147 
THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 
real is it, especially in economic matters, that a purely local 
occurrence may have far-reaching results in both hemispheres. 
Germany adopts a gold currency, for example, and immediately 
the miner in the Rocky Mountains finds the value of his produce 
diminished ; the English officer, quartered near the Himalayas, 
can no longer remit his savings to London without suffering an 
enormous loss ; and the trade of England with India and South 
America is profoundly disturbed. Again, the spirit of enterprise 
awakes in America, and instantly, in spite of a bad harvest, 
European trade revives, prices mount up, factories, which had 
long stood idle, recommence work, and the crisis, which for five 
years had paralyzed production, gives place to a new era of 
activity and prosperity. As different nations tend to become 
one single family, all forms of social activity must consequently 
take an international character. 
The International owed its origin to the following series of 
facts and inferences. Owing to the cheapness of transport and 
the lowering of custom-duties, the western countries form only 
one single market, in which, through the action of competition, 
prices are maintained nearly on a level. Production takes place 
on similar conditions : the same processes, the same machines 
the same raw materials. It is, then, only by reducing the rate of 
wages that the cost price can be diminished. The manufacturer 
is naturally led to this, in order to gain a foreign outlet for his 
goods. But then, other manufacturers, menaced by the impor 
tation of foreign merchandise, are obliged, in their turn to 
lower the price of labour, in order to avoid loss of custom Ind 
having to cease working. In vain the workmen try to resist by 
coalitions and strikes. The manufacturer can present to them 
this incontrovertible argument: “If I do not reduce your 
wages, one of two things will happen : I may either keep up the 
selling-price of my goods, in which case there will be no sale 
for them, as my competitors, who pay lower wages, can offer 
their goods cheaper; or I may lower my prices, and then I 
shall be selling at a loss, my capital will gradually be eaten up, 
and I shall be ruined and have to close the factory. Where 
then will you find work ? I am therefore forced, in spite of 
^tiyse , to reduce wages to the rate paid by my competitors.”