“_Considering_: That this collective appropriation can result only from the revolutionary action of the productive class—or the _proletariat_—organized as a distinct political party; that such an organization ought to be pursued by all the means at the disposal of the _proletariat_, universal suffrage included, and thus transformed from an instrument of injury, as it has hitherto been, into an instrument of emancipation—the French socialistic laborers, in proclaiming as their end the political and economic expropriation of the class of capitalists, and the return into the collective form of all the means of production, have decided, as the means of organizing the conflict, to enter into the elections with the following demands: “A. POLITICAL PROGRAMME. “1. The abolition of all laws concerning the press, assemblies, and associations, and especially the law against the ‘International Association of Workmen,’ suppression of the workman’s book,[152] this registration of the laboring class, and of all articles of the code establishing the inferiority of the laborer _vis-à-vis_ his employer and of the inferiority of woman _vis-à-vis_ man. “2. Suppression of religious appropriations, and the return to the nation of all property designated by the term _mortmain_ (_Decree of the Commune_ of April 2, 1871).... “3. Suppression of the public debt. “4. Abolition of standing armies, and the establishment of a militia system to include all the people. “5. The establishment of the freedom of the Commune as regards its administration and its police. “B. ECONOMIC PROGRAMME. “1. One day of rest in seven; eight hours to constitute a day’s labor for adults; prohibition of the labor of children under fourteen in private establishments, and the reduction of their labor to six hours a day between fourteen and eighteen. “2. A protecting ‘surveillance’ of apprentices by corporations of laborers. “3. A legal minimum of wages, determined each year according to the local price of provisions, by a statistical commission composed of laborers. “4. Legal prohibition of the right to employ foreign laborers with smaller wages than those given to Frenchmen. “5. Equal wages for equal work for laborers of both sexes. “6. Free instruction in science, trades, and professions. “7. Support of the aged and infirm by the public. “8. Suppression of all interference of employers in the management of funds destined for the benefit of laborers. “9. Responsibility of employers for accidents to their employees. “10. Participation of laborers in the establishment of rules and laws for different shops; suppression of the right of employers to impose fines and penalties upon laborers.