"During the past fortnight, while the debates on the subject of revision were being held in the House of Representatives, the socialists and workingmen have held nightly meetings at the Maison du Peuple, and have frequently paraded the streets shouting for universal suffrage and ‘one man one vote.’ The Liberal members, as well as some of the socialist leaders in the House, have cautioned the paraders to be calm, to avoid violence and disorder. But the ranks of the paraders have been swelled by the addition of the representatives of the very lowest and criminal classes of the population, the result being a conflict with the police followed by the breaking of windows and other damages to property. Shots were exchanged between the gendarmes and rioters, several of the latter being killed and wounded. Similar scenes were at the same time enacted in other towns in Belgium, consequently the Government called out the troops. Order has been restored, but the streets of Brussels, as well as the large towns, are lined with soldiers. A general strike has taken place in all the industrial centers of Belgium, with the avowed object of forcing the Government to grant universal suffrage, but without success. The feeling of unrest is very general all over the country." _Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of the United States, 1902, page 85._ BELGIUM: A. D. 1903. Enactment to compensate workmen for injurious accidents. See (in this Volume) LABOR ORGANIZATION: BELGIUM: A. D. 1903. BELGIUM: A. D. 1903. Agreement for settlement of claims against Venezuela. See (in this Volume) VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904. BELGIUM: A. D. 1903-1905. King Leopold’s administration of the Congo State. See (in this Volume) CONGO STATE: A. D. 1903-1905. BELGIUM: A. D. 1904. Liberal gains in the elections, at the expense of the Catholics and Socialists. Belgian elections, in May, reduced the majority by which the Clericals still retained control of the Government, and took six seats in the representative chamber from the Socialists, adding in all nine to the representation of the Liberal party. The latter continued, with no success, its demand for a revision of the Constitution, especially for the abolition of the plural vote, which gives the Church party its majority in Parliament, while its voters are an actual minority of the nation. Belgian feeling on the subject of the charges of brutal oppression in the Congo Free State was deeply stirred, and its current ran strongly against the accusers of the King. The public in general appears to have been fully persuaded that interested motives were actuating the whole criticism of Congo administration, and that the stories of inhumanity to the natives were wholly false. BELGIUM: A. D. 1906. At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco question.