At its extraordinary meeting on January 1, 1870, the General 
Council resolved: : 
1) We read in the Egalité of December 11, 1869: 

“It is certain that it’ (the General Council) “is neglecting extremely important 
matters.... We remind it of them” (the General Council’s obligations) “with Article 1 
of the Regulations, etc.: ‘The General Council is commissioned to carry the 
resolutions of the Congress into effect’... We could put enough questions to the General 
Council for its replies to make up quite a long report. They will come later... 
Meanwhile... etc.” 4 

The General Council does not know of any article, either in the 
Rules or in the Regulations, which would oblige it to enter into 
correspondence or into polemic with the Egalité or to provide 

“replies” to “questions” from newspapers. The Federal Council of 
Romance Switzerland alone represents the branches of Romance 
Switzerland vis-a-vis the General Council. When the Romance 
Federal Council addresses requests or reprimands to us through 
the only legitimate channel, that is to say through its secretary, the 
General Council will always be ready to reply. But the Romance 
Federal Council has no right either to abdicate its functions in 
favour of the Egalité and the Progrés, or to let these newspapers 
usurp its functions. Generally speaking, the General Council’s 
correspondence with the national and local committees cannot be 
published without greatly prejudicing the Association’s general 
interests. Consequently, if other organs of the International were 
to follow the example of the Progrés anc the Egalité, the General 
Council would be faced with the alternative of either discrediting 

4 See “Réflexions”’, L’Egalité, No. 47, December 11, 1869.— Ed. 

itself publicly by its silence or violating its obligations by replying 
publicly.’ 

The Egalité jos the Progrés (a paper which is not sent to the 
General Council) in inviting Le Travail (a Paris paper which has 
not hitherto declared itself an organ of the International, and 
which is also not sent to the General Council) to demand an 
explanation from the General Council.” That is almost a League of 
Public Welfare.'" 

2) Now, assuming that the questions put by the Egalité come 
from the Romance Federal Council, we shall answer them on 
condition that such questions do not reach us in such a manner in 
future. 

3) Question of a Bulletin. In the resolutions of the Geneva‘ 
Congress, which are inserted in the regulations, it is laid down 
that the national committees shall send the General Council 
documents dealing with the proletarian movement“ and that the 
General Council shall thereupon publish a bulletin in the different 
languages as often as its means permit (“As often as its means permit, 
the General Council shall publish a report, etc.’’).° 

The General Council’s obligation was thus made dependent on 
conditions that have never been fulfilled. Even the statistical 
inquiry provided for by the Rules, decided by consecutive General 
Congresses, and demanded yearly by the General Council, has 
never been made. No document has been presented to the 
General Council. As far as the means are concerned, the General 
Council would have long since ceased to exist had it not been for 

local contributions from England and the personal sacrifices of its 
members. 

Thus, the Regulations passed at the Geneva“ Congress have 
remained a dead letter.” 

As regards the Basle Congress, it did not discuss the fulfilment 
of these existing Regulations. It discussed the possibility of issuing 
a bulletin in good time and it did not pass any resolution (see the 
German report published in Basle under the eyes of the Cong- 
ress‘). 

For the rest, the General Council believes that the purpose of 
the bulletin is at the moment perfectly fulfilled by the different 
organs of the International published in the different languages 
and exchanged among them. It would be absurd to do by costly 
bulletins what is being done already without any expense. On the 
other hand, a bulletin which would print what is not contained in 
the organs of the International would only help our enemies to see 
behind the scenes. 

4) Question of separating the General Council from the Federal 
Council for England. ; 

Long before the foundation of the Egalité, this proposition was 
made periodically inside the General Council by one or two of its 
English members.'*? It was always rejected almost unanimously. 

Although revolutionary initiative will probably come. from 
France, England alone can serve as the lever for a serious economic 
Revolution. It is the only country where there are no more 
peasants and where landed property is concentrated in a few-hands. 
It is the only country where the capitalist form, that is to say combined 
Jabour on a large scale under capitalist masters, embraces virtually 
the whole of production. It is the only country where the great majority 
of the population consists of waces-LaBourers. It is the only country where 
the class struggle and the organisation of the working class by the 
Travis Unions have acquired a certain degree of maturity and 
universality. It is the only country where, because of its domination 
on the world market, every revolution in economic matters must 
immediately affect the whole world. If landlordism and capitalism 
are classical features in England, on the other hand, the material 
conditions for their destruction are the most mature here. The 
General Council now being in the happy position of having its hand 

directly on this great lever of the proletarian revolution, what folly, we 
might say even what a crime, to let this lever fall into purely English 
hands! 

The English have all the material necessary for the social 
revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalisation and 
revolutionary ardour. It is only the General Council that can provide 
them with this, that can thus accelerate the truly revolutionary 
movement in this country, and consequently everywhere. The great 
results we have already achieved in this respect are attested to by the 
most intelligent and influential of the newspapers of the ruling 
classes, as e.g. The Pall Mall Gazette, Saturday Review, The Spectator 
and The Fortnightly Review, to say nothing of the so-called radicals in 
the Commons and the Lorps who, a little while ago, still exerted a great 
influence on the leaders of the English workers. They accuse us 
publicly of having poisoned and almost extinguished the English 
spirit’ of the working class and of having pushed it into 
revolutionary socialism. 

The only way to bring about this change is to act like the General 
Council of the International Association. As the General Council we 
can initiate measures (e.g., the founding of the Land and Labour 
League'*') which later, in the process of their execution, will 
appear to the public as spontaneous movements of the English 
working class. 

If a Federal Council were formed apart from the General Council, 
what would be the immediate results? 

Placed between the General Council and the General Council of 
Trades Unions,'** the Federal Council would have no authority 
whatever. On the other hand, the General Council of the Internation- 
al would lose control of the great lever. If we had preferred the 
showman’s chatter to serious and unostentatious work, we would 
perhaps have committed the mistake of replying publicly the 
EgalitéS question as to why the General Council permits “such a 
burdensome combination of functions”. 

England cannot be treated simply as a country along with other 
countries. It must be treated as the metropolis of capital. 

5) Question of the General Council Resolution on the Irish Amnesty. 

If England is the bulwark of landlordism and European 
capitalism, the only point where official England can be struck a 
great blow is Ireland. 

In the first place, Ireland is the bulwark of English landlordism. If 
it fell in Ireland, it would fall in England. In Ireland this 1s a hundred 

times easier because the economic struggle there is concentrated exclusively 
on landed property, because this struggle is at the same time national, 
and because the people there are more revolutionary and more 
exasperated than in England. Landlordism in Ireland is maintained 
solely by the English army. The moment the forced union between the 
two countries '** ends, a social revolution will immediately break out 
in Ireland, though in outmoded forms. English landlordism would 
not only lose a great source of its wealth, but also its greatest moral 
force, 1.e., that of representing the domination of England over Ireland. 
On the other hand, by maintaining the power of its landlords in 
Ireland, the English proletariat makes them invulnerable in England 
itself. 

In the second place, the English bourgeoisie has not only 
exploited Irish poverty to keep down the working class in England 
by forced immigration of poor Irishmen, but it has also divided the 
proletariat into two hostile camps. The revolutionary fire of the 
Celtic worker does not go well with the solid but slow nature of 
the Anglo-Saxon worker. On the contrary, in all the big industrial 
centres in England there is profound antagonism between the Irish 
proletarian and the English proletarian. The average English 
worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers wages 
and the sranparporuire. He feels national and religious antipathies for 
him. He regards him somewhat like the poor wuites of the Southern 
States of North America regarded black slaves. This antagonism 
among the proletarians of England is artificially nourished and 
kept up by the bourgeoisie. It knows that this scission is the true 
secret of maintaining its power. 

Moreover, this antagonism is reproduced on the other side of 
the Atlantic. The Irish, chased from their native soil by the bulls 
and the sheep, reassemble in North America where they constitute 
a huge, ever-growing section of the population. Their only 
thought, their only passion, is hatred for England. The English 
and American governments (that is to say, the classes they 
represent) play on these feelings in order to perpetuate the covert _ 
struggle between the United States and England. They thereby 
prevent a sincere and serious alliance between the working classes 
of both sides of the Atlantic, and, consequently, their common 
emancipation. 

Furthermore, Ireland is the only pretext the English Govern- 
ment has for retaining a big standing army, which, if need be, as 
has happened before, can be used against the English workers 
after having had its drill in Ireland. 

Lastly, England today is seeing a repetition of what happened 

on a monstrous scale in ancient Rome. Any people that oppresses 
another people forges its own chains. 

Thus, the position of the International Association with regard 
to the Irish question is very clear. Its first concern is to advance 
the social revolution in England. To this end a great blow must be 
struck in Ireland.* 

The General Council’s resolutions on the Irish amnesty” serve 
only as an introduction to other resolutions '** which will affirm 
that, quite apart from international justice, it is a precondition to the 
emancipation of the English working class to transform the present 
forced union (1.e., the enslavement of Ireland) into equal and free 
confederation if possible, into complete separation if need be.‘ 

For the rest, the naive doctrines of the Egalité and the Progrés 
about the connexion, or rather, the Non-connexion, between the social 
movement and the political movement have never, as far as we 
know, been recognised by any of our International congresses. 
They run counter to our Rules. The Rules say’: 

“That the economical emancipation of the working classes is 
therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to 
be subordinate as a means.” ¢ 

The words “as a means” were omitted in the French translation 
made in 1864 by the Paris Committee.‘ When questioned by the 
General Council, the Paris Committee excused itself by the 
difficulties of its political situation. 

There are other mutilations of the authentic text. Thus the first 
clause of the preamble to the Rules reads: “The struggle for the 
emancipation of the working classes means ... a struggle ... for 
equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule.” * 

The Paris translation has “equal rights and duties”, i.e., it 
reproduces a general phrase which may be found virtually in all 
democratic manifestoes of the last hundred years and which means 
different things in the mouth of different classes, but leaves out 
the concrete demand: “the abolition of all class rule’? 

Further, in the second clause of the preamble to the Rules we read: 
“That the economical subjection of the man of labour to the 
monopoliser of the means of labour, that is, the sources of life, etc.” 

The Paris translation substitutes the word “capital” for “the 
means of labour, that is, the sources of life”, an expression which 
includes the land as well as the other means of labour. 

The original authentic text was, however, restored in the French 
translation published in pamphlet form in Brussels by the Rive 
Gauche (1866).!*° 

6) Liebknecht-Schweitzer Question. 

The. Egalité writes: 

“Both these groups belong to the International.” 

That is incorrect. The Eisenachers’ group (which the Progres 
and the Egalité would like to turn into Citizen Liebknecht’s group) 
belongs to the International. Schweitzer’s group does not belong to it< 

Schweitzer himself explained at length in his newspaper 
(Soctal-Demokrat) why the Lassallean organisation could not join the 
International without destroying itself.4 Without realising it, he was 
speaking the truth. His artificial sectarian organisation is opposed 
to the historical and spontaneous organisation of the working class. 

The Progrés and the Egalité have summoned the General 
Council to state publicly its “opinion” on the personal differences 
between Liebknecht and Schweitzer. Since Citizen Johann Philipp 
Becker (who is slandered as much as Liebknecht in Schweitzer’s 
paper‘) is a member of the Egalité’s editorial board, it seems most 
strange that its editors are not better informed about the facts. 
They should have known that Liebknecht, in the Demokratisches 

July 16, 1869.— Ed. 

€ Der Social-Demokrat, No. 24, February 24, 1869.— Ed. 

Wochenblatt; publicly invited Schweitzer to accept the General 
Council as arbiter of their differences,” and that Schweitzer no less 
publicly refused to acknowledge the authority of the General 
Council. 

For its part the General Council has employed all possible 
means to put an end to this scandal.‘ It instructed its Secretary for 
Germany* to correspond with Schweitzer; this has been done for 
two years, but all attempts by the Council have broken down in 
the face of Schweitzer’s firm resolution to preserve at all cost his 
autocratic power together with the sectarian organisation. It is up 
to the General Council to determine the favourable moment when 
its public intervention in this quarrel will be more useful than 
damaging. ; 

7) Since the Egalité’s accusations are public and could be 
considered as emanating from the Romance Committee of 
Geneva, the General Council is to communicate this reply to all 
committees corresponding with it. 

By order of the General Council