Page:Address and Provisional Rules of the International Working Men's Association (1924).pdf/5



It is a great fact that the misery of the working masses has not diminished from 1848 to 1864, and yet this period is unrivalled for the development of its industry and the growth of its commerce. In 1850, a moderate organ of the British middle-class, of more than average information, predicted that if the exports and imports of England were to rise 50 per cent., English pauperism would sink to zero. Alas! on April 7th, 1864, the Chancellor of the Exchequer delighted his Parliamentary audience by the statement that the total import and export trade of England had grown in 1863 "to £443,955,000, that astonishing sum about three times the trade of the comparatively recent epoch of 1843." With all that he was eloquent upon "poverty." "Think," he exclaimed, of those who are on the border of that region," upon "wagesnot increased;" upon human lifein nine cases out of ten but a struggle of existence." He did not speak of the people of Ireland, gradually replaced by machinery in the North, and by sheep-walks in the south, though even the sheep in that unhappy country are decreasing it is true not at so rapid a rate as the men. He did not repeat what then had been just betrayed by the