Karl Marx: A Biography

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45 2 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY

Marx was thus actively interested in the immediate occasion for the St

Martin's Hall meeting. His own account of his being invited (written

some weeks later to Engels) is as follows:

A Public Meeting was summoned for 28 September 1864 in St Martin's
Hall by Odger (shoemaker, President of the Council of all London
Trades' Unions) and Cremer (a mason and secretary of the Masons'
Union). ... A certain Le Lubez was sent to me to ask whether I would
take part on behalf of the German workers and in particular whether
I could supply a German worker to speak at the Meeting. I supplied
Eccarius, who was a great success, and I was also there - as a silent
figure on the platform. I knew that this time the real 'powers' from
both the London and Paris sides were present, and so decided to waive
my otherwise standing rule to decline any such invitations.'

In fact, Marx's invitation seems to have been a very hurried affair, for he

only received the formal note from Cremer asking him to attend a few

hours before the meeting. The French, largely followers of Proudhon,

believed that workers should run their own organisations, and Eccarius

was an obvious choice, having been one of the signatories of the German

Workers' Educational Association's Manifesto in October 1863.

The meeting was 'packed to suffocation' with some 2000 present.

Beesly, Professor of History at London University and a leading Positivist,

made a brief speech from the chair, the German workers' choir sang, and

Odger read out the Address he had written the previous December. Henri

Tolain, the most influential socialist in France, and a member of the

delegations that visited London in 1862 and 1863 , read the French reply

which was almost exclusively confined to advocating, in Proudhonist

terms, a reform of the relation between capital and labour that would

ensure the worker a fair return for his work. Le Lubez then outlined the

French plan for a Central Committee in London which was to correspond

with sub-committees in the European capitals with a view to drawing up

a common policy. George Wheeler and William Dell, two British trade

unionists, proposed the formation of an international association and the

immediate formation of a committee to draw up its rules. After a debate

in which Eccarius spoke for the Germans, the meeting closed with the

election of a committee comprising thirty-four members: twenty-seven

Englishmen (eleven of them from the building trade), three Frenchmen,

two Italians and two Germans, Eccarius and Marx.

This General Committee (soon to be called General Council) met on

5 October and elected Odger as President and Cremer, on the proposal

of Marx, as Secretary. Corresponding secretaries were elected for France

and Poland. Marx suggested that the secretary for Germany be chosen