COMRADES,—The present report tells of a poriod of struggle, which, we imagine, deserves some attention even outside the boundaries of our small country.
It is not the struggle against the property-holding classes and their government to which we owe the most painful experiences of the three years which have passed since the Zurich Congress. This struggle, the class war, is still carried on by our organisation with the same undaunted spirit. But what will give to the present report a gloomy aspect, and at, the same time make it worth the attention of all organised workers whose experiences differ from ours, is the attempt to introduce discord in our own ranks from beyond the boundaries of our country, an attempt which, in spite of the victory gained by our organisation, has left deep traces behind.
After recounting the history of the Zwolle Congress in 1892, at which the party took the first step towards parting with parliamentary methods, and the police prosecutions which followed, together with the bitter personal misrepresentations to which they were subjected by a handful of opponents, the report tells of the Groningen Congress in 1894, where the following resolution was carried by 47 against 40 votes, with 14 abstentions: “The Congress decides not to take part in elections under any circumstances whatever, not even for purposes of propaganda.” The minority were not opponents, and did not secede, only they felt the resolution was more the outcome of anger at the treatment they were being subjected to than of principle. A new party, however, was formed as the Dutch Social Democratic Party, fifty-four persons attending its first Congress.
“A brief communication in the dissident press threw a strong light upon the circumstances under which the new party was founded.
We all knew that financial considerations had had a great deal to do with it. Still, the members of our organisation were very much amazed and offended when they heard that the party treasury of the German Social Democratic Party had given .£75 to the seceders for the purpose of backing up their organisation. As the information had been published in the dissident press itself, it was impossible to doubt the truth of it.
The executive committee of our party now addressed a letter to the Congress of the German Social Democrats, which took place at Francfort o. Main (21st to 27th October, 1894), and protested against this unheard of interference of the German Social Democratic Reichstag-fraction (the Social Democratic members of the Reichstag) with the inner organisation of the Socialist party in another country,

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