London, 18 Aug. 1868.

To conclude the preparatory work for the Brussels Congress, a meeting of the Executive Committee of the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association has been scheduled for 22 August, and a plenary meeting of the General Council for 25 August. As I have been entrusted with reporting duties for both days, I find myself unable to accept the honour of the invitation to take part in the Congress of the General German Workers’ Association in Hamburg. It is with pleasure that I see that the programme of your Congress has laid down the points which must indeed form the starting points of every serious working-class movement: agitation for full political freedom, regulation of the working day, and systematic, international co-operation of the working class in the great, world-historic task which it has to solve for the whole of society. Good luck to the work!

With democratic greetings,
Karl Marx