SOCTALISM AND ANARCHISM AT GENEVA.
THOUGH among the thirty thousand foreigners who have chosen Geneva as their temporary dwelling-place there is a considerable proportion of Russian Nihilists, French
Anarchists, and German Social Democrats, the authorities are never in fear of dynamite, and the slender police force keeps order without difficulty. This arises from the fact that,
except for religions enthusiasts, the Genevan Government is one of the most tolerant in Europe. Revolutionary refugees enjoy privileges there which they can command nowhere else on the Continent, and thepare careful not to risk expulsion by proceedings of a nature to imperil the public peace or embroil the Confederation with Foreign Powers. Sometimes, as in the case of Prince Krapotkine (who was expelled for publishing, under his signature, a too violent protestation- against the execution of Sophia Petrowska, and parading the town at the head of an Anarchist procession), they overstep the line which divides liberty from licence ; but as a rule, they take their measures so well, that the police have rarely to interfere. For instance, if the Revolte, which preaches the gospel of dynamite and the duty of murder with a ferocity that is positively appalling, were openly conducted by foreigners, they would certainly be expelled and the paper suppressed, a fate that, a few years ago, befell the Anarchist Avant Garde, of Chaux de Fonds ; but the nominal editor and publisher being Swiss, they cannot be touched, albeit, as is well known, the contributors are Russian refugees and French Socialists.
The avowed Anarchists at Geneva are probably under .a hundred. Even on so important an occasion as the recent manifestation in memory of the Paris Commune, they could not muster more than 150, of whom at least one-half were outsiders. Social Democrats who seek to reorganise society rather by a revolution of the State than its utter destruc- tion are more numerous, and include in their ranks a score or two of Genevan artisans and a few workmen from German Switzerland. On Sunday last they, too, celebrated by a meeting the anniversary of the Commune. The meeting was held in the Tonhalle, the assembly-room of a cafe brassier, and except that the chairman was armed with a bell, which he frequently used, and the audience smoked hugely and consumed much beer, the proceedings did not differ materially from those of an English meeting. Touching oratorical effect, however, the speeches were decidedly superior to the speeches generally delivered at political gatherings in England. Dullness the audience would by no means tolerate. If an orator became a little tedious, he was warned by cries of " A e eau " and "Plus haat! " either to speak better and louder, or sit down. The former of these expressions did not, as may be supposed, signify that he was in danger of being thrown into the Lake, but that recourse to the decanter of water that stood before him might, perchance, enliven his waning elo- quence. On the other hand, the speeches were marked by an entire absence of argument. The style of these was that of "Bob'so address to the Peruvians," dear to our child- hood, and of Brace's address to his soldiers before the battle of Bannockburn. They abounded in such phrases as " Down with the aristocrats !" " Crush the bourgeoisie !" " Restore to the disinherited the fruits of their labour ;" and wealth and tyranny, poverty and virtue, were treated as convertible terms. The Government of Switzerland received no better measure than that of neighbouring monar- chies. One speaker, who described himself as a Swiss work- man, adduced as proof of the inefficiency of the present Republican institutions that in Geneva,—relatively to its size one of the richest of European cities,—there are people who lack bread, and that multitudes of Swiss citizens are every year compelled to seek abroad the work they cannot find at home. The panacea for these evils is, of course, the establishment of the Social Republic ; in other words, of Socialism organised by the State. How this is to improve matters, or how any conceivable scheme can protect men from the consequences of their own folly, idleness, and improvidence, nobody condescended to explain. The new Republic, more- over, as described by some of its advocates, would, if it could be established, be one of the most grinding tyrannies the world has ever seen. It is the conception of this truth that has constrained men like Krapotkine and Reclus to the adop- tion of Anarchism ; and between Anarchists and State Socialists there reigns a feud as bitter as ever reigned between orthodox Mahommedans and their Shiite brethren. At Geneva, they could not so far sink their differences as to celebrate in com- mon the anniversary of the " epoch-making " Commune. The words faint, misere, prole'taire were often in the mouths of the speakers at this meeting, yet it was abundantly evident that none of them was either poor or hungry, and it may be doubted if they had any right whatever to represent the Proletariat whose cause they professed to plead. Workmen some of them may have been, at any rate they said so ; but almost all were of the well-fed sort, dressed in broad-cloth, and in no respect save by their red badges distinguishable from the bourgeoisie whom they are never tired of reviling. Shortly before the termination of the proceedings, a remarkable inci- dent occurred. While an impassioned and elegantly attired Socialist was denouncing traders and employers in the accepted fashion, a sturdy, brown-faced fellow, one of the very few genuine, hard-fisted sons of toil in the room, asked the speaker to " show his hands." This demand was warmly supported and as warmly opposed, whereupon a disturbance ensued, and the manifestation ended in a free-fight and a general skedaddle.
This incident goes to prove, what those who have studied the question already know, that the Proletariat has not yet become Socialist, and that real poverty is least among the causes of Socialism. Its causes are rather to be sought in the spread of knowledge, and the decay of faith. Education is sharpen- ing men's faculties, giving them new desires, making them more apprehensive as to the future and more envious of the rich, at the very time that the increase of scepticism, by depriving them of the hope of immortality and destroying the idea of duty, renders them more resolute to enjoy the present. There are observers who think that the Communistic move- ment is only in its infancy, and in this opinion the present writer is reluctantly constrained to concur.
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