650 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION F. 



trade and commerce, dangerous to the tranquillity of the 

 country, and especially prejudicial to the interests of all con- 

 cerned in them. 



It was not until 1869 that the governing powers were 

 sufficiently liberal in their policy to remove the restrictions 

 which hedged round every attempt of the working men to 

 combine for mutual protection. The Trades Unions Acts 

 of 1871 and 1876 finally cleared away all obstructions to the 

 freedom of labour in regard to its own terms and times. 



The rapid growth of humanitarian sentiment during the 

 last twenty years has probably, as much as anything else, 

 tended to make the lot of the working men more endurable : 

 for employers are, more than ever before, anxious to make 

 all reasonable concessions. Numerous experiments in profit- 

 sharing and in co-operation attest their desire to do all in 

 their power to improve the existing state of things, and 

 remove all cause for the use of the phrase " The Tyranny 

 of Capital." 



The present attitude of Labour towards Cajntal. 



On the part of the working men, in addition to the secret 

 societies which flourished everywhere, the universal discontent 

 led to a great and organised attempt in 1864, to form a 

 society that should settle the grievances that caused so much 

 hostility between employers and employees. 



An International Working Men's Association was formed 

 for discussing and furthering the rights of labour. Its 

 founders set forth that, notwithstanding the vast development 

 of industry and the accumulation of national wealth, the lot 

 of the working class was as hard as ever. All the recent 

 revolutions and political reforms had been achieved only in 

 the interest of the middle classes, leaving the position of the 

 toilers unimproved. The emancipation of the working men 

 must be the task of the working mQn themselves. 



With this view the International Association was founded, 

 which, while recognising truth, justice, and morality as the 

 basis of its action, without distinction of creed, nationality, or 

 colour, would serve as a common centre for the efforts of 

 working men towards their complete deliverance from the 

 tyranny of capital. 



It rapidly spread eastward as far as Poland and Hungary, 

 westward to America; and it had affiliated societies, with 

 journals devoted to its cause, in every country of Western 

 Europe. 



