Wages in 1873

The reaction against the International Society among the working classes in Belgium originated in a similar cause.  In 1871, during the strike in Flanders, the International was unable to fulfil its promises of support, and it has consequently lost credit with the operatives, many of whom, as we are informed by Mr. Kennedy, have withdrawn from the Society.  It was the same with the miners at Waldenburg, in Silesia, where 6,000 men went out on strike.  After all their savings had been exhausted, they received a grandiloquent despatch from the Central Council at Berlin, urging them to emigrate en masse.  A few obeyed the advice.  The majority who remained were compelled to surrender, being consoled by the assurance that the most valiant armies must sometimes yield to superior numbers, and that they had won for themselves the admiration of Germany.