Brothers, Loyalty and devotion towards the Exalted Ruler and His House and the advancement of our dear Homeland are the guiding words of the Narodna Stranka [tran. note: People’s Party]. Without work and struggle there is no advancement. Peoples, which relied on fate and waited for it to bring them luck have not had success: they vegetated and finally were suppressed and even conquered by the more advanced and ordered peoples.
The people can not be artificially and suddenly grafted culture: If it itself does not participate in the creation and development of it, there can be no great use of it. Only a people, which is aware that nothing good will come out of idle hands and without work and struggle nothing good can be achieved, will be able to come to prosperity.
The motivation to work and development of freedoms can not suddenly be the people. As in a family the agreement is first made by the eldest and most insightful members of it about undertaking any domestic work, then announcing it to other members and asking advice from them and only then undertaking it with the hope of success, so it is in the political life of a country.
Circumstances first bring together and direct towards joint work people with more theoretical knowledge in science and experience and life, and at that people who are impregnated with progressive thoughts and filled with ideas about the good of their people. But for the work of these people to bear fruit, it is not enough for them have knowledge and apply that knowledge in their duties, but it is necessary for them to gain more members for those ideas and introduce those good ideas to them, whose realisation only brings the prosperity of people. In this way the awareness of the members of society is developed and the awareness of the people about political freedoms and the most useful path for work for the homeland.
But here it is not enough to write or tell a voluminous programme, but these initiators have to be lacking in self-interest and will with gradual and patient labour gain more members for their ideas and only thus will that spiritual community grow. Members of society close in spirit can resist all sorts of predicaments and harvest the rich fruits of their labour.
An individual does not mean much, even when blessed with all the virtues. As a father in a known story showed through an obvious example to his sons that a twig can be broken one by one when out of a bundle and the whole bundle at once with great difficulty or not at all, this shows clearly that an individual on his own can not create much for himself, nor resist the predicaments in economic and political struggles.
Much time needed to pass until people felt the need for associating for their material and then spiritual needs, for unity. Firstly united for material needs, not all could have the same views, but they started grouping themselves based on opinions and they way to lead society towards progress; in this way started and in time developed political parties. Those people whose opinions cross in the main societal and state questions, as well as how to solve them, find themselves united and jointly lead a spiritual battle with those who have the opposite opinion. Such a spiritual battle is useful, as there is no progress without a struggle.
Such political associations are necessary and exist with all advanced peoples, so they are necessary in our Homeland as well, which wants and has to aim towards progress. The age of battle in the fields has stopped for thirty years now. In the battle with the enemy our ancestors took glorious victory and created the possibility for this part of Serbian lands to peacefully and independently develop politically and economically.
The new constitutional age in our Homeland which suits the will of our exalted ruler, the wishes of the people and modernity, unconditionally requires that people here also associate themselves into political parties based on their principles. For our people to get a better start under the wind of freedom this will only happen when it takes an active participation in political and generally societal questions, the undersigned found it necessary to start a party under the name: NARODNA STRANKA
which will represent these principles:
In domestic policies:
1. That the state is not to work for individual societal classes, but to work for everyone equally. Citizens are duty-bound to fulfill all their obligations towards the state, but the state is also duty-bound to: guarantee its citizens a peaceful and free life; to aid them and set them on the right path; the tax burdens of the citizens are not to create comfort for individuals, but for the state to return it in other forms: judiciary, education, economy etc.
2. It will represent the political freedoms of all citizens in the Homeland and democratic direction: freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and association, general and secret right to vote in elections; personal and property security, equality before the laws and authorities, freedom of political persuasion, securing the confidentiality of letter; easing of kuluk*; that there not be court martials; a municipal self-government which is as wide as possible.
3. To seriously take care of the health of the people, to improve our poor economic state and correctly regulate the finances; for the family cooperatives to not fall apart, to create other cooperatives like: agricultural, artisanal, etc; all cooperatives to have an educational and moral side apart from the material; to help and defend the domestic industry, with special attention paid towards agriculture, trade, animal husbandry, economy in general.
4. For a more correct taxation on the land to be established, for which the land needs to be classified; for progressive taxation on property and income be established, to protect the unskilled from usurers and to prosecute the latter; to charge the taxes from the poor at a certain time of the year, when they can most easily respond to their obligations, for the state to aid those who suffered from hail, floods, bad harvests, pomor of cattle, etc. To establish as much saving as possible and reasonable and to keep the budget balanced.
5. Considering that the Orthodox faith started and developed in its external life by Christ’s true teachings, in which there is no slavery and lordship, and that it has always suited and still suits the democratic streaming of the Serbian people and that it was always national, free-minded, Narodna Stranka will work: to help maintain it and dignified; for the state’s supervision to spread far and protect every confession and allow it free development; to achieve as great as possible number of elementary and secondary schools and to where possible aid the poor but good students in their education.
6. Narodna Stranka will demand of its members to work on uplifting Serbian culture and in this direction:
a) that our cultural life does not veer away from the people and approach foreign culture; that our culture does not veer away from the the direction which stems from our cooperative spirit: moba**, other useful national institutions and our national poems;
b) to preserve the good traditions and every pageantry and bad customs to be suppressed;
c) to spread the national ideals and love towards the homeland, the Ruler and dynasty among the youth and to steer it towards science, morality and labour.
7. Narodna Stranka will act in both word and labour: to spread as much as possible societal moral and knowledge into all the layers of the people; to awaken the national consciousness about the interests of Serbdom and achieving them as much as possible: to uncover intriguers, slanderers and flatterers.
Narodna Stranka will demand for the necessary reforms to be undertaken as quickly as possible:
In administration:
The settlement of the question of clerks and in the following manner: to reduce the number of clerks to the necessary level, as they are too many now, of which many are incapable perform their duties and with a bad past and for the spots to the ones who are prepared, moral and hard-working; to abolish the unnecessary and expensive ministries; to establish by law the number of clerks in certain ministries; to, where possible, equalise the positions and advancements of clerks in all the branches of state administration, based on their qualifications and capabilities; to increase the responsibility of state organs, but to materially secure them.
The organisation of municipalities, captaincies and regions to be done in the most sensible of ways, so a greater attention can be paid to building roads, bridges; barrens which need to be forested, regulation of the flow of streams and rivers, drainage of unhealthy and harmful swamps; easier irrigation of the land; raising of hospitals, orchards, nurseries, acquiring better seeds, devices and tools; establishing municipal food stores, etc.
In the judiciary:
Transfer, where possible, of criminal investigations from the police to the judiciary authorities; organisation of courts according to the needs of the people; reform of the laws and changing certain damaging clauses in various laws, according to contemporary needs, so justice can be more strongly guaranteed and the judicial process speedier; organisation of penal institutions with labour and workshops for the convicts, to reform the guilty and the state to have material benefits.
In education: Education should be compulsory and free and where possible the poor and good should be aided in education; to build as many as possible of elementary, secondary and specialised schools and with them an agricultural and artisanal school; to take care that the youth develops an awareness of civic freedoms, rights and duties as well as knowledge and good manners; to have libraries and reading rooms established; to hold public lectures on various societal questions; to spread literacy as much as possible and the reading of useful books.
In the economy: To pass a law on forests and to pay attention to foresting barren areas, especially slopes where there is a danger of landslides, to preserve the forests also for the preservation of beneficial climate conditions; to better the current primitive way of working the land; to drain the subterranean water and perform irrigation; to raise the levels of fruit-growing, grape-growing and apiculture; to aid and advance trade and artisanal and industrial enterprises and for which to work on passing a law on trade and organise trade agreements, so that our exports would not be interfered with; to demand to get faster, better and cheaper transport; for the education of the youth to work on building trade and artisanal holiday and evening schools; to pay special attention to aiding private initiatives in various endeavours of local traders and artisans; to build the necessary car and rail roads, as well as perfecting the post office, telegraph and telephone for easier traffic and exploitation of natural resources; to spread the practical agricultural knowledge through elementary and where possible economic schools, to which aim multiple experimental farms in various parts of the country should be built or to reward the building of private ones.
In finances:
To perform a re-organisation of the financial trade and establish strict control of the state’s finances, for which the Main State Control is to be reformed; all monopolies to be re-organised on a better and more useful basis, especially the tobacco monopoly; to establish a reasonable austerity in all branches of state administration; to perform a classification of the land and based on that to set the taxes; to establish a progressive taxation on capital and income.
In the military:
To have the military organised in the national spirit; to nurture the established virtues of the soldiers; to bring in order and discipline with laws and to determine the way of giving ranks, stand in the way of arbitrariness of certain officers and precisely determine when a Montenegrin is to be considered a soldier and when a citizen and to generally establish such an organisation so that a Montenegrin would always be ready to go to the defense of his dear Homeland.
In foreign policies: To nurture harmony with all the Balkan peoples on the principle to each their own; to maintain a stronger connection with oppressed Serbs; to work in accord with Serbia and aim towards the realisation of national ideas; to nurture the idea about the Yugoslav union; to maintain good relations with the neighbouring and other states and especially to maintain the already gained and until now unshadowed friendship with the powerful protector, the Russian Empire.
An economically strong, financially settled, militarily ready, with established internal relations on a broad basis of constitutional freedoms Montenegro, relying on the unity of spirit between its Exalted Ruler and People, will become an element of freedom, national advancement and development.
In that name, brothers, let us jointly get to work.
Voi. Šako Petrović, Marko Radulović, Nikola Jovanović, Andrija Radović, Bajo Gardašević, Vaso Ćulafić, Priest Vojin Popović, Priest Vuko Popavić, Voi. Gavro Vuković, Gavrilo Cerović, Dr Dušan Matanović, Voi. Đuro Cerović, Ilija Bojović, Janko Tošković, Joveta Ćetković, Jevrem Bakić, Voi. Lazar Sočica, Lazo Jovović, Ljubomir Bakić, Marko Vukotić, Marko Petrović, Milija Pavićevič, Dr Milovan Marušić, Milosav Raičević, Priest Milosav Tomić, Mitar Vukčević, Mitar Đurovic, Mihailo Ivanović, Priest Nikola Simović, Nikola Bajagić, Priest Novo Stanišić, Radoje Popović, Serd. Savo Plamenac, Savo Đurašković, Simo Šobajić, Spasoje Radulović, Spasoje Piletić, Priest Špiro Gligović.
