THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 1/5 
working men are interchanging messages of peace and brother 
hood—this grand fact, without precedent in the history of the 
past, enables us to foresee a brighter future. It shows that 
a new society is arising whose International rôle will be peace, 
because the basis of nations will be everywhere the same, 
namely, labour.” 
After Sedan and the fall of the Empire, a movement of 
sympathy in favour of the French Republic took place in all 
the sections of the International, even in Germany. On the 
5th of September the German Social Democrats, assembled at 
Brunswick, published a manifesto containing the following 
passage :—“ It is Germany’s interest to conclude a peace which 
France can accept with honour. It is asserted that the annexa 
tion of Alsace and Lorraine will preserve us for ever from a war 
with France. It is, on the contrary, the surest way to trans 
form into a European institution and to perpetuate in United 
Germany the system of military despotism. Peace on such 
terms will be only a truce, until France shall be strong enough 
to reconquer her lost provinces. The war of 1870 bears in its 
train a war between Germany and Russia, as certainly as the 
war of 1866 bore that of 1870. Unless a revolution breaks 
out in Russia beforehand, which seems improbable, the war 
between Germany and Russia may be looked upon as a cer 
tainty. If we take Alsace and Lorraine from France, she will 
ally herself to Russia. It would be useless to point out the 
deplorable consequences.” These warnings by no means 
pleased the general in command, Vogel von Falkenstein, who, 
by virtue of the state of siege, sent the leaders to dream of the 
coming peace in the casements of Königsberg. 
I have endeavoured by these extracts to throw light on 
the cosmopolitan tendency of the International. It is, in fact 
one of the characteristic traits of modern Socialism. It is 
clearly derived from the ideas of the Manchester school and 
ultimately from the teachings of Political Economy, which 
always considers the good of humanity and readily forgets 
the existence of separate States. Establish universal free 
trade, say the Economists, abolish custom-houses and stand 
ing armies, make the laws everywhere identical, and soon