98. F. Engels. To the General Council of the International Working Men's Association
122 Regents Park Road N.W. London, June 14th, 1873
Citoyens, I have to reply to your two letters of the 11th April and 14th May. As communicated before,[3] the whole of the money for Lodi (fr. 200) was forwarded by me on April 10th to Bignami, new persecutions having arisen. The money was acknowledged by Bignami whose receipt I hold.— About 10 days ago, the Plebe has re-appeared and brought your address to the Spaniards and also, in a very prominent place, your declaration about the self-exclusion, from our Association, of the Secessionists.[312]
The documents in question have been sent to the Spanish Federal Council.
My copy of the alterations of rules as prepared for the late General Council[313] has disappeared, I have however been promised another which shall be forwarded as soon as received.
As the Plebe is alive again I shall report about Italian Emigration and Gas strike etc. in my first correspondence to that paper. I could not act before, my only correspondent Bignami being out of the way and not having given me another address.
Le Moussu has been reminded of the stamps.(1)
The £4.-3 are to hand and shall be used and directed as soon as a safe address in Paris can be found.
Fraternally yours,
F. Engels First published in: Marx and Engels, Reproduced from the manuscript Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Endnotes
[3] Jules Gottraux, a Swiss-born subject of Great Britain and a member of the International, was detained by the French police on the French-Swiss frontier on September 30, 1866, when he was returning to London from Switzerland. The police confiscated letters, printed matter, and other material entrusted to him by the International's leaders in Geneva for delivery to the General Council. The seized documents included the preliminary report on the work of the Geneva Congress which had been drawn up by Council member Joseph Card and published in French in Geneva as a pamphlet. (Later, this gave rise to rumours that the French authorities had confiscated the Congress minutes, which in fact had bv that time been brought to London by Hermann Jung.) The General Council decided to lodge a complaint about this wanton act and to use the fact publicly to expose the regime of the Second Empire. At the beginning of December, the Council addressed the British Foreign Secretary, requesting him to make a corresponding démarche to the French government, which forced the French authorities to return, on December 21, the materials taken from Gottraux.
[312] A reference to the General Council decision of January 26, 1873, published in La Plebe, No. 14, June 1, 1873. The address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association to Spanish workers of February 23, 1873 was occasioned by the proclamation of a republic in Spain. It was published in La Plebe, No. 13, May 26, 1873. After a temporary suspension from March 23, 1873, caused by police persecution, La Plebe resumed publication after May 15, 1873.
[313] Engels is referring to the draft General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the International, revised by the General Council in the summer of 1872 for the Hague Congress (see Note 150).