[Draft] 
[London,] 3 April 1894 
Dear Comrade, 

I am very much obliged to you and the comrades of the S.D.F. “* whose 
feelings you express for the honour you do me by asking me to lecture at 
your hall. But I am afraid I must decline. My work for our common cause 
lies in another branch of activity, where I believe I can be more useful, 

*“F. Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England 

and where I find full occupation for all the time at my command. Were I 
once to begin lecturing, at which trade moreover I am but a poor hand, I 
should no longer have a valid plea for resisting other invitations, and then I 
should have entirely to give up my present class of work. For this reason I 
have regularly declined all similar calls from the Fabian Society, *’ the I.L.P., 
''* and other bodies, with the exception made this year of the old Communist 
Verein,* where they claimed a fifty years’ hold upon me. ° 

But then, as far as the S.D.F. is concerned, there is another question to 
consider. You cannot but be aware that for years, up to a comparatively 
recent period, Justice, the official organ of the S.D.F., has been in the habit 
of charging me with all sorts of offences. These charges, mostly vague 
insinuations of mysterious crimes, Justice has never specified, never 
attempted to provide, and yet never withdrew.”