“On the Paris Commune. 1906” in “Class Warrior”
On the Paris Commune 1906
Report of a speech by Kingsley at a Socialist Party of Canada meeting at Sullivan Hall, Vancouver, commemorating the thirty-fifth anniversary of the inauguration of the Paris Commune, 18 March 1906.
Among the Workers: Commune Anniversary
With a Good Audience, a Satisfactory Meeting Was Held in Sullivan Hall on Sunday Evening.—The Speakers Were George Dales and E. T. Kingsley.
E. T. Kingsley, after acknowledging the inspiration supplied by the music and song, and the presence of so many ladies in the audience, proceeded to an able and forcible exposition of the whole subject.
Dealing with the Franco-Prussian War, of which the Commune was the final development, the speaker traced the events which furnished the opportunity and to some extent the incentive and inspiration of the Communards. Paris, the beautiful capital of the leading State in Europe, had always possessed a quota of revolutionary workmen, among the noblest and best the world has ever seen; frugal, intelligent and capable of great self-sacrifice, qualities shared, too, in large measure by their wives and even children.
When these, the flower of French manhood, saw the degrading, humiliating and cowardly plot of the French Commanders and ruling classes to surrender the city to the Prussians, when they recognised the hollowness of Race Patriotism and the universal and cosmopolitan bonds of steel that bind in a common interest and policy of repression, the ruling class of the world, and instanced by the aid given by the Prussians to the French against the Communards; this was the chance seized to establish, for sixty days, a civic government, that for ability, justice and consideration for all within its pale, stands unrivalled, and an enduring monument to the worth of the working class. But the success of the Commune only further enraged the ruling class and their military tools, who would rather see France a Prussian province and maintain their social and economic mastery of the masses, than see it ruled in the interests and by those masses themselves. Bribery and ignorance among the troops of the Provisional Government, then removed to Versailles, the aid of the victorious Prussians, the trustfulness and lack of organisation and knowledge of military matters among the Communards are mainly accountable for the fall of the Commune. Their very virtues contributed to their undoing. Cheered by the audience, the speaker, here made some scathing criticisms of professional murder, alias soldiering; said he: “I love a soldier as I do a policeman.” Every man should have a gun, but in his own keeping and for his own protection.
The concluding part of Com. Kingsley’s address was a forceful application of the subject to current events and an appeal to the worker to be ready for the unbaring of the iron hand of Capitalism on this continent.
Comrade Jas. Pritchard occupied the chair. With Miss Polly Parr at the piano and the songs of the Glee Club, directed by Mr. E. T. Burns, a pleasant variation was made from the routine meetings.
Meetings will be held every Sunday evening, in Sullivan Hull, from now until further notice.
Come along next Sunday, and bring your neighbour.
—“Commune Anniversary,” Western Clarion, 24 Mar. 1906, 4. For a selection of Kingsley’s other speeches on the Paris Commune, see “Brief Local Times,” Vancouver Daily Province, 19 Mar. 1904, 16; “News and Views,” Western Clarion, 9 Mar. 1907, 4; “Last Sunday’s Meeting,” Western Clarion, 16 Mar. 1907, 4; “E. T. Kingsley Lectures,” Federationist, 27 Mar. 1914, 6; “The Paris Commune and the Bolsheviki,” Federationist, 15 Mar. 1919, 8; “Kingsley on Paris Commune,” Federationist, 19 Mar. 1920, 1; “Kingsley on the Commune,” Federationist, 26 Mar. 1920, 4.
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