"Here we have it. An eight-hours working day for all trades. The right of State Employees to form Trade Unions and to strike. Proportional Representation. A progressive Income Tax, and so on. A nice little programme, but a bourgeois programme all the same. No idealism, no Socialism there! M. Jaurès, however, claims the immediate Nationalisation and Socialisation of all departments of industry, including the land. But such unification of society is in reality the Catholicisation of Society. There is a definite programme of Radical Reforms, nevertheless, constituting an advance towards a Socialist policy. They are formulated by the bourgeoisie, but Socialists threaten to vote against the Budget, which is necessary in order to carry out some of their own proposals. Take Old Age Pensions. These need money. The Socialists refuse the required funds. Yet Socialists are for the Republic. So far we cordially agree. So far I, of necessity, work with them. But if they at the same time denounce Republicans as the enemies of the workers and secure a majority of votes in that sense, then that is to vote for the defeat of the Republic. If Socialists would work with the Radicals, in order to attain the ends they have in common, none would be more glad than I. But if such common action is impossible, then let each work on in their own way." It was said at the time that at the close of the debate, when Clemenceau was leaving the Assembly, he remarked to Jaurès, "After all, Jaurès, you are not the good God." To which Jaurès replied: "And you are not even the Devil." I have dealt with this famous controversy at some length, without attempting to give the speeches in full, because, although the discussion led to no decision at the moment, it certainly brought before the public of France and even the public opinion of Europe the direct theoretical and practical difference between Socialism and well-meaning Radicalism, in an intelligible manner, as nothing else would. The effect upon French politics within the next few months, in spite of further desperate outbreaks in 1907, was also remarkable. Jaurès's speech did much to consolidate the Socialist Party as a unified section of the Chamber; and Clemenceau himself was so far influenced by it and by the trend of events that, as will be seen, it affected his policy as Prime Minister in the formation of his own Cabinet shortly afterwards. Looking at the matter from the Socialist point of view, therefore, Jaurès was building better than his opponents in the Chamber knew, and Socialists had no reason to regret the apparent victory of his formidable antagonist at the time. In fact, as Bernard Shaw said in regard to a very different debate under widely different circumstances in London more than thirty years before: "The Socialist was playing at longer bowls than you know."