THE  RISE  AND  FALL  OF  THE  INTERNATIONAL,  183
congress  is  to  fix  the  place  where  the  next  congress  shall  meet,
and  the  federation  there  shall  take  charge  of  the  correspondence, ­
  serve  as  intermediary  and  prepare  questions  for
discussion.  No  contribution  shall  be  demanded.  In  short,
no  government,  no  budget.  They  almost  attained  the  absolute
perfection  which  consists  in  abolishing  everything.
Van  den  Abeele  raised  an  objection.  “  We  Hollanders,”
he  said,  “  are  partisans  of  the  experimental  method.  A  central
power  is  a  bad  thing.  Let  us  try  the  formation  of  three
committees.  I  admit  the  principle  of  anarchy;  but  are  we
strong  enough  to  apply  it  forthwith  ?  ”  “  What  !  ”  replied  the
French  delegate.  Brousse,  “  you  wish  to  destroy  this  authoritarian
structure  ?  Anarchy  is  your  programme,  and  yet  you  shrink
before  the  consequences  of  your  principles  !  Another  blow,
and  the  whole  pile  will  tumble.”  They  worked,  in  fact,  to
bury  their  association.  Their  principles  were  about  to  produce
the  natural  results.  From  impotence  they  were  going  to  pass
to  non-existence.
Eccarius,  the  former  lieutenant  of  Marx,  from  whom  he  had
recently  separated,  and  the  only  person  of  any  weight  among  the
“  autonomists  ”  present,  summed  up  the  history  of  the  International ­
  in  a  few  words  of  his  closing  address.  “  The  old
International,  the  first  stone  of  which  was  laid  at  St.  Martin’s
Hall  on  the  28th  of  September,  1864,  and  the  building  of  which
was  completed  at  the  Congress  of  Geneva  in  1866,  has  ceased
to  exist.  That  which  we  now  establish  is  entirely  distinct  from
it.  The  initiative  came  from  the  trades  unions  of  London,  who
wished  us  to  concern  ourselves  with  politics,  and  the  Proudhonians,
  who  wished  us  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  them.
The  former  desired  to  apply  the  principles  of  trades  unionism,
that  is  to  say,  the  rising  of  wages  by  means  of  combinations  and
strikes  ;  whereas  the  latter  sought  to  realize  their  theories  of
social  reconstruction.  At  Bâle,  the  Proudhonians  succumbed,
but  at  the  same  time  the  unionist  element  was  destroyed  by
personal  rivalries  among  the  members  of  the  general  council.
At  Paris,  on  the  other  hand,  the  unionists  carried  the  day  over
the  heads  of  the  Proudhonians.  In  1870  a  reconciliation
might  perhaps  have  been  brought  about,  but  the  outbreak  of