From Italy numerous communications had again come to hand. 
From them it appeared that the so-called Working Men’s Congress 
at Rome was but a dodge of Mazzini’s, intended to deceive the 
public as to the giant strides with which the International is 
advancing in Italy. In the course of last summer the local leaders 
of the well-organised Mazzinian party in many large Italian towns, 
for the first time, and quite unexpectedly, became aware of the 
fact that they were losing the absolute hold they had hitherto 
possessed over the working-classes. The sound instinct of the 
Italian working men had enabled them to see that the working 
men of Paris, under the Commune, execrated as they were by the 
common voice of the ruling classes of Europe, had been in reality 
but the champions of the cause of the whole proletariat; and when 
Mazzini gave the word to his followers to join in the general 
middle-class outcry against the people of Paris,* he himself 
destroyed the foundation of his hitherto almost undisputed sway 
over the Italian workmen. The working people of the Italian 
towns then began to see that they had class interests reaching 
beyond Mazzini’s republic; that these interests were the same for 
all workmen all over the civilised world; and that there was a vast 
society in existence for the upholding of these common interests— 
the International. Moreover, they had been tired, for some time, 
of Mazzini’s religious preachings, quite out of place as they were in 
the most priest-ridden country in Europe, and of his everlastingly 
reminding them that the grand object of their lives was the 

performance of duties, while he never spoke of their rights. 
Mazzini thought it best to nip this counter-movement in the bud. 
He had, for the last twenty years, virtually directed the mutual 
benefit societies of working-men, the Oddfellows, Foresters, and 
Druids of Italy, societies in which politics were officially forbidden, 
and where even the commonest objects of an ordinary trades’ 
union were rigorously excluded. The presidents, secretaries, and 
boards of these societies were generally Mazzinian, and with their 
help some demonstration in favour of decrying Mazzinianism 
might be got up. Now, up to 1864 these societies had held annual 
Congresses; the last was held in Naples in the above year, when an 
act of fraternization was agreed to, embodying a kind of 
constitution, with a central committee for common affairs, &c. But 
since then no Congress had been called. By the assistance of the 
societies in Liguria, Mazzini now had a new Congress called, which 
met at Rome, on the Ist of November. How this Congress was 
composed is best shown by what happened in the Roman Working 
Men’s Society. There the board happened to be anti-Mazzinian, 
and, because the invitation of the Ligurians had called upon the 
Congress to discuss political questions, this board refused to send 
delegates because the discussion of politics was against the general 
rules. In fact, wherever the boards of the workmen’s societies were 
not composed of Mazzinians, no delegates were sent, as the 
Mazzinian papers themselves aver; from which it is pretty clear 
that the delegates sent were elected, not by the members, but by 
the boards of the various societies. Under these circumstances the 
mass of the Italian Internationals protested against this Congress if 
it should pretend to represent the mass of the Italian working 
men. A few only assisted at its meetings, in order to be able to 
watch the proceedings. 

The Congress opened its sittings on the Ist November. 
Mazzini and Garibaldi were elected honorary presidents, and that 
a week after Garibaldi’s letter to Petroni appeared, in which he 
had finally broken with Mazzini!* Then the act of fraternisation of 
the Naples Congress was re-discussed. On this occasion a delegate 
proposed that it should be amended by adding a declaration that 
the Congress adhered expressly to the principles of Giuseppe 
Mazzini. The debate was long, but the old Mazzinian organisation 
at last prevailed. Thirty-four voted yes, nineteen no, six abstained, 
ten were absent. By a majority of fifteen upon the number of 
votes given, but by a minority of one upon the total number of 

delegates sent to the Congress, the Italian Oddfellows and Druids 
have bound themselves, for the space of one year, to whatever 
Mazzini may say or do. Needless to say that the three representa- 
tives of International sections retired under protest immediately.* 
We may add that already in the first preliminary meeting of 
Congress it had been privately settled that neither the question of 
the International nor any religious question should be discussed. 
The standing orders were to be suspended in favour of Mazzini 
only! 

The other votes of the Congress were of interest to the 
Mazzinians alone. They represent attempts to galvanise back into 
life the dying influence of Mazzini, attempts utterly fruitless in 
presence of the immense International movement now pervading 
the Italian working class. The Radical Italian press in Rome, 
especially La Capitale and Il Tribuno,” severely blame the Congress 
for its implicit note of confidence in Mazzini. The latter paper 
says: 

“This vote was a verdict upon the plot between Mazzini and Garibaldi; between 
the theological notions of the high priest, and the downright affirmations of the 
working man’s rights.” It was intended to say to Garibaldi:—“You are wrong in 
denying the principles of Mazzini, which are those of the Italian working class; it 
was intended to say to the vanquished of the Commune that the Royalist squires of 
Versailles were right in shooting them down; it was intended to say to the 
International that the various Governments did right in trying to kill it, and that 
Italy would oppose a dam to the torrents coming down upon privilege and 
monopoly. It would have been well if the Italian workmen, in Congress united, had 
thoroughly discussed, and well examined every proposition, but instead of this the 
exceptions taken even before the questions themselves arose, the Ait Philosophus,‘ 
the word of the master accepted as a gospel, constitutes acts damaging no one but 

that party which was compelled to recur to similar means in order to get rid of a 
propaganda it could not otherwise vanquish.” 

The same paper has a remarkable article on the Agricultural 
labours or small peasants in Italy, which demanded that all the 
immense estates now uncultivated or left in the state of bogs, 
should be declared the property of the labouring class, unless 
reclaimed and cultivated by their owners within a limited time. 

In the German Parliament, our friend Bebel has spoken twice.‘ 
In the first speech, he attacked the increasing military expendi- 
ture. 

All this vast army, he said, is needed principally against the working people at 
home. But you, gentlemen of the middle class, with the rapid increase of your 
factories and workshops, you yourselves created such a rapid increase of the 
numbers of the working-class that you will never be able to increase your army at 
the same rate. 

In the second speech, upon the Liberal motion that all German 
States should be bound to have representative institutions, Bebel 
said that all constitutions of the German States, great and small, 
were not worth the paper upon which they were written; the 
Prussian Executive Covernment were supreme and did what they 
liked all over Germany, and he wished that all the small states, 
falsely supposed to be the last refuges of liberty, were swallowed 
up by Prussia, so as to place the people for once face to face with 
their true enemy, the Prussian Government. Upon his declaring 
that he did not except the constitutions of the German Empire 
from this sweeping condemnation, the House, upon the motion of 
the speaker,* stopped him in the midst of his speech. 

This is liberty of discussion, as understood by the aristocrats, 
bureaucrats, capitalists, and lawyers of the German Parliament. 
The one working-man amongst them is so much a match for the 
whole of the rest that they have to put him down by main force.