Some time ago the London journeymen tailors formed a general association [12]° to uphold their demands against the London master tailors, who are mostly big capitalists. It was a question not only of bringing wages into line with the increased prices of means of subsistence, but also of putting an end to the exceedingly harsh treatment of the workers in this branch of industry. The masters sought to frustrate this plan by recruiting journeymen tailors, chiefly in Belgium, France and Switzerland. Thereupon the secretaries of the Central Council of the International Working Men's Association published in Belgian, French and Swiss newspapers a warning which was a complete success.[121] The London masters' manoeuvre was foiled; they had to surrender and meet their workers' just demands.
Defeated in England, the masters are now trying to take counter-measures, starting in Scotland. The fact is that, as a result of the London events, they had to agree, initially, to a 15 per cent, wage rise in Edinburgh as well. But secretly they sent agents to Germany to recruit journeymen tailors, particularly in the Hanover and Mecklenburg areas, for importation to Edinburgh. The first group has already been shipped off. The purpose of this importation is the same as that of the importation of Indian(1)
COOLIES to Jamaica, namely, perpetuation of slavery. If the Edinburgh masters succeeded, through the import of German labour, in nullifying the concessions they had already made, it would inevitably lead to repercussions in England. No one would suffer more than the German workers themselves, who constitute in Great Britain a larger number than the workers of all the other Continental nations. And the newly-imported workers, being completely helpless in a strange land, would soon sink to the level of pariahs.
Furthermore, it is a point of honour with the German workers to prove to other countries that they, like their brothers in France, Belgium and Switzerland, know how to defend the common interests of their class and will not become obedient mercenaries of capital in its struggle against labour.
On behalf of the Central Council[3]
of the International Working Men's Association,
Karl Marx
London, May 4, 1866
German journeymen tailors who wish to know more about conditions in Britain are requested to address their letters to the German branch committee of the London Tailors' Association, 7(2) Albert F. Haufe, Crown Public House, Hedden Court, Regent Street, London.
Endnotes
[11] The Provisional Rules of the Association were drawn up by Marx simultaneously with the Inaugural Address, approved by the Sub-Committee on October 27 and unanimously adopted by the Provisional Committee on November 1, 1864. They were published in English together with the Inaugural Address in the pamphlet Address and Provisional Rules of the Working Men's International Association... in London in November 1864 and also in The Bee-Hive Newspaper, No. 161, November 12, 1864 and The Miner and Workman's Advocate, No. 93, December 10, 1864. The French translation of the Provisional Rules made by the Proudhonists at the end of 1864 contained a few inaccuracies and distortions later used in the struggle against the General Council (see present edition, Vol. 21, K. Marx, "General Council to the Federal Council of the Romance Switzerland", "Confidential Communication"). This translation was reproduced in a number of publications in France, Belgium and Switzerland. The new and improved French translation was made by Charles Longuet, checked by Marx and published together with the Inaugural Address in the pamphlet Manifeste de l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs suivi du Règlement provisoire, Brussels, 1866. The German translation appeared in Der Social-Demokrat, No. 10, January 18, 1865 and in Der Vorbote, Nos. 4 and 5, April and May
[121] In accordance with its decision of March 27, 1866 the Central Council made an appeal to the tailors, asking them to refrain from going to England in view of the tailors' strike there. The appeal was published in several local papers of the 1866, the Swiss Vorbote, No. 4, April 1866 and Journal de l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs, No. 5, April 8, 1866 and also La Rive Gauche, No. 15, April 15, 1866.
[3] Garottes—robbers who strangled their victims. In the early 1860s such attacks often occurred in London and were a subject of special debate in Parliament.