mines of Anzin--14,035 workmen there employed and
200,210,702 tons of coal extracted--Competition with Belgium,
the Pas-de-Calais, England, and Germany--The coal mines of
Anzin organised a century and a half ago--The discovery of coal
in North-eastern France--Energy shown by the local _noblesse_--Pierre
Mathieu, an engineer, strikes the vein in 1734--The lords
of the soil claim their rights over the coal--A long lawsuit ending
in a compromise--A business arrangement under the _ancien
regime_--The hereditary principle recognised in the organisation
and undisturbed by the Revolution--An orderly, quiet, and prosperous
town--A region of factories intermingled with farms--Charming
home of the director--The company encourages workmen's
homes, with gardens and allotments--An improvement on the
Cite Ouvriere--2,628 model homes now occupied by workmen--For
three francs a month a workman secures a well-built cottage,
with drainage and cellarage, six good rooms and closets, and a
plot of ground--2,500 families hold garden sites for cultivation--Fuel
allowed, and a general 'participation in profits' of a practical
sort--The right of the workmen to be consulted recognised at
Anzin a century and a half ago--Beneficial and educational
institutions--An industrial republic--How the National Assembly
meddled with the mines--Mining laws in France, ancient and
modern--Influence of politics on the output of the mines--Every
Republican development at Paris diminishes, and every check to
Republicanism at Paris develops, the great coal industry--The
great strike of 1884--During that year the company expended for
the benefit of the workmen a sum equivalent to the profits divided
amongst the shareholders--What caused the collision therefore
between capital and labour?--A syndicate of miners under a
former Anzin workman, Basly, puts a pressure from Paris upon
the workmen at Anzin to develop the strike--The pretext found in
contracts granted to good workmen--The object of the strike
to establish the equality of bad with good workmen--Boycotting
and intimidation--Dynamite and Radical deputies from
Paris--A Republican minister asks the company to accept Basly
and his syndicate as an umpire--Bitter opposition of the Basly
syndicate to the saving fund system--They demand a State
pension fund--And pending this a fund controlled by the syndicate--A
despotism of agitators--Upsh