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THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
CHAPTER IX. 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 
W E often speak of the International, and generally with 
out knowing either its constitution or its history. We 
fancy that we see the hand of this terrible society in all the acts 
of violence of Socialism : strikes, insurrections, incendiary fires 
in our cities, as in Paris; bombs, as at Florence and Pisa; 
attempts at regicide, as at Berlin, Naples, Madrid, or St. Peters 
burg. It is the red spectre everywhere present, everywhere 
threatening, and secretly undermining the fabric of the society 
in which we live. The International, however, never was a 
secret society. Its head-quarters were well known. Its pro 
clamations were signed and published; and, m s ort, it is t e 
form to which the present Socialistic movement must logically 
come. Is not everything in our days becoming international 
Have we not international exhibitions, banks of international 
credit, international tariffs for the post, the telegrap s, an t e 
railways, international treaties for the extradition o crimina s, 
for commercial law, for certain usages of war, for exc ange, 
and international financial societies without number 
“Internationalism” is the natural consequence of the grea 
process of assimilation which is taking place t roug out t e 
world. Nations are becoming more and more 1 e e^ ot er, 
and their mutual relations more and more close. e same 
economic and religious problems, the same commercia an 
industrial crises, the same class antagonisms, the same strugg es 
between capitalists and labourers arise in all civilized countries, 
whether their form of government be republican or monarchica. 
The “ solidarity” of nations is no longer an empty phrase. So