A resolution having been passed unanimously by the Congress of Geneva 1866 to this effect: "That the legal limitation of the working day is a preliminary condition indispensable for the ulterior social improvements,"[3] the Council is of opinion that the time is now arrived when practical effect should be given to that resolution and that it has become the duty of all the branches to agitate that question practically in the different countries where the International Working Men's Association is established.
Adopted by the General Council on Reproduced from the Minute August 25, 1868 Book of the General Council
Endnotes
[11] The text of this resolution, adopted by the General Council meeitng of August 25, 1868 in connection with the preparations for the Brussels Congress, has been preserved in the minutes of this meeting; it was also published in The Bee-Hive, No. 359, August 29, 1868 (for the record of Marx's speech in substantiating this resolution see this volume, p. 387). At the Brussels Congress this resolution was moved by Eccarius and read in the report of the commission on reducing the working day on September 12, 1868. It was published in English in the reports of the Congress sittings in The Times, No. 26232, September 17, 1868 and in the pamphlet The International Working Men's. Association. Resolutions of the Congress of Geneva, 1866, and the Congress of Brussels, 1868 published in London in 1869; in French it was published in a special supplement to Le Peuple Belge, No. 399, September 18, La Cigale, No. 38, September 20 and La Tribune du Peuple, No. 10, November 8, 1868.
[3] Marx wrote this item on the basis of a letter from Johann Baptist Schweitzer dated April 29, 1868. The item was included in the report of the General Council meeting of May 12, 1868 published in The Bee-Hive Newspaper, No. 344, May 16, 1868, but is not to be found in the Minute Book. Informing Engels of Schweitzer's letter, Marx wrote to him on May 4, 1868 that he intended "to use this question in the interests of the Party", and insisted on an inquiry into the condition of the workers employed in the iron trade of the Rhine Province (see this letter and Marx's letter to Engels of May 7 and the latter's reply of May 6-7, 1868, present edition, Vol. 43).