Socialists in French Municipalities/Lille

When we entered the Hotel de Ville four years ago we laid before ourselves a double task; to reorganize systematically the vital forces of the city, and to extend further the municipal programme of the party. The complete plan of public works and of the necessary improvements has been determined from the beginning; the order of their execution has been determined by their urgency and importance. Considerable sums have been applied to this work each year. In spite of obstacles and administrative red tape worthy of China, it may be said that under the socialist administration the great city of the North has been completely remodeled.

Pavements, construction of aqueducts to the amount of $180,000, the remodeling of the Hotel de Ville, erection of a great lodging house (costing 200,000 francs), the improvement and the prompt cleaning of the public streets; building of a line of communication from the depot to the abbattoir to avoid the passage of animals through the streets, purification of the water at the abbattoir, a projected plan for the piping of water for industrial purposes, electric lighting of the public theatre, etc., these are some of the results achieved.

Previous to 1896 the service of public hygiene was practically non-existent. We have installed a sanitary officer charged with tak​ing all necessary measures in the way of locating and confining infectious diseases. By his efforts hundreds of contaminated and disease-breeding wells have been closed or purified: he undertakes gratis the regulation of the quality of milk. He is, in fact, a permanent and zealous guardian of the public health.

Let us see how the municipality has learned to fulfill its duty of assisting man through all the periods of his life. A large tract of land has been acquired for the construction of a maternity hospital. We have increased the distribution of milk and the allowances to women with new born children; new creches have been opened. The budget of 1900 includes the item of $4,000 for sending children to the sanitarium at the seashore. The feeding of school children has been considerably developed and the appropriation for this purpose of $47,500 provides each day a meal for 6,000 children.

Schools have been built in quarters before unprovided with them. A new beginning has been made in the way of professional teaching; the teaching of the fine arts has been reorganized; the establishment of a college for young women is under contemplation, The movement for popular neighborhood lectures has been greatly extended without interference with the lending of books by the different libraries. The municipal theatre has been frequently opened to the workers. By a special ​clause introduced into the contract the municipal administration disposes of 400 free seats at each performance.

Prizes for the different branches of learning are awarded to young people without resources whose capabilities are recognized. A sum of $400 is expended each year by the director under the name of "Prize of Honor to Students," to enable those less fortunate to provide for the expenses of examination.

We now come to the question of what has been the action of the municipality in the field of labor. It has given to the industrials, the great merchants and employers, a real lesson in affairs, by guaranteeing a normal wage to his laborers employed by the city; by reducing their working day to eight hours; by requiring the application of the "sections protecting labor" in all the contracts undertaken for the municipality. The city subsidizes the free employment bureaus organized by the workmen's association; it also grants subsidies to the local unions which are represented at the labor congresses. Sufficient appropriations had been made to provide for the erection of a headquarters for the labor unions which was intended to become a home for organized labor; the execution of this project is being delayed by the governmental veto.

Capitalist control of production gives rise in a great industrial city like Lille to an ever in​creasing army of men unsupplied or insufficiently supplied with the means of existence. To the increase of riches at the capitalist pole corresponds the increase of public assistance at the socialist pole. The appropriation for relief, which had grown to $115,000 in 1896, today exceeds $200,000. Including the assistance of the bourgeois and of laborer's organizations there is a total outlay of $240 a day. A special gratuitous service furnishes to the poor the information and the legal documents necessary to marriage. The assistance given to the families of those who are in the army has been increased from $6,000 to $10,000. The popular kitchens deliver at actual cost four to five thousand meals each day. The lodging house service has received during the last year about 25,000 persons and has supplied 14,889 baths and furnished 11,479 with soup, and distributed more than 25,000 kilos of bread.

A credit of $1,200 has been opened under the name of relief, for the convalescent sick. Credits have been especially appropriated for aged artists and musicians; an appropriation of $9,600 has been made for the old men awaiting their admission into institutions. The contribution of the city to public relief has increased from $56,000 in 1896 to $80,000 in 1900, amounting to an increase of $2,000 a month. We have established a system of loans to old men, permitting them to have some ​money at their disposal; the municipal admintration has arranged fortnightly concerts for the public institutions; everywhere it has endeavored to carry relief and comfort to the suffering,

Thus the socialists are enabled to do a quite appreciable work in the municipal field without increasing the taxes by a sou; but the the very fact that the assistance reaches a quarter of the population—is not this painfully suggestive? Does it not show even to those most blind the supreme necessity of the collectivist transformation of the instruments of production into a form where they can be used by all and for all.

It is to aid in this work that we propose to be represented before the electoral body. In conformity with the tactics and decisions of the party, we shall put up our own ticket, as a class party, at the first opportunity.

For it is important at each new election to make a census of the forces of the party, to determine exactly the socialist temperature of the country, to associate in uniform class action the conscious workers who rise at different points of the battlefield and who can thus assert themselves as soldiers of the same army of freedom.