[London,} 26 July 1870 
1 Maitland Park Road, 
Haverstock Hill, N.W. 

Dear Sir, 

I must first of all ask your forgiveness for my delay in replying 
to you. Your letter arrived on Thursday* at 6 p.m.; I had just left 
London for a trip in the country. 

However, I would not have been able to join in a public 
Address’ because the General Council of the International 
Working Men’s Association, of which I am a member, had already 
charged me with the task of composing a similar Address.’ The 
piece had been written already, submitted for discussion and was 
approved unanimously last Tuesday. It was to have appeared in 
The Times today, but was suppressed, probably because it 
contained a hit at Russia) However, there is some prospect of its 
appearing in the Pall Mall° Paris is now in a state of siege. We 
have organs at our disposal in all other West European countries 
and in the United States. 

Should the Address be published here you will discover that its 
political viewpoint (and it is this we are concerned with in the first 
instance) coincides with your own, however widely our social views 
may diverge. At all events, I am convinced that a genuine power of 
resistance to the return of national antagonisms and the entire 
system of present-day diplomacy can only be found in the working 
class. 

However that may be, I am quite prepared to have further 
discussions on this important subject. Please let me know whether 
and when you might honour me with a visit, or when I can find 
you at home. 

Yours sincerely, 

Karl Marx