i6o 
THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
On the question of machines, the discussions were some 
what confused. The delegates could not, like ignorant 
labourers, condemn the use of the improved machines that dis 
coveries of sciences were placing at the service of industry. 
On the contrary, they prided themselves on having no other 
religion than that of science. To proscribe machines logically 
involves breaking up the plough, the shuttle, the spade—in a 
word, all tools, and returning to the age of stone. Nobody 
called for the suppression of machines ; but the majority of the 
congress appeared to be convinced that the employment of 
machines diminishes the demand for labour, and consequently 
reduces wages, though all the facts hitherto ascertained prove 
the contrary. Finally, the following resolution was adopted :— 
“ That it was only by co-operative societies and a system of 
mutual credit that the producers could become themselves the 
owners of machines ; meanwhile, as matters were, working men, 
constituted into societies of resistance, might interfere with 
advantage to prevent the introduction of machines, without 
certain guarantees and compensations to the labourer.” 
The principal end aimed at by the International appears 
clearly in the debate on the question of strikes. Graglia, the 
delegate from Geneva, showed that the masons’ strike had suc 
ceeded because the employers believed that considerable funds 
had been sent from England, France, and Belgium. Working 
men in every countiy should, he said, combine in sections and 
form provident funds, which might on occasion become defence 
funds. In every town groups should be formed, and should 
be all united by an international tie, and the whole labouring 
class should come to the aid of those who resist, “ in order to 
defend the rights of labour.” In this way there would be no 
more strikes, for employers, convinced beforehand that they 
should have to give way, would yield before there was any 
need of having recourse to strikes. Such was the original idea 
of the International, but the later adherents considered it 
narrow and mean. It was, in fact, the idea of the English 
trades unions, which, accepting wages as a fact, simply 
endeavoured to raise them as high as possible. According, 
however, to the continental Internationalists, the object to aim