London, 15 November 1878 
41 Maitland Park Road, N. W. 

My dear Sir, 

I received this morning your letter, dated October, 28th. 

I did not receive the letter you allude to; it may have been 
intercepted by the German post or been lost; the Prussian 
postmasters having so much been interfered with on the part of 
Government, that many letters ‘vanished’, nobody knows whither, 
even by mere blundering. In point of fact, the last letter I had the 
honour to get from you, is dated— 7th May 18772 

The interruption of my own correspondence to you was simply 
the result of warnings I had received (since the latter date), on the 
part of friends residing in Russia, to suspend letter-writing to 
them, as it might, despite the innocent contents of the letters, 
bring them into trouble. 

In regard to the second edition of Capital, I beg to remark *’: 

1) I wish that the divisions into chapters—and the same holds 
good for the subdivistons—be made according to the French 
edition. 

2) That the translator compare always carefully the second 
German edition with the French one, since the latter contains 
many important changes and additions (though, it is true, I was 
also sometimes obliged—principally in the first chapter—to 
‘aplatir the matter in its French version). 

3) Some changes I consider useful—TI shall try to get [them] ready 
for you at all events within 8 days, so that I may despatch them 
Saturday next (to-day is Friday).‘ 

So soon as the second volume of the Capital will go in 
print—but this will hardly be before the end of 1879—you shall 
get the manuscript in the way demanded. 

I have received some publications from Petersburg, for which 
my best thanks. Of the polemics of Tschischerin and other 
people against me, I have seen nothing, save what you sent me in 
1877 (one article of Sieber, and the other, I think, of Michailoff,? 
both in the Fatherlandish Annals, in reply to that queer would-be 

a Presumably a reference to Danielson’s letter of 7 March 1877. - > simplify 
- © See this volume, p. 346. - 4 Nikolai Mikhailovsky - © Omeuecmeennoia Sanucru. 

Encyclopedist— Mr Joukowski). Prof. Kowalewskiy, who is here, 
told me that there had been a rather lively polemics on the 
Capital.” 

[The]* English crisis which I predicted on p. 351 of the French 
edition, note—has at last come to a head during the past few 
weeks. Some of my friends—theoreticians and businessmen—had 
asked me to omit that note because they thought it unfounded. So 
convinced were they that the crises in the north and south of 
America and those in Germany and Austria were bound, as it 
were, to ‘cancel out’ the English crisis. 

The first country in which business will describe an ascending 
line is the United States of North America. Only this improvement 
will there set in under conditions altogether altered—for the 
worse. The people will try in vain to get rid of the monopolising 
power and the (as far as the immediate happiness of the masses is 
concerned) baneful influence of the great compagnies swaying 
industry, commerce, property in land, railroads, finance—at an 
always accelerated rate since the outbreak of the Civil War.** The 
best Yankee writers are loud in proclaiming the stubborn fact that, 
if the Anti-Slavery war has broken the chains of the black, it has 
on the other hand enslaved the white producers.*” 

The most interesting field for the economist is now certainly to 
be found in the United States, and, above all, during the period of 
1873 (since the crash in September) until 1878—the period of 
chronic crisis. Transformations—which to be elaborated did 
require in England centuries—were here realised in a few years. 
But the observer must look not to the older States on the Atlantic, 
but to the newer ones (Ohio is a striking example) and the newest 
(California f.1.). 

The imbeciles in Europe who fancy that theoreticians like myself 
and others are at the root of the evil, might learn a wholesome 
lesson by reading the official Yankee reports. 

You would much oblige me by some information which you as a 
banker must possess—on the present state of Russian finance. 

Yours very truly, 

A. Ww?