pail
Mall Budget, London,) of the eight ult.
The subject under discussion was the
miners strike at Decazeville:
Reporter r:-"Are the laborers as we'll
organized in France as in the United
States and England?"
M Zola mo; and this is the very
reason why French strikers never &C.
plish much. French workmen, as a
body, are incapable of organization.
Take score of them and you will find
only four or FIVE who understand what
they want or what they ought to want;
the remaining fifteen may follow the
lead of their more enlightened COM
panions, but do 80 Elindly and with lit
tie enthusiasm. The lamentable weak
ness of our national character; the love
of being governed, and the distaste Of
thinking and acting by and for oneself,
parahzes the French proletariat. Per-
haps this may disappear with time, for
great changes are being wrought in this
progressive age. Our miners are no
longer 80 ignorant as they used to be.
The Young generations can now read
and write. They are studying by them
selves the doctrines of Revolutionary
Socialism, as the world will find out one
of these days. Then, too, the moral sit
uation is rapidly improving. Mere chill
dren no longer 60 down into the pits,
and since rs women work only ABOVE
ground, and terrible source of immor-
ality has thus been removed"
II am convinced that the Decazeville
outbreak will end in the discontinue
of the miners. The company has SIM
ply to wait until the workmen are
starved out and then they will have to
return to work on the company's terms.
The miners alternative is starvation or
toll. The capitalist knows it, and the
employed will find it out sooner or
later"
But because a strike may fail in one
of the poorest mining districts of France
it does not follow that the cause of the
proletariat is retrograding. These strikes
are The earthquakes that preoede the
outburst of the volcano. The Revolu-
ton of 1889 destroyed the nobility and
elevated the bourgeoise to wealth and
power. But the benefit that is con-
ferred on the working classes are out of
all proportion to those won by the TIERS
Etat. 1t is now the turn of the prole-
tariat. Those at the bottom of the 80
cial ladder are slowly mounting, round
after round, towards the top. They are
at the foot to-day, but they will surely
be at the top tomorrow. The gather
ing storm may burst in ten years, or in
fifty, or perhaps it may require CEN
But it will certainly burst. Humanity
is subject to the same laws as matter.
When the atmosphere is sufficiently
charged with electricity there must be
lightning flash. This social Revolution
will me, and it will come in the form
of war. am convinced that it cannot
be accomplished by legislation, that it
cannot be brought about by peaceful
means.
Where will 1t begin, NJ. Zola2"
Not in France,1 am certain. My
country is at bottom monarchical.
Frenchmen, even French workmen,
prefer the glamour that surrounds roy
atty to the simplicity of republicanlsm.
| II is is the Catholic element in the
French character-the love of pomp and
display. We like dictator, man
whom we can look up to, who will de-
tend us. We cannot shake off the old
mona.chical traditions Hence it is that
| say that the eruption of the proletar.
lat volcano is not to occur first in
France. 1t will begin in some new
country like the United States, OF in
some old nation, like England, that has
long been accustomed to popular liberty.
But that it will come haven't the
slightest shadow Of doubt, and then
'sauve qui peut."
| have been at the trouble of copying
the above extract bs cause the outspoken
opinion of the man who has risen to the
position of the most prominent writer Of
the realistic school should be entitled to
the gravest consideration. M. ZJla has,
in "Germinal," "L'Assouncolr," and
other works, contributed the most care.
full studies of the lives of the French
working and middle classes, that the
literature of this century can boast of.
Observe how full of matter kis remarks
are. The first cause of failure, def
cheney of organization; the reason for
that deficiency, the incaDacity, from long
established habit, for self.goyernmen
an incapacity carefully fostered by the
Roman Catholic church.
Does he think that mere dispair and
misery will bring about the Revolution
Not at all it is because the educational
and moral situate ms are improving that
the change is drawing near. When will
the cloud burst? When the cloud Is
! sufficiently charged with electricity;
that is to say when education has sufi
GENTLY advanced for the people to be
able to digest the new ideas. Where
will it first burst? Precisely where the
people have already taken the inltia-
tory step IN the evolution towards So
cIalism, by obtaining some, though but
small measure of self government.
Let US not, therefore, despise any
movement that either helps organlza-
ton or promotes education, whether in
tellectual or moral. or tends in any de-
gree, however small, to extend the
sphere of selfgoyernment: