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  conditions ­
  being  nearly  the  same  in  all  countries,  Socialism  finds