The visit of three hundred English Socialist workmen to Lille
has been attended by features not usually associated with these demonstrations. Not only were Christian devices displayed on the banners of the English section—e.g., "We represent 500,000 Socialist working people who worship Jesus "—but Mr. Keir Hardie and Mr. William Ward, who accompanied the deputation, delivered speeches maintaining that the English Socialist Societies based their views on the teaching of Jesus. Mr. Keir Hardie, while admitting that many philosophers and men of science had abandoned Christianity, declared that there was going to be a beneficent change in this regard. Militarism was anti-Christian, but Socialism meant the practical application of the Sermon on the Mount, which had never yet been carried into practice. Although the Christian banners excited some secularist protests, Mr. Keir Hardie 's speech is stated to have been greeted "with the same frantic applause as that with which the denunciation of religion is usually received in this sanctuary of Socialism,"—i.e., the hall known as L'Union. Either, then, the applause is conventional and means nothing, or a wave of anti-secularism is spreading amongst the French working classes. We may note that Justice (May 21st) explicitly denies that Mr. Ward or Mr. Keir Hardie had any right to state that the Socialist organisations in this country are essentially Christian bodies.
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