Page:Resolutions of the Congress of Geneva, 1866, and the Congress of Brussels, 1868 - International Working Men's Association.djvu/17

 The Congress, while maintaining the theoretical affirmation of mutual credit, recommends that the project of rules presented by the Brussels section be sent to all the branches and submitted to their serious discussion, and that the next Congress decide upon it.

The English, German, and some Swiss delegates abstained from voting.

Cognisant that it is impossible at present to organise a rational system of education, the Congress invites the different sections to establish courses of public lectures on scientific and economical subjects, and thus to remedy as much as possible the short comings of the education actually received by the working man. It is understood that the reduction of the hours of labour is an indispensable preliminary condition of any true system of education.

1. In relation to mines, collieries, railways, &c.—Considering that these great productive forces are fixed in, and occupy a large portion of the soil, the common gift of nature,

That they can only be worked by means of machinery and a collective labour power,

That the machinery and the collective labour power, which to-day exist only for the advantage of the capitalists, ought in future to benefit the whole people;

The Congress resolves—

a. That the quarries, collieries, and other mines, as well as the railways, ought in a normal state of society to belong to the community represented by the state, a state itself subject to the laws of justice.

b. That the quarries, collieries, and other mines, and railways, be let by the state, not to companies of capitalists as at present, but to companies of working men bound by contract to guarantee