began indeed during the proceedings of February 2, 1892.
After lengthy, nitpicking debate, the Chamber passed a resolution in which it stated that Article 47 and several others from the Constitution relating to the reform of the Senate were in need of amendment.
The Houses were then duly dissolved. On June 14 elections were held. The socialists resolved to vote for the liberals so as to deny the Catholics a two-thirds majority in the Chamber.
The socialists’ tactics had the desired outcome: the eighteen Catholic deputies from Brussels were replaced by eighteen liberals.
So the government no longer had its two-thirds majority.
The left’s support was needed to get the electoral reform passed.158
The Houses met on July 12, 1892, and appointed a 21-member commission to draw up, in agreement with the government, proposals to put before parliament. Proceedings were then adjourned until the November 8 session.
The proceedings that day were to be opened by the king. The socialists organized a large demonstration.
It was a Tuesday. Most of the workers from Brussels and surrounding areas went on strike. At around half past one that afternoon, a huge crowd gathered in the streets.
All the demonstrators wore leaflets on their caps that read: Long live universal suffrage.
Similar posters were affixed to the buildings lining the route of the procession.
At about two o’clock, out came the king with his staff: instantly, an immense chorus went up from the crowd: Long live universal suffrage—a cry that accompanied the king every step of the way.
When the king passed, Émile Vandervelde, who was standing among policemen, instead of presenting arms shouted out the fateful slogan and tossed a batch of leaflets between the legs of the king’s horse. This was the signal for countless leaflets to start raining down on the king and the rest of the procession: the queen’s carriage filled up with them. At one point, the king’s horse, frightened, reared and looked as if it was about to throw its rider who, as white as a sheet, fled under the torrent of red leaflets and the deafening clamor of the crowd.
In parliament, Leopold II read a speech written by Beernaert, setting out the government’s proposals: the king was acclaimed by all the deputies except for six radicals from Brussels who chanted Long live universal suffrage.
Outside, meanwhile, the crowds carried on demonstrating. At one point along the king’s route stood the statue of the French general who had come to the Belgians’ aid back in 1830; one worker clambered up it and placed a red flag in the general’s hand. When the king saw, he turned his head and looked away as the crowd laughed uncontrollably.
So much for the first day.
In December, the government set out its proposals, according to which every citizen could vote who had reached the age of 25, had been living in the same municipality for a year, and owned property to the value of at least 2,000 francs or had been living for a year in a house of a certain value determined by the law, or had a higher education qualification, or could show by examination that he could read, write, and calculate.
The various parties, too, tabled a number of bills.
The Workers’ Party, which had no representatives in Parliament, clung to its formula: universal suffrage, 21 years of age, and 6 months’ residency. And at one of its congresses it had resolved on a general strike should the Constituent Assembly reject universal suffrage.
The government’s bill was approved by the twenty-one-man Commission but none of the Liberals backed it, and that ensured that it would be rejected by the Chamber.
The debates resumed on February 28 and continued until April 18 without any votes being taken.
On March 29, a radical Brussels deputy, Féron, presented a new draft proclaiming universal suffrage but awarding two votes to men with a family.
On March 19,159 the Workers’ Party’s General Council issued a manifesto in which it urged workers to prepare themselves for the general strike.
On April 11 and 12, the Chamber rejected all of the drafts submitted to it, including the ones that included universal suffrage.
This was the signal for the strike that within two or three days had spread impressively to Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, and the centers of industry.
Brussels was placed under a state of siege. Conscripts were recruited, and the civil guard was kept on stand-by for eight days.
In Ghent, strikers entered factories where work was still going on and slashed the machine-belts, forcing the entire workforce to stop. Four days in, in Ghent alone, there were 25,000 strikers. In Antwerp, the dock workers dumped goods into the sea and set the dockyard on fire.
In Brussels, armed gangs roamed the streets, smashing the windows of the major stores with stones and shooting it out with the police.
On April 13, the police arrested three members of the General Council who were leading a demonstration: Volders, Nais, and Vandervelde.160
The news of their arrests added to the mayhem: even the labor unions that did not follow the Workers’ Party decided to strike. The court, however, thought it prudent to release our three friends. That same day, as he left the Chamber, Woeste, a minister of state and leader of the Catholic party, was beaten up by a Brussels socialist, citizen Leveque, who was promptly arrested and sentenced to 18 months in prison.
De Mot, Liberal deputy for Brussels at the time, who had voted against universal suffrage, was forced to retreat into a theater to escape mob violence.
On April 14, the gendarmes killed a woman in La Louvière, an important mining town with about 30,000 strikers.
In Verviers, there were another 30,000 strikers. The withdrawal of labor was complete: the deputies from that city did not dare come back home for fear of hostile demonstrations by the workers, who would wait for them every day at the station.
On the 16th, Buls, burgomaster of Brussels, while out walking the boulevards, received such a violent whack from a cane wielded by a person unknown that he collapsed, unconscious, and—in danger of death—was obliged to remain in bed for two months.
…
Avanti has so far not published the rest of the account and we do not have the details of the events following those recounted above.161 But the essence, all in all, is this: that in the face of the unrest in the country, the Parliament feared revolution and looked quickly for a settlement, granting, not quite universal suffrage, but a great deal. Not feeling strong enough to insist on universal suffrage pure and simple, the socialists made do, for the moment, with such success as they had achieved and postponed the fight until later.
Now let us take a look at the implications of the whole story.
It was by means of insurrection that Belgium gained her independence and constitution back in 1830, and it was through the riots in ’48 that she secured a reduction in the poll tax. Thereafter, for 36 years between ’48 and ’84, the fate of the country was entrusted to the good intentions of the Parliament and not another single step forward was made in respect of either political reform or social reform.
In 1884, the Workers’ Party was formed, which is
