The fundamental principle, ‘to labour the full product of labour,’ was recognised in the following resolution: ‘Every society founded on democratic principles repudiates all appropriation by capital, whether in the form of rent, interest, profit, or in any other form or manner whatsoever. Labour must have its full right and entire reward.’ In view of the struggle imminent between France and Germany, the congress made an emphatic declaration, denouncing it as a civil war in favour of Russia, and calling upon the workers to resist all war as systematic murder. In case of war the congress recommended a universal strike. It reckoned on the solidarity of the workers of all lands for this strike of the peoples against war. At the Congress of Basel in September 1869, little remained for the International to accomplish in further defining the socialistic position. The resolution for transforming land from private to collective property was repeated. A proposal to abolish the right of inheritance failed to obtain a majority, for while thirty-two delegates voted for the abolition, twenty-three were against it, and seventeen declined to vote.[5] If we now turn from the congresses of the International to consider the history of its influence in Europe, we shall see that its success was very considerable. A conference of delegates of English Trade Unions which met at Sheffield in 1866 most earnestly enjoined the unions to join the International; and it repeatedly gave real help to the English trade unionists by preventing the importation of cheap labour from the Continent. It gained a substantial success in the effectual support of the bronze-workers at Paris during their lock-out in 1867. At the beginning of 1868 one hundred and twenty-two working men’s societies of South Germany, assembled at Nuremberg, declared their adhesion to the International. In 1870 Cameron announced himself as the representative of 800,000 American workmen who had adopted its principles. It soon spread as far east as Poland and Hungary; it had affiliated societies, with journals devoted to its cause, in every country of Western Europe. The leading organs of the European press became more than interested in its movements; the _Times_ published four leaders on the Brussels Congress. It was supposed to be concerned in all the revolutionary movements and agitations of Europe, thus gaining a world-historic notoriety as the rallying-point of social overthrow and ruin. Its prestige, however, was always based more on the vast possibilities of the cause it represented than on its actual power. Its organisation was loose, its financial resources insignificant; the Continental unionists joined it more in the hope of borrowing than of contributing support.