148
THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DA Y.
The conclusion to be drawn from this reasoning is that the
working men of one country, in order to resist a lowering
of wages, must enter into an understanding with those of other
opposition must be made, and if it takes place in a foreign
country, then in that foreign country resistance must be
organized. It is therefore easy to see how the cosmopolitan
character of capital, the facility of transport and exchange, and
the identity of manufacturing processes naturally lead to an
international association of working men.
Another circumstance of a more special character led in the
same direction. Sometimes English employers, when their
workmen refused the conditions offered to them and went out
on strike, imported foreign workmen—Germans, Belgians, or
Danes—who were ready to take less wages. They even
threatened to introduce Chinese coolies, who, subsisting on
rice can live in comfort on sixpence a day. How were the
workmen to escape from this competition imported from with
out > Obviously, by forming an understanding with foreign
workmen, by proving to them that the interests of all labourers
are mutually dependent, and by inducing them accordingly to
refuse any offers that employers of another country might make
to them. Clearly the International grew, at the outset, on
economical ground and under the influence of the new condi
tions of modern industry.
This is proved beyond question by the fact that the Inter
national came into being immediately after the holding of the
International Exhibition at London, in 1862. At least it was
then that it took bodily shape, for the idea, m its theoretical
form, dates from much earlier. In 1847 there was held m
London an assembly of German Communists under the di^c
tion of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, who had just published
his book on the condition of working men in England,
manifesto was printed in several languages. The programme
adopted may be summarized as follows ; Abolition of private
property ; centralization of credit in the hands of the State y
means of a national bank ; agricultural operations on a large
scale to be carried on according to a scientific plan, and industry
