capitalists was breaking down both in theory and practice. And once more the clarion note sounded: "Working-men of all lands, Unite!" The declared purpose of the International was to unite all the national working-class movements that were aiming at such political and economic changes as would emancipate the people from their misery.
Unfortunately, two sections of thought had to fight for its custodianship. The Communist, with his antagonism to centralised authority and his belief in the free commune and free association of workpeople, stood upon a road sharply diverging from that upon which the Socialist proper stood, and ought never to have been in the same movement. But the final aims of both were pretty much the same, however divergent their methods might be, and so they met each other to contest for the selection of the road. The Congresses of the International were their battle-grounds.
The Belgian government at once prohibited the next Congress which was to be held in Brussels, so it met in London. In Geneva, in 1866, a programme including an eight hours' day and drastic educational changes was adopted, but a jarring note of discord was struck. The French delegates mistrusted "intellectuals." These men had stirred up strife by their theorising and dogmatising; but, on the other hand, had they been excluded, the International would have been deprived of the only brains which understood it and could lead it. Their services were retained. At Lausanne, at Brussels, at
