We feel compelled to address you in reply to a circular issued by 
those who call themselves the majority of the British Federal 
Council, and appealing to you to join them in open rebellion 
against the fundamental compact of our association.’ 

In that circular the majority of the Federal Council asserts that 
the minority have rendered all work impossible, and brought 
matters to a deadlock, owing to the last meeting having been 
dissolved by the chairman” in the midst of business in order to 
prevent discussion.?”8 

It appears strange, at the first glance, that a majority should be 
brought to a deadlock by a minority, when a simple vote would 
have sufficed to silence that minority. Hitherto minorities have 
seceded often enough. This is the first instance of a majority 
seceding; and this fact alone is sufficient to render the whole 
proceeding more than suspicious. As to the pretence of the action 
of the chairman at one solitary meeting, we are credibly informed 
that, on that occasion, the chairman dissolved the meeting half an 
hour after the time for breaking up, at half past eleven, because 
members of the majority insisted upon interrupting the order of 
the day. 

The Federal Council is divided, according to the circular, upon 
the question whether the resolutions of the General Congress of 

our Association, held at The Hague in September last, are to be 
considered valid or not. Now, for members of the International, 
this is not a question at all. According to its General Rules, Article 
3, the duty of the General Congress is to “take the measures 
required for the successful working of our Association”.* The 
Congress is its legislative power. Its resolutions are binding upon 
all. Those who do not like them may either leave the Association, 
or try to reverse them at the next Congress. But no individual 
member, no section, no Federal Council, no local or national 
congress, has the right to declare them null and void, while 
pretending to remain within the International. 

The signataries of the circular pretend that the Hague Congress 
was not fairly constituted, and in no way represented the majority 
of the members of the Association. That Congress was regularly 
convoked by the General Council, in accordance with Art. 4 of the 
General Rules. It was attended by 64 delegates, representing 15 
different nationalities, and belonging, individually, to 12 different 
nationalities. No previous Congress could boast of such a truly 
international composition. That the resolutions taken were pene- 
trated by the true spirit of internationalism is proved by the fact 
that they were almost all taken by majorities of three to one, and 
that the delegates of the two nations lately involved in fratricidal 
war—the French and the Germans—almost always voted for them 
to a man. If England, through its own fault, was not very 
numerously represented, is that a reason to invalidate the 
Congress? 

The circular complains of the Congress resolution as to the 
political action of the working class.” They say it was taken after 
the majority of the delegates had left. The official report 
published in No. 37 of The International Herald (December 14th), 
shows that 48 delegates out of 64 voted on the question, out of 
which 35 voted in favour of the resolution. Among these 35 we 
find the name of Mr. Mottershead, who now signs a circular 
repudiating it. 

Now what is this resolution? It is the same in substance, and 
mostly in words too, as that adopted at the General Conference 
held in London in September, 1871, and published officially, 
along with the rest of the resolutions, on the 17th October of that 
year by the General Council,“ and has the signatures, among 

others, of John Hales, Th. Mottershead, H. Jung, F. Bradnick, 
H. Mayo, and John Roach! The General Council being bound to 
enforce the Conference resolutions, how is it that none of these 
citizens then thought fit to resign his seat on the General Council, 
and to protest against this resolution, now found out, all at once, 
to be so dangerous? 

The circular totally falsifies the purport of this resolution, as will 
be easily seen by referring to its text as published in No. 37 of The 
International Herald. The resolution does not, as is pretended, 
make political action obligatory upon Trades’ Unions and other 
politically neutral bodies. It merely demands the formation, in 
every country, of a distinct working class party, opposed to all 
middle class parties. That is to say, it calls here in England upon 
the working class to refuse any longer to serve as the fag-end of 
the “great Liberal party”, and to form an independent party of 
their own, as they did in the glorious times of the great Chartist 
movement. 

Thus the alleged breach of faith towards the Trades’ Unions 
turns out to be a pure invention. But, we may be allowed to ask, 
where are the Trades’ Unions now that at one time had affiliated 
themselves to the International? The cash accounts of last year 
show that they had almost every one disappeared during Citizen 
Hales’ secretaryship. 

The next complaint is that the General Council has been 
removed to New York, and that there are neither English nor 
Americans upon it. The new General Council is composed of men 
of five different nationalities, and if the English in New York keep 
aloof from the International, they have but themselves to blame, if 
they are not represented at the Council. While that Council was in 
London, the English were always far more strongly represented 
than any other nation, and very often formed the absolute 
majority; while the French, for instance, at one time were not 
represented at all. But the English cannot claim this as a vested 
right. The Hague Congress, when, in virtue of the duty and right 
conferred upon it by Art. 3 of the General Rules, it elected the 
new General Council, chose what was in its opinion the best 
locality, and in that locality the best men. The signataries of the 
Circular may be of a different opinion, but that does not affect the 
right of the Congress. 

The Circular pretends that, by this action, the sections and 

federations are deprived of the right they possessed, of deciding 
upon the policy to be pursued in their respective countries. This is 
again untrue. Whether the General Council sit in London, in New 
York, or anywhere else, the rights of the sections and federations 
remain the same. But, says the Circular, to prevent disobedience 
upon this point, 

“the Congress armed this General Council with the power of suspending any 

section, federation, or federal council whenever it pleased, without assigning any 
reason for so doing”. 

Untrue, again. The right of suspending any section had been 
already conferred upon the General Council by the Basel 
Congress (1869). The official publication of the Hague Congress 
Resolutions, resolution II, art. 1, (The International Herald, No. 37) 
shows that, if the powers of the General Council have been 
increased, or rather better defined, they have also been sur- 
rounded by safeguards previously not existing.* Thus, if the 
General Council dissolve a Federal Council, it has to provide 
within 30 days, for the election of a new one; and thus, after all, 
the federation itself remains the ultimate judge. If the General 
Council suspend a whole federation, it has, if the rest of the 
federations demand it, to submit its decision within one month to 
the final judgment of a conference of delegates of all federations. 
And this is what the circular calls: the power of suspension 
without assigning any reason! 

Fellow working men! whether you individually approve or 
disapprove of the resolutions passed at the Hague, they are at this 
moment the law of the International. If there are those among you 
who disapprove of them, they have their remedy at the next 
Congress. But neither any section, nor the British Federal Council, 
nor any national Congress called by it, has the right to repudiate 
resolutions of a General Congress lawfully convoked. Whoever 
attempts such a thing, places himself virtually outside the pale of 
the International, and that, in effect, the signataries of the 
circular have done. To allow such action to rule the International 
would be tantamount to its dissolution. 

Even in the countries whose delegates formed the minority at 
the Hague, a strong re-action has set in against the secessionist 
tendencies fostered by those delegates. While in America, in 
France, in Germany, in Poland, in Austria, in Hungary, in 
Portugal, and in the whole of Switzerland, with the exception of a 
little knot of scarcely 200 men, the Hague resolutions are gladly 

accepted, the Dutch Internationals, in Congress assembled, have 
resolved to stand by the New York General Council, and to lay 
any grievances they may have before the next lawful General 
Congress of September, 1873, and before no other.” In Spain, 
where a secessionist movement similar to that inaugurated by the 
circular in question, was attempted by the Federal Council, the 
resistance against it is growing stronger every day, and section 
after section adheres to the Hague resolutions. 

Fellow working men! for all these reasons, we protest against the 
convocation of any British Congress which is to sit in judgment 
upon the law of the Association as established by the delegates of 
all nations represented in it. 

We protest against any Congress convoked at such a short notice 
as that called for the 5th January.”° 

We urge upon all sections to submit the foregoing to the 
consideration of their members, remembering that the future of 
our Association in England rests upon their action in the present 
crisis. 

It is necessary that we recognise as legitimate delegates to the 
Federal Council only those who will uphold the authority of the 
Congress of the Hague, and endeavour to carry out the 
resolutions passed there. 

Adopted at the general meeting of the Manchester Foreign 
Section, held on Saturday, 21st December, 1872. 

Fraternal greeting to all members of our Association. 

P. Ziircher, Chairman of the Meeting 
F. Kupper, General and German Secretary 
O. Wyss, French Secretary 

Written on about December 20, 1872 Reproduced from the leaflet