Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/94

This page needs to be proofread.

APPENDIX.


The following are reprints of two pamphlets which were issued by the General Council of the International Working-Men's Association during the progress of the War of 1870 and on the Communal rising in the spring of 1871.


THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF THE

INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATION

ON THE WAR.


TO THE MEMBERS OF THE
INTERNATIONAL WORKING-MEN'S ASSOCIATION
IN EUROPE AND THE UNITED STATES.

In the inaugural Address of the International Working-Men's Association, of November, 1864, we said:—"If the emancipation of the working-classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to fulfil that great missiqn with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal designs, playing upon national prejudices and squandering in piratical wars the people's blood and treasure?" We defined the foreign policy aim^ed at by the International in these words:—"Vindicate the simple laws of morals and justice, which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, as the laws paramount of the intercourse of nations."

No wonder that Louis Bonaparte, who usurped his power by exploiting the war of classes in France, aid perpetuated it by periodical wars abroad, should from the first have treated the International as a dangerous foe. On the eve of the plebiscite he