166 the socialism of to-day. 
tutions, based though they are on family ties and immemorial 
traditions. When what we call progress comes to shake this 
patriarchal life from its torpor, and new wants come into 
being, the associates no longer care to labour for the common 
weal ; they demand a partition. Little by little the spirit of 
individualism is destroying the Slavic zadruga, as^ before, in the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it brought about the 
disappearance of the communities of ancient France. hen 
isolated, are the families happier ? Far from it. Often they 
have to sell their properties and lapse into poverty. Still 
they wish for freedom and independence, even at the price of 
the responsibilities and disappointments thereby engendered. 
Before another half-century, when railways and modern in 
dustry shall have developed the wealth of Southern Slavonia, 
the ancient equality will have given way to the opposition 
between capitalism and wage-earning, as in our western 
countries. We may regret the fact, but it cannot be denied j 
existing tendencies seem fatal to rural communities. They 
endure only when they rest on a religious sentiment of a 
perfervid type, as at Oneida or among the T rappists. 
During the year 1869 the International spread with 
extraordinary rapidity. There was a great ferment among 
the working classes throughout Europe, and particularly in 
France, where, after the May elections, the Government, 
doubtless with the object of rallying the middle classes to its 
side, had given complete liberty to the violent language of 
the clubs. Strikes took place all over Europe, and in many 
parts, notably at Seraing in Belgium, and at Creusot in 
France, they ended in skirmishes and bloodshed. All these 
strikes brought recruits to the International in the hope of 
getting aid. Usually they did not succeed, for the great 
association was not rich ; but in the early days of excitement 
it was supposed to be powerful, and it caused employers to 
make concessions, just as if it were really so. 
How adhesions to the International were made may be clearly 
seen from the answer of the prisoner Bastin, at the time of the 
trial of May, 1870. “ I am accused,” he said to the president, 
“ of having joined a secret society. I deny it expressly. 1 rue,