From 1885 to 1913 educational matters, though by no means forgotten, were entirely overshadowed by social problems and by the efforts made by the Opposition to obtain the revision of the Constitution and the adoption of universal suffrage. This change was brought about by the foundation, in 1885, by the Flemish printer, Cesar de Paepe, of the Belgian Labour Party. Its action was from the first political as well as economic. While consumers' co-operatives, such as the "Vooruit" of Ghent, were founded in several large towns, Socialist clubs entertained a continuous agitation for electoral franchise, their aim being to use Parliament to obtain the sweeping social reforms inscribed on their programme. Here, again, we find French insistence on politics checked by the old spirit of association which had been so prominent in the Netherlands during the Middle Ages. [_LABOUR PARTY_] After the miners' strike of 1886, both Catholics and Liberals revised their programmes and paid more attention to social reforms. But the workmen, who were now powerfully organized, especially in the industrial centres of the South, wanted to take a direct share in political life. Under pressure of public opinion, the demand for a revision of the Constitution was at last taken into consideration in 1891, and in 1893 a new law granted universal suffrage tempered by plural voting. In 1902 a new campaign was launched by the allied Liberal-Socialist opposition in favour of universal suffrage pure and simple, without obtaining any result, but when, in 1913, a general strike supported the demand, the Catholic Government promised that the question should be examined by a parliamentary commission. * * * * * Before the war, Belgium was the most productive agricultural district of Europe. The secret of her prosperity is generally attributed to the small number of large estates and to the great area cultivated by small owners, 48 per cent. of the cultivated area being covered by farms of 21/2 to 71/2 acres. It must be added that, during the last twenty years, powerful producers' co-operatives, or "Boerenbonden," have grouped agriculturists and given them important advantages with regard to credit and insurance. The inbred qualities which have rendered this development possible are, however, to be found in the race itself. Again and again, in the course of centuries, the Belgian peasant has come to the fore under every political regime and every system of landholding. He has had to conquer the country from the sea, protect it against its incursions and to repair periodically the havoc caused by war. The memory of physical and social calamities has been handed down the ages, and the present system of small-ownership and co-operative societies is only the result of centuries of incessant toil.