Page:Henry Mayers Hyndman and William Morris - A Summary of the Principles of Socialism (1884).djvu/49

 North America by itself would still export enormous quantities of food after all its inhabitants were well fed even if it had 800,000,000 inhabitants: these are facts and estimates of the very highest agricultural and economical authorities which ought finally to dispose of the so-called Malthusian theory, even if the supposed necessity of fictitiously limiting the number of producers were not on the face of it an absurdity where idlers who eat enormously and produce not at all form the majority of the population.

From 1848 to 1864 there was little sign of Socialist movement of an international character, and although Lassalle's vigorous agitation in Germany which began in 1862 produced a great effect in that country no serious attempt was made to organise a general combination of Socialists until two years later. In November 1864 a meeting was held in London which laid the foundation of the International Working Men's Association. Karl Marx was the brain of the movement which soon spread to every civilised country and occasioned grave uneasiness to the courts and cabinets of Europe. The International in effect proclaimed the "Solidarity" of interest between the workers of all nations, and called upon them to unite in order to obtain control of the means of production, including the land, in every country; its leaders declared also that the war between classes in each state was the real matter of importance to the labouring class, which every where suffered from the oppression of the classes above; that therefore they should sink national differences in a great international struggle for the emancipation of the