Art. 1. Considering, that Central Councils are but instituted in 
order to secure, in every country, to “the Working Men’s 
movement the power of union and combination” (Art. 7 of the 
General Rules)*; that, consequently, the existence of two rival 
Central Councils for the same federation is an open infraction of 
the General Rules; 

The General Council calls upon the two provisional Federal 
Councils at New York to re-unite and to act as one and the same 
provisional Federal Council for the United States until the meeting 
of an American General Congress. 

Art. 2. Considering, that the efficiency of the Provisional 
Federal Council would be impaired if it contained too many 
members who have only quite recently joined the International 
Working Men’s Association; 

The General Council recommends that such new-formed 
sections as are numerically weak, should combine amongst each 
other for the appointment of a few common delegates. 

II. GENERAL CONGRESS 
OF THE UNITED STATES’ FEDERATION 

Art. 1. The General Council recommends the convocation, for 
the Ist of July 1872, of a General Congress of the delegates of 
sections and affiliated societies of the United States. 

Art. 2. To this Congress will belong the appointment of the 

members of the Federal Council for the United States. It may, if 
convenient, empower the Federal Council thus appointed to add 
to itself a certain limited number of members. 

Art. 3. This Congress will have the sole power of determining 
the bye-laws and regulations for the organisation of the I.W.A. in 
the United States, “but such bye-laws and regulations must not 
contain anything contrary to the General Rules and Regulations of 
the Association” (Adm. Reg., V. Art. 1).* 

III. SECTIONS? 

Art. 1. Considering, that Section No. 12 at New York has not 
only passed a formal resolution by virtue of which “each section” 
possesses “the independent right” to construe, according to its 
fancy, “the proceedings of the several congresses” and the 
“General Rules and Regulations’,“ but moreover has fully acted 
up to this doctrine which, if generally adopted, would leave 
nothing of the I.W.A. but its name; 

that the same section has never ceased to make the I.W.A. the 
vehicle of issues some of which are foreign to, while others are 
directly opposed to, the aims and purposes of the I.W.A.; 

For these reasons the General Council considers it its duty to 
put in force Administrative Resolution VI of the Bale Congress 4 
and to declare Section No. 12 suspended till the meeting of the 
next General Congress of the I.W.A. which is to take place in 
September 1872. 

Art. 2. Considering, that the I.W.A., according to the General 
Rules, is to consist exclusively of “working men’s societies” (see 
Art. 1, Art. 7 and Art. 11 of the General Rules); 

that, consequently, Art. 9 of the General Rules to this effect: 
“Everybody who acknowledges and defends the principles of the 
I.W.A. is eligible to become a member”, although it confers upon 
the active adherents of the International, who are no working 
men,° the right either of individual membership or of admission to 
working men’s sections, does in no way legitimate the foundation 

September 23, 1871.— Ed. 

of sections, exclusively or principally composed of members not 
belonging to the working class; 

that for this very reason the General Council was some months 
ago precluded from recognising a Slavonian section, exclusively 
composed of students; 

that, according to the General Regulations V, 1, the General 
Rules and Regulations are to be adapted “‘to local circumstances of 
each country”; 

that the social conditions of the United States, though in many 
other respects most favourable to the success of the working-class 
movement, peculiarly facilitate the intrusion into the International 
of bogus reformers, middle-class quacks and trading politicians; 

For these reasons the General Council recommends that in 
future there be admitted no new* American section of which 
two-thirds at least do not consist of wage-labourers. 

Art. 3. The General Council calls the attention of the American 
Federation to Resolution II, 3, of the London Conference relating 
to “sectarian? sections” or “separatist bodies pretending to 
accomplish special missions” distinct from the common aim of the 
Association,’ viz., to emancipate the man of labour from his 
“economical subjection to the monopoliser of the means of 
labour”, which “lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of 
all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence” 
(see Preamble of the General Rules).¢