in the name of 'the very holy and indivisible Trinity.' The three monarchs, guided by the 'sublime truths taught by the eternal religion of God our Saviour,' agreed to be 'united by the bonds of a true and indissoluble fraternity,' and to give 'aid and assistance to each other on all occasions and in all places regarding themselves in their relations to their subjects and to their armies as fathers of families. Considering themselves all as members of one great Christian nation, the three allied princes look upon themselves as delegates of Providence called upon to govern three branches of the same family. Their Majesties recommend therefore to their peoples, as the sole means of enjoying that peace which springs from a good conscience and is alone enduring, to fortify themselves each day in the principles and practice of those duties which the Divine Saviour had taught to men.' Nearly all the Powers signed the document committing them to the ideas of the Holy Alliance.

But aristocratic internationalism had failed. The Congress temporarily recast the map of Europe and from it resulted the Quadruple Alliance of Austria, Prussia, and Russia to which England for a short time gave her adherence, and which was ultimately directed-whether under the influence of Alexander the First or of Metternich does not here affect the argument-to the suppression of revolution in any State of Europe. The revolutions of 1848 were the consequence.

It was in 1864 that the principle was first formulated 'that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves.' With these words opens the preamble to the constitution of the International Working Men's Association, famous throughout the world under the abbreviated title of 'The International.'* This organisation, which is now almost forgotten in England save for its association with the name of Karl Marx, is the direct ancestor of all the great organisations which combine workers, on a class basis, in their struggle with capital. One of the chief supporters of the syndicalist movement in France said recently that the organisation directing this movement was the 'historical continuation' of the International. And Ferdinand Pelloutier, the founder of French syndicalism, observed in 1895 that the syndicalist organisation was the final outcome of the prophetic advice given thirty years ago to the proletariat by the International.'' But it is only with the

4

international aspects of this association that we are here concerned.

It was said of this, as it might be said with equal truth of syndicalism and other similar movements, that 'the child born in the Paris workshops was put out to nurse in London.' It is difficult to ascertain what was its material or numerical strength. Bismarck was stated, and is believed by many authorities, to have thought it of sufficient influence to use for the discomfiture of France. In 1869, just before the war, strikes broke out all over France. According to the French police, these outbreaks were planned by the International, and it was even insinuated that Count Bismarck "had known how to win the graces of this all-powerful association" with a view to incapacitate France for attacking Prussia,' writes one of its founders. The outbreak in Paris from the 18th of March to the 29th of May 1871, in which 30,000 communists lost their lives, was at the time attributed by many to the International. One of these who had at first held the International entirely responsible for the beginnings of the Commune remarked later, in his evidence before the commission of inquiry instituted by the Government, that socialist ideas and the action of the International in relation to the 18th of March had no more effect than that of 'a little packet of gunpowder thrown into a fire.''

The organisation of the International, which never existed with any approximate completeness except on paper, was based on autonomous local groups, federated locally in districts, and culminating in national federations. Over these national federations presided the General Committee in London. The need for international organisation was argued from the premise that no local or even national association could frustrate the attempts of employers to import foreign labour to overawe their workmen. 'The emancipation of labour,' says the preamble to the rules, ' is neither a local nor a national, but a social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists....'

One instance of its international activities is given by Professor Beesley in the article already quoted. In 1870, just before the opening of the war between France and Germany, the Central Committee of the International in London recommended the British Amalgamated Society of Engineers to give financial support to the Paris iron-moulders who were on strike. The proposal was laid before 299 branches of the society; 7045 members voted for granting a loan and 557 against, and the loan was therefore approved.

note the following facts in connexion with this vote. Of the 557 members who voted against granting the loan 234 were Scotch. The Edinburgh branch declined to vote at all, stating that one 'should look at home first,' Leith inquired as to the security for the repayment of the loan, Glasgow (sixth branch) considered that when the loan was repaid the members should decide by vote what should be done with the money. On the other hand, seven English branches suggested that the money should be given instead of being lent.

In 1870 internationalism, as represented by the new ideal, once more was swept away by patriotism. On the eve of the war with Germany the Paris section of the International issued a protest and an appeal to the German working man. A mass meeting of working men at Brunswick, the headquarters of the German International, founded in 1869 under certain restrictions imposed by the law, sent the following reply: 'With deep sorrow we are forced to undergo a defensive war & as an unavoidable evil; but we call at the same time upon the whole German working class to render the recurrence of such an immense social misfortune impossible, by vindicating for the people themselves the power to decide on peace and war.' There must have been a Bismarck among the working men who drafted this reply.

Then came the crushing defeat of the French armies and the siege of Paris. The members of the International who were within the suffering city were unable to resist the flood of patriotic sentiment which for five months filled the hearts of two and a half millions with a sublime courage. And when the end came, the 'capitulard' replaced for the time being the capitalist as an object of hatred for the militant working man. One of the leaders of the International was among those who wanted to fight to the bitter end and wrote: 'We must arm against the Prussians first; against the bourgeoisie afterwards.' The Paris Committee of the International, too poor to support a daily or even a weekly paper, accepted the hospitality of the columns of La Lutte à Outrance, a title which is sadly wanting in international sympathy. Then in the terrible weeks of the Commune the Paris Committee of the International gave its adherence to the short-lived Commune Government; seventeen of its number were members of this Government and agreed to a manifesto which embodied communist doctrines in an appeal to humiliated patriotism and to hatred of those who had surrendered France to the Prussians. And yet, in September 1870, the French representative on the General Committee of the International in London, watching things from a distance, had written that the workmen ought to leave the 'vermine bourgeoise' to make peace with the

Prussians and think only of their own organisation. A short time afterwards he recorded bitterly that many socialists were 'singing in chorus with the bourgeois and thinking only of their country.'

No ideal has yet succeeded, when tested by experience, in replacing patriotism, based on nationality, as the force producing the maximum of association of which mankind is capable. For of all the virtues patriotism remains that which is common to the greatest number of the human race, and is unequalled in the sacrifice of individual interests which it commands and obtains. There has always been a small minority in every nation, discontented, oppressed, or incapable of adapting themselves to the conditions of the nationality within which they exist, who have been prepared to seek the amelioration of their lot in association with a rival nationality. The nation which has allowed them to continue in its midst and has yet ignored their grievances has done so at the risk of its own existence. That has been one of the dangers ever present to the minds of statesmen. In its most elementary form it was expressed bly Napoleon when he said: 'The workman without work is at the mercy of every intrigue; he can be incited to revolt; I fear insurrections caused by a want of bread; I would fear less a battle against 200,000 men.' But while there is no one, not a fool, so conservative as not to recognise and to endeavour to obviate that danger, political efforts directed to that object alone would tend to reduce to a minimum the fund of patriotism which it is necessary to maintain at the highest possible level if a nation is to attain its greatest development. All shades of politicians of intelligence so fully appreciate this now in Great Britain, rivalling one another in their schemes of social reform, that the point need not be laboured, and it is unnecessary to dwell on the absurdity of expecting any sense of patriotism among those whose life, under national conditions, can give them no reason to love their country.

But some of those who attempt to gauge the tendencies of the present without reference to the past see forces at work which will, they believe, obliterate national frontiers. In our own country this is to some extent due to the temporary reaction following as a natural result the movement to arrive at a still higher form of organisation by a closer association of the five nations of the British Empire. Those, however, who expect practical results from the recurrence of attempts to realise the dream of universal peace, overlook the fact that the spirit of strife actuates all classes at the present day to an extent unsurpassed in history. The working classes have declared war on capital and on the governments which afford protection to capital. Not a day passes without a struggle between the forces on both sides, arrests, imprisonment, attacks on the police by the working classes, and counter attacks of the forces of law and order. It is rather in the belief that each side in the struggle that is going on represents interests which are common to all nations, that a tendency to internationalism is to be sought. Capital it is claimed has become cosmopolitan in its operations. And yet it is difficult to reconcile this line of argument with the fact that nation still wars against nation-that hardly a pamphlet is published in support of any opinion held by the working classes which does not maintain that these wars are instigated by and carried on in the interests of capital. Nevertheless the working classes of all nations regard capital as a common enemy. Will they, in their struggle against the common foe, succeed as they have never succeeded in the past in forming an association on a fighting basis which ignores the distinctions of nationality?

9

Until some willingness is shown by the working men of one country to make serious sacrifices on behalf of the working men of another, it will be difficult to offer tangible evidence of any new development in this direction. It has been shown how the German working class failed to take any serious step to prevent the war of 1870. On the 19th of February 1912, at the Congress of the French Socialist party, Mr. Keir Hardie, who was present, announced that within a month a million miners would come out on strike in Great Britain, and called upon the miners in other countries to come out in sympathy and thus prevent war. A slight movement which took place among the German miners is not claimed by anyone to have had any connexion with this suggestion. International action of the kind contemplated, that is to say positive action to forestall a possible move of the Government, would, on the part of groups of men, as of individuals, imply discipline. It is possible, it is indeed likely, that the working classes would take action to hamper any Government that embarked on a war of aggression. Bismarck had to stretch the art of diplomacy beyond the conventions sanctioned by history to persuade the working classes of Germany even in 1870 that the war was a 'defensive' one, and thus afforded a text for the reply of the Brunswick men already quoted. On the 1st of October 1911 the Confédération Générale du Travail in France called a special conference in view of the danger of war with Germany and the European complications threatened by the Turco-Italian war. This body decided to issue a circular to every trade union reminding them of the decision of the Confédération that 'workmen shall without delay reply to any