XXX 
INTRODUCTION. 
the workman merely to live and perpetuate his kind, comes 
too often into operation. As soon as this law, formulated by 
economists, began to be understood by working men, they 
said, “ Since our wages depend upon the supply of our labour, 
let us cease to work until we get higher wages.” Hence those 
strikes and coalitions on the Continent, in America, and 
especially in England, which almost daily interrupt work and 
interfere with every trade. Masters and men are in a state of 
constant warfare, having their battles, their victories, and their 
defeats. It is a dark and bitter civil war, wherein he wins who 
can longest hold out without earning anything ; a struggle far 
more cruel and more keen than that decided by bullets from 
a barricade ; one where all the furniture is pawned or sold, 
where the savings of better times are gradually devoured, and 
where, at last, famine and misery besiege the home, and oblige 
the wife and little ones to cry for mercy. 
In the course of this volume it will be seen how freedom 
of trade with foreign countries, joined to free competition at 
home, gave rise to the International League of labourers. As 
a consequence, this struggle between capital and labour is 
extending everywhere. It may be said that among the 
industrial nations, who now form one vast market, two armies 
stand facing each other ; on the one side, the capitalists, on 
the other, the labourers. 
The International, no longer in existence as a regular 
organization, still finds devoted and fanatical apostles to 
spread its doctrines. It is due to their propaganda, either 
secret or avowed, that Socialism has invaded all countries. 
It has become a kind of cosmopolitan religion. It oversteps 
frontiers, it obliterates race-antipathies, and, above all, it 
eradicates patriotism and tries to efface the very idea of it. 
Fellow-countrymen are enemies if they are employers, foreigners 
are brothers if they live by wages. From the moment that the 
Republic was proclaimed in France, the German Socialists 
declared against their own armies, and working men of 
London, Pesth, Vienna, and Berlin applauded the struggles 
and excused the crimes of the Commune. Economic con 
ditions being nearly the same in all countries, Socialism finds