Address and Provisional Rules of the International Working Men's Association
Address and Provisional Rules
of the
International Working Men's
Association
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 28th, 1864
For
the Celebration of the
60th Anniversary
Published by
THE LABOUR & SOCIALIST INTERNATIONAL
1924
ADDRESS
AND
PROVISIONAL RULES
OF THE
INTERNATIONAL WORKING
MEN'S ASSOCIATION,
Established September 28, 1864.
AT A PUBLIC MEETING HELD AT ST. MARTIN'S
HALL, LONG ACRE, LONDON.
PRICE ONE PENNY.
Printed by the Westminister Printing Company,
56, and 132, Drury Lane
ADDRESS, &c., &c.
Fellow Working Men—
It is a great fact that the misery of the working masses has not diminished from 1848 to 1864, and yet this period is unrivalled for the development of its industry and the growth of its commerce. In 1850, a moderate organ of the British middle-class, of more than average information, predicted that if the exports and imports of England were to rise 50 per cent., English pauperism would sink to zero. Alas! on April 7th, 1864, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delighted his Parliamentary audience by the statement that the total import and export trade of England had grown in 1863 "to £443,955,000, that astonishing sum about three times the trade of the comparatively recent epoch of 1843." With all that he was eloquent upon "poverty." "Think," he exclaimed, of those who are on the border of that region," upon "wages. . . . . .not increased;" upon human life. . . . .in nine cases out of ten but a struggle of existence." He did not speak of the people of Ireland, gradually replaced by machinery in the North, and by sheep-walks in the south, though even the sheep in that unhappy country are decreasing it is true not at so rapid a rate as the men. He did not repeat what then had been just betrayed by the highest representatives of the upper ten thousand in a sudden fit of terror. When the garotte panic had reached a certain height, the House of Lords caused an inquiry to be made into, and a report to be published upon, transportation and penal servitude. Out came the murder in the bulky Blue Book of 1863, and proved it was, by official facts and figures, that the worst of the convicted criminals, the penal serfs of England and Scotland, toiled much less and fared far better than the agricultural labourers of England and Scotland. But this was not all. When, consequent upon the civil war in America, the operatives of Lancashire and Cheshire were thrown upon the streets, the same House of Lords sent to the manufacturing districts a physician commissioned to investigate into the smallest possible amount of carbon and nitrogen, to be administered in the cheapest and plainest form, which, on an average, might just suffice to "avert starvation diseases." Dr. Smith, the medical deputy, ascertained that 28,000 grains of carbon and 1,330 grains of nitrogen were the weekly allowance that would keep an average adult. . . . . . . . .just over the level of starvation diseases, and he found furthermore that quantity pretty nearly to agree with the scanty nourishment to which the pressure of extreme distress had actually reduced the cotton operatives.[1] But now mark! The same learned Doctor was later on again deputed by the medical officer of the Privy Council to inquire into the nourishment of the poorer labouring classes. The results of his researches are embodied in the "Sixth Report on Public Health," published by order of Parliament in the course of the present year What did the Doctor discover? That the silk weavers, the needle women, the kid glovers, the stocking weavers, and so forth, received, on an average, not even the distressed pittance of the cotton operatives, not even the amount of carbon and nitrogen "just sufficient to avert starvation diseases."
"Moreover," we quote from the report, "as regards the examined families of the agricultural population, it appeared that more than a fifth were with less than the estimated sufficiency of carbonaceous food: that more than one third were with less than the estimated sufficiency of nitrogenous food, and that in three counties (Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Somersetshire,) insufficiency of nitrogenous food was the average local diet." "It must be remembered," adds the official report, "that privation of food is very reluctantly borne, and that, as a rule, great poorness of diet will only come when other privations have preceded it. . . . . . . . . Even cleanliness will have been found costly or difficult, and if there still be self-respectful endeavours to maintain it, every such endeavour will represent additional pangs of hunger. These are painful reflections, especially when it is remembered that the poverty to which they advert is not the deserved poverty of idleness: in all cases it is the poverty of working populations. Indeed, the work which obtains the scanty pittance of food is, for the most part, excessively prolonged." The report brings out the strange and rather unexpected fact, "That of the divisions of the United Kingdom," England, Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, "the agricultural population of England," the richest division, "is considerably the worst fed," but that even the agricultural labourers of Berkshire, Oxfordshire, and Somersetshire, fare better than great numbers of skilled indoor operatives of the East of London.
Such are the official statements published by order of Parliament in 1864, during the millennium of free trade, at a time when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons that "the average condition of the British labourer has improved in a degree we know to be extraordinary and unexampled in the history of any country or any age." Upon these official congratulations jars the dry remark of the official Public Health Report: The public health of a country means the health of its masses, and the masses will scarcely be healthy unless, to their very base, they be at least moderately prosperous."
Dazzled by the "Progress of the Nation," statistics dancing before his eyes, the Chancellor of the Exchequer exclaims in wild ecstacy: "From 1842 to 1852 the taxable income of the country increased by six per cent.; in the eight years from 1853 to 1861, it has increased from the basis taken in 1853, 20 per cent., the fact is so astonishing as to be almost incredible. . . . . . . . .This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power." adds Mr. Gladstone, "is entirely confined to classes of property."
If you want to know under what conditions of broken health, tainted morals, and mental ruin, that "intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power entirely confined to classes of property" was, and is being produced by the classes of labour, look to the picture hung up in the last "Public Health Report" of the workshops of tailors, printers and dressmakers. Compare the "Report of the Children's Employment Commission" of 1863, where it is stated, for instance, that—"The potters as a class, both men and women, represent a much degenerated population, both physically and mentally," that the unhealthy child is an unhealthy parent in his tum," that a progressive determination of the race must go on and that "the degenerescence of the population of Staffordshire would be even greater were it not for the constant recruiting from the adjacent country, and the intermarriages with more healthy races." Glance at Mr. Tremenheere's Blue Book on the "Grievances complained of by the Journeymen Bakers." And who has not shuddered at the paradoxical statement made by the inspectors of factories, and illustrated by the Registrar General, that the Lancashire operatives, while put upon the distress pittance of food, were actually improving in health, because of their temporary exclusion by the cotton famine from the cotton factory, and that the mortality of the children was decreasing, because their mothers were now at last allowed to give them instead of Godfrey's cordial their own breasts.
Again reverse the medal. The Income and Property Tax Returns, laid before the House of Commons on July 20, 1864, teach us that the persons with yearly incomes, valued by the tax gatherer at £50,000 and upwards, had, from April 5th, 1862, to April 5th, 1863, been joined by a dozen and one, their number having increased in that single year from 67 to 80. The same returns disclose the fact that about 3,000 persons divide amongst themselves a yearly income of about £25,000,000 sterling, rather more than the total revenue doled out annually to the whole mass of the agricultural labourers of England and Wales. Open the Census of 1861, and you will find that the number of the male landed proprietors of England and Wales had decreased from 16,934 in 1851, to 15,066 in 1861, so that the concentration of land had grown in ten years 11 per cent. If the concentration of the soil of the country in a few hands proceed at the same rate, the land question will become singularly simplified, as it had become in the Roman Empire, when Nero grinned at the discovery that half the province of Africa was owned by six gentlemen.
We have dwelt so long upon these "facts so astonishing as to be almost incredible," because England heads the Europe of Commerce and Industry. It will be remembered that some months ago one of the refugee sons of Louis Phillippe publicly congratulated the English agricultural labourer on the superiority of his lot over that of his less florid comrade on the other side of the Channel. Indeed, with local colours changed, and on a scale somewhat contracted, the English facts reproduce themselves in all the industrious and progressive countries of the continent. In all of them there has taken place, since 1848, an unheard-of development of industry, and an undreamed of expansion of imports and exports. In all of them "the augmentation of wealth and power entirely confined to classes of property" was truly "intoxicating." In all of them, as in England, a minority of the working classes got their real wages somewhat advanced; while in most cases the monetary rise of wages denoted no more a real access of comforts than the inmate of the metropolitan poor-house or orphan asylum, for instance, was in the least benefitted by his first necessaries costing £9 15s. 8d. in 1861 against £7 7s. 4d. in 1852. Everywhere the great mass of the working classes were sinking down to a lower depth, at the same rate at least that those above them were rising in the social scale. In all countries of Europe it has now become a truth demonstrable to every unprejudiced mind, and only denied by those whose interest it is to hedge other people in a fool's paradise, that no improvement of machinery, no appliance of science to production, no contrivances of communication, no new colonies, no emigration, no opening of markets, no free trade, nor all these things put together, will do away with the miseries of the industrious masses; but that, on the present false base, every fresh development of the productive powers of labour must tend to deepen social contrasts and point social antagonisms. Death of starvation rose almost to the rank of an institution, during this intoxicating epoch of economical progress, in the metropolis of the British Empire. That epoch is marked in the annals of the world by the quickened return, the widening compass and the deadlier effects of the social pest called a commercial and industrial crisis.
After the failure of the revolutions of 1848, all party organizations and party journals of the working classes were, on the Continent, crushed by the iron hand of force, the most advanced sons of labour fled in despair to the Translantic republic, and the short-lived dreams of emancipation vanished before an epoch of industrial fever, moral marasm, and political reaction. The defeat of the continental working classes, partly owed to the diplomacy of the English Government, acting then as now in fraternal solidarity with the Cabinet of St. Petersburgh, soon spread its contagious effects to this side of the channel. While the rout of their continental brethren unmanned the English working classes, and broke their faith in their own cause, it restored to the landlord and the money lord their somewhat shaken confidence. They insolently withdrew concessions already advertised. The discoveries of new goldlands led to an immense exodus, leaving an irreparable void in the ranks of the British proletariat. Others of its formerly active members were caught by the temporary bribe of greater work and wages, and turned into "political blacks." All the efforts made at keeping up, or remodelling, the Chartist Movement, failed signally, the press organs of the working class died one by one of the apathy of the masses, and, in point of fact, never before seemed the English working class so thoroughly reconciled to a state of political nullity. If, then, there had been no solidarity of action between the British and the continental working classes, there was, at all events, a solidarity of defeat.
And yet the period passed since the revolutions of 1848 has not been without its compensating features. We shall here only point to two great facts.
After a thirty years' struggle, fought with most admirable perseverance, the English working classes, improving a momentaneous split between the landlords and money lords, succeeded in carrying the Ten Hours' Bill. The immense physical, moral, and intellectual benefits. hence accruing to the factory operatives, half yearly chronicled in the reports of the inspectors of factories, are now acknowledged on all sides. Most of the continental governments had to accept the English Factory Act in more or less modified forms, and the English Parliament itself is every year compelled to enlarge its sphere of action. But besides its practical import, there was something else to exalt the marvellous success of this working men's measure. Through their most notorious organs of science, such as Dr. Ure, Professor Senior, and other sages of that stamp, the middle class had predicted, and to their hearts' content proved, that any legal restriction of the hours of labour must sound the death knell of British industry, which, vampyre like, could but live by sucking blood, and children's blood, too. In olden times, child murder was a mysterious rite of the religion of Moloch, but it was practised on some very solemn occasions only, once a year perhaps, and then Moloch had no exclusive bias for the children of the poor. This struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labour raged the more fiercely since apart from frightened avarice, it told indeed upon the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class. Hence the Ten Hours Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class.
But there was in store a still greater victory of the political economy of labour, over the political economy ofproperty. We speak of the co-operative movement, especially the co-operative factories raised by the unassisted efforts of a few bold "hands." The value of these great social experiments cannot be over-rated. By deed, instead of by argument, they have shown that production on a large scale, and in accord with the behests of modern science, may be carried on without the existence of a class of masters employing a class of hands; that to bear fruit, the means of labour need not be monopolised as a means of dominion over, and of extortion against, the labouring man himself; and that, like slave labour, like serf labour, hired labour is but a transitory and inferior form, destined to disappear before associated labour plying its toil with a willing hand, a ready mind, and a joyous heart. In England, the seeds of the co-operative system were sown by Robert Owen; the working men's experiments, tried on the continent, were in fact, the practical upshot of the theories, not invented, but loudly proclaimed in 1848.
At the same time, the experience of the period from 1848 to 1864, has proved beyond doubt that, however excellent in principle, and however useful in practice, co-operative labour, if kept within the narrow circle of the casual efforts of private workmen, will never be able to arrest the growth in geometrical progression of monopoly, to free the masses. nor even to perceptibly lighten the burden of their miseries. It is perhaps for this very reason that plausible noblemen, philanthropic middle class spouters, and even keen political economists, have all at once turned nauseously complimentary to the very co-operative labour system they had vainly tried to nip in the bud by deriding it as the Utopia of the dreamer, or stigmatising it as the sacrilege of the socialist. To save the industrious masses, co-operative labour ought to be developed to national dimensions, and, consequently, to be fostered by national means. Yet the lords of land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defence and perpetuation of their economical monopolies. So far from promoting, they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labour. Remember the sneer with which, last session, Lord Palmerston put down the advocates of the Irish Tenants' Right Bill. The House of Commons, cried he, is a house of landed proprietors. To conquer political power has therefore become the great duty of the working classes. They seem to have comprehended this for in England, Germany, Italy, and France there have taken place simultaneous revivals, and simultaneous efforts are being made at the political reorganisation of the working men's party.
One element of success they possess-numbers; but numbers weigh only in the balance, if united by combination and led by knowledge. Past experienee has shown how disregard of that bond of brotherhood which ought to exist between the workmen of different countries, and incite them to stand firmly by each other in all their struggles for emancipation, will be chastised by the common discomfiture of their incoherent efforts. This thought prompted the working men of different countries assembled on September 28, 1864, in public meeting at St. Martin's Hall, to found the International Association.
Another Conviction swayed that meeting
If the emancipation of the working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfil that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices, and squandering in piratical wars the people's blood and treasure? It was not the wisdom of the ruling classes, but the heroic resistance to their criminal folly by the working classes of England that saved the West of Europe from plunging headlong into an infamous crusade for the perpetuation and propagation of slavery on the other side of the Atlantic. The shameless approval, mock sympathy, or idiotic indifference, with which the upper classes of Europe have witnessed the mountain fortress of the Caucasus falling a prey to and heroic Poland being assassinated by, Russia; the immense and unresisted encroachments of that barbarous power, whose head is at St. Petersburg, and whose hands are in every Cabinet of Europe, have taught the working classes the duty to master themselves the mysteries of international politics; to watch the diplomatic acts of their respective Governments; to counteract them, if necessary, by all means in their power; when unable to prevent, to combine in simultaneous denunciations, and to vindicate the simple laws of morals and justice, which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, as the rules paramount of the intercourse of nations.
The fight for such a foreign policy forms part of the general struggle for the emancipation of the working classes.
Proletarians of all countries, Unite!
PROVISIONAL RULES OF THE ASSOCIATION.
Considering,
That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class-rule;
That the economical subjection of the man of labour to the monopolizer of the means of labour that is the sources of life, lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence;
That the economical emancipation of the working classes is therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means;
That all efforts aiming at that great end have hitherto failed from the want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labour in each country, and from the absence of a fraternal bond of union between the working classes of different countries;
That the emancipation of labour is neither a local, nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and depending for its solution on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the most advanced countries;
That the present revival of the working classes in the most industrious countries of Europe, while it raises a new hope, gives solemn warning against a relapse into the old errors and calls for the immediate combination of the still disconnected movements;
For these reasons:
The undersigned members of the committee, holding its powers by resolution of the public meeting held on Sept. 28, 1864, at St. Martin's Hall, London, have taken the steps necessary for founding the International Working Men's Association;
They declare that this International Association and all societies and individuals adhering to it will acknowledge truth, justice, and morality, as the basis of their conduct towards each other, and towards all men, without regard to colour, creed or nationality;
They hold it the duty of a man to claim the rights of a man and a citizen, not only for himself but for every man who does his duty. No rights without duties, no duties without rights;
And in this spirit they have drawn up the following provisional rules of the International Association:—
1. This association is established to afford a central medium of communication and co-operation between Working Men's Societies existing in different countries and aiming at the same end; viz., the protection, advancement, and complete emancipation of the working classes.
2. The name of the society shall be: "The International Working Men's Association."
3. In 1865 there shall meet in Belgium a General Working Men's Congress, consisting of representatives of such working men's societies as may have joined the International Association. The Congress will have to proclaim before Europe the common aspirations of the working classes, decide on the definite rules of the International Association, consider the means required for its successful working, and appoint the Central Council of the Association. The General Congress is to meet once a year.
4. The Central Council shall sit in London, and consist of working men belonging to the different countries represented in the International Association. It shall from its own members elect the officers necessary for the transaction of business, such as a president, a treasurer, a general secretary, corresponding secretaries for the different countries, &c.
5. On its annual meetings, the General Congress shall receive a public account of the annual transactions of the Central Council. The Central Council yearly appointed by the Congress, shall have power to add to the number of its members. In cases of urgency, it may convoke the General Congress before the regular yearly term.
6. The Central Council shall form an international agency between the different co-operating associations, so that the working men in one country be constantly informed of the movements of their class in every other country; that an enquiry into the social state of the different countries of Europe be made simultaneously, and under a common direction; that the questions of general interest mooted in one society be ventilated by all; and that when immediate practical steps should be needed, as, for instance, in case of international quarrels, the action of the associated societies be simultaneous and uniform. Whenever it seems opportune, the Central Council shall take the initiative of proposals to be laid before the different national or local societies.
7. Since the success of the working men's movement in each country cannot be secured but by the power of union and combination, while, on the other hand, the usefulness of the International Central Council must greatly depend on the circumstance whether it has to deal with a few national centres of working men's associations, or with a great number of small and disconnected local societies; the members of the International Association shall use their utmost efforts to combine the disconnected working men's societies of their respective countries into national bodies, represented by central national organs. It is self-understood however, that the appliance of this rule will depend upon the peculiar laws of each country, and that, apart from legal obstacles, no independent local society shall be precluded from directly corresponding with the London Central Council.
8. Until the meeting of the first Congress, the committee chosen on September 28th, 1864, will act as a Provisional Central Council, try to connect the different national working men's associations, enlist members in the United Kingdom, take the steps preparatory to the convocation of the General Congress, and discuss with the national and local societies the main questions to be laid before that congress.
9. Each Member of the International Association, on removing his domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of the Associated Working Men.
10. While united in a perpetual bond of fraternal co-operation, the working men's societies, joining the International Association, will preserve their existent organisations intact.
N.B.—Trade, Friendly, or any Working Men's Societies are invited to join in their corporate capacity, the only conditions being that the Members subscribe to the principles of the Association, and pay for the declaration of their enrolment (which is varnished and mounted on canvas and roller), not less than 5s. No contributions are demanded from Societies joining, it being left to their means and discretion to contribute or not, or as they may from time to time deem the efforts of the association worthy of support. The Central Council will be pleased to send the Address and Rules to any Society applying for them; and, if within the London District, deputations will gladly attend to afford any further information that may be required. Societies joining are entitled to send a representative to the Central Council. The amount of contribution for individual members is 1s. per annum, with 1d. for Card of Membership; which may be obtained, with every information concerning the Association, by applying to the Honorary Secretary, or at the Central Council's Meetings, which are held every Tuesday evening, at 18, Bouverie-street, from 8 to 10.
NAMES OF THE CENTRAL PROVISIONAL COUNCIL.
|
AYERS |
HANSEN |
MASSMAN |
| E. DUPONT, | Corresponding Secretary for France. | |
| K. MARX, | Corresponding„ Secretary„ | Germany. |
| K. BOBCZNSKI | Corresponding„ Secretary„ | Poland. |
| H. LUNG, | Corresponding„ Secretary„ | Switzerland. |
| P. FOX, | Corresponding„ Secretary„ | America. |
| C. LONGUET, | Corresponding„ Secretary„ | Belgium. |
| G. TRAINI, | Corresponding„ Secretary„ | Italy. |
| P. LAFARGUE, | Corresponding„ Secretary„ | Spain. |
G. ODGER, Presidet of Central Council.
G. W. WHEELER, Hon. Treasurer.
W. DELL, Hon. Financial Secretary.
W. R. CREMER, Hon, Gen. Sec.
Reprinted from the Original
by
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4, Great Smith Street, London, S.W.1.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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- ↑ We need hardly remind the reader that apart from the elements of water and certain inorganic substances, carbon and nitrogen form the raw materials of human food. However, to nourish the human system, those simple chemical constituents must be supplied in the form of vegetable or animal substances. Potatoes, for instance, contain mainly carbon, while wheaten bread contains carbonaceous and nitrogenous substances in a due proportion.