Karl Marx  
Rapport du Conseil Central.  
Sur les différentes questions mises à l'étude  

par la Conférence de septembre 1865  

Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Paul Lafargue  

Le Courrier International.  
Nr. 6/7, 16. Februar 1867  

Rapport du conseil central.  
Sur les différentes questions mises à l'étude  
par la conférence de septembre 1865.  

1. – Organisation of the Association.  

The provisional council of London recommends the plan of organisation as traced in the provisional rules. The experience of two years has proved its strength and its ease of adaptation to the particular circumstances of the different countries, without however hindering unity of action. For the next year, we recommend London as the seat of the central council. The political situation of the continent makes any change impossible.  

The members of the central council shall be elected by the congress (Art. 5 of the provisional rules) and shall nevertheless have the right to add new members to their number.  

The general secretary shall be chosen by the congress (for one year) and shall be the only paid member of the Association. We propose two pounds sterling (50 fr.) per week for his wages.  

The standing committee, forming in fact the executive of the central council, shall be chosen by the congress; the function of each of its members shall be determined by the central council.  

As the uniform annual contribution to be paid by each member of the Association to the funds of the central council, we recommend one penny (perhaps two pence). The price of cards or membership books shall be paid in pence.  

Although we advise the members of the Association to form mutual aid societies and to establish an international link between these societies, we leave the initiative on these questions (“establishment of mutual aid societies. Moral and material support granted to the orphans of the Association”) to the Swiss, who have proposed them at the September conferences.  

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Karl Marx  

2. – International combination of efforts, by means of the association, for the struggle of labour against capital.  

a. From a general point of view, this question embraces the whole activity of the International Association, the aim of which is to combine, generalise, and give uniformity to the still disconnected efforts undertaken in the different countries for the emancipation of the working class.  

b. One of the principal functions of the Association, a function already carried out with great success in different circumstances, is to counteract the intrigues of the capitalists, always ready, in cases of strikes or lock-outs, to use foreign workers as an instrument to stifle the just complaints of the native workers. It is one of the great aims of the Association to develop among the workers of the different countries not only the feeling but the fact of their fraternity and to unite them to form the army of emancipation.  

c. We propose for adoption by the congress, as a “great combination of efforts”, a statistic of the conditions of the working classes of all countries made by the workers themselves. Evidently, to act with some chance of success, one must know the materials on which one wishes to act. At the same time the workers, by taking the initiative of so great a work, will show that they are capable of holding their destinies in their own hands. Therefore we propose:  

That in every locality where branches of our Association exist, the work shall be commenced immediately and the facts shall be gathered on the different subjects specified in the enclosed summary:  

That the congress call upon all the workers of Europe and America to collaborate in collecting the elements of this statistic on the working class;  

That the reports and the facts be sent to the central council;  

That the central council condense them into a report and have it followed by an appendix containing the facts;  

That this report and this appendix be ready for the next congress, and that after having received its sanction it be published at the expense of the Association.  

General summary of the inquiry. (It may be extended according to the needs of each locality.)  

1. Industry, its name.  

2. Age and sex of the workers.  

3. Number of persons employed.  

4. Wages and payments, a. Apprentices, b. Day or piece wages. Rates of payment by sub-contractors. Average wages for the week and the year, etc.  

5. a. Hours of work in the manufactories, b. Hours of work under small masters and in domestic work, c. Day and night work.  

6. Meal hours and treatment.  

7. Description of the workshop and the work. Overcrowding and insufficient ventilation. Lack of light. Use of gas. Condition of cleanliness, etc.  

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Rapport du Conseil Central  

8. Nature of the occupation.  

9. Effects of the work on the state of health.  

10. Moral condition. Education.  

11. Description of the industry. Whether the industry changes with the seasons or is distributed with more or less uniformity throughout the year. Whether there are great fluctuations of prosperity and stagnation; whether it is exposed to foreign competition. Whether it produces generally for the home market or for the foreign market, etc.  

3. Reduction of the hours of labour.  

We consider the reduction of the hours of labour as the preliminary condition without which all further attempts at improvement and emancipation will miscarry. We must restore the energy and health of the working classes, which form the real body of the nation. It is no less necessary to provide them with the possibility of intellectual development, social relations, and political and social activity.  

We propose eight hours’ labour as the legal limit of the working day. This limit being generally demanded by the workers of the United States of America, the vote of the congress will make it the common standard of all the claims of the working classes of the universe.  

For the instruction of the continental members, whose experience of factory laws is of more recent date than that of the English workers, we add that any law limiting the working day will miscarry and be broken by the capitalists if the period of the day within which the eight hours of labour are to be taken is not fixed. The length of this period must be set at eight hours plus the hours of rest. For example, if the various interruptions for meals amount to one hour, the legal period of the day must be limited to nine hours. From seven in the morning to four in the evening, or from eight in the morning to five in the evening, etc.  

Night work must be allowed only exceptionally in certain industries specified by law. The law must aim at abolishing all night work.  

This limitation of the hours of labour concerns only adults of both sexes. Women, however, must be rigorously excluded from any night work, and from any kind of work where modesty would be offended or where their bodies would be exposed to poisons or other deleterious agents.  

We propose to consider as an adult every person having attained the age of eighteen years.  

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