Dear citizens,

I deeply regret that I am unable to accept your kind invitation,
which does me great honour, to attend your meeting of the 12th
inst. I regret it all the more since I feel a particular attachment to
your country after holding the position of secretary for Italy
twenty years ago on the General Council of the International
Working Men's Association. Since then the International has
disappeared in its official form; but in the spirit of solidarity with
the working class of all countries it has always lived on; today it is
more alive and more powerful than ever, so powerful that its old
official form from 1864 to 1875 would no longer be able to
contain the millions of European and American workers who are
gathered around the red banner of the militant proletariat. I
hope, as you do, that your meeting of April 12 will bring new
columns of fighters into the great army of the worldwide
proletariat; that it will contribute greatly to strengthening the
bonds of solidarity which unite the Italian workers with their
brothers beyond the Alps—French, German, Slav; and that it will
finally mark a new stage in the emancipatory advance of the
Italian proletariat.

We have made tremendous progress in the last twenty years; but
there still remains much to be done before we can aspire to an
immediate and certain victory. Dunque, avanti, sempre avanti!

London, April 9, 1891
F. E.