Page:Wilhelm Liebknecht - Socialism; What It Is and What It Seeks to Accomplish - tr. Mary Wood Simons (1899).djvu/32

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tion to persons accused, imprisoned or condemned unjustly. Abolition of capital punishment.

IX. Free medical assistance and free supply of remedies. Free burial of the dead.

X. Graduated income and property tax to meet all public expenses which are to be met by taxation. Self-assessment. Succession duties, graduated according to the extent of the inheritance and the degree of relationship. Abolition of all indirect taxation, customs, duties and other economic measures, which sacrifice the interests of the community to the interests of a privileged minority.

For the protection of labor the German social democrats also demand to begin with:

I. An effectual national and international system of protective legislation on the following principles: (a) The fixing of a normal working day, which shall not exceed eight hours.

(b) Prohibition of the employment of children under fourteen years of age.

(c) Prohibition of night work, except in those branches of industry which, from their nature and for technical reasons, or for reasons of public welfare, require night work.

(d) An unbroken rest of at least thirty-six (36) hours for every workingman every week.

II. Supervision of all industrial establishments, together with the investigation and regulation of the conditions of labor in the town and country by an imperial labor department, district labor bureaus and chambers of labor. A thorough system of industrial sanitary regulation.

III. Legal equality of agricultural laborers and domestic servants with industrial laborers. Repeal of the laws concerning masters and servants.

IV. Confirmation of the rights of association.

V. The taking over by the imperial government of the whole system of workmen’s insurance, though giving the workmen a certain share in its administration.

As an introduction to this programme, which was