4
c. One great "International combination of efforts will be a statistical inquiry into the situation of the working classes of all civilized countries to be instituted by the working classes themselves." To act with any success, the materials to be acted upon must be known. By initiating so great a work, the working men will prove their ability to take their own fate into their own hands.
The Congress therefore proposes that in each locality where branches of our Association exist, the work be immediately commenced, and evidence collected on the different points specified in the subjoined scheme of inquiry; the Congress invites the working men of Europe and the United States of America to co-operate in gathering the elements of the statistics of the working class; reports and evidence to be forwarded to the central council. The central council shall elaborate them into a general report, adding the evidence as an appendix. This report, together with its appendix, shall be laid before the next annual congress, and after having received its sanction, be printed at the expense of the association.
General scheme of inquiry, which may of course be modified by each locality. 1. Industry, name of. 2. Age and sex of the employed. 3. Number of the employed. 4. Salaries and wages; (a) apprentices; (b) wages by the day or by piece work; scale paid by middle men. Weekly, yearly average. 5. (a) Hours of work in factories. (b) The hours of work with small employers and in homework, if the business be carried on in those different modes. (c) Nightwork and daywork. 6. Mealtimes and treatment. 7. Sort of workshop and work; overcrowding, defective ventilation, want of sunlight, use of gaslight, cleanliness, &c. 8. Nature of occupation. 9. Effect of employment upon the physical condition. 10. Moral condition. Education. 11. State of trade: whether season trade, or more or less uniformly distributed over the year, whether greatly fluctuating, whether exposed to foreign competition—whether destined principally for home or foreign consumption, &c.
2.—Limitation of the working day.
A preliminary condition, without which all further attempts at improvement and emancipation must prove abortive, is the legal
