Karl Marx 
Corn Prices—European Finances and War Preparations- 
The Oriental Question 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 6046,10. September 1860 

From Our Own Correspondent. 
London, Aug. 25, 1860. 

The state of the weather having not improved during this week, a rise of 
6 shillings per sack took place in the value of town-made flour, at Mark Lane 
yesterday, and orders for the purchase of nearly 1,000,000 quarters of 
produce were at once forwarded to foreign ports. Importers share now pretty 
generally the opinion I advanced in a late letter as to the inevitable further 
rise in the quotations of the grain market. The recent measures taken by 
France in regard to the corn trade bring that country into direct competition 
with the British corn merchant. You are aware that there exists in France 

a sliding scale, regulating the import and export duties on grain, and that this 
sliding scale varies for the eight different circles which the whole country 
is divided into with respect to the corn trade. Now, by a decree published 
in The Moniteur of the 23d inst., this sliding scale has been altogether sus- 
pended. The decree enacts that grain and flour imported by land or by sea, 

in French or foreign vessels, shall, wherever they may come from, only pay, 
up to the 30th of September, 1861, the minimum of duties fixed by the law 
of the 15th of April, 1832; also, that vessels laden with grain and flour shall 
be exempt from tunnage dues; and finally, that vessels so laden leaving any 
foreign port at any date previous to the said 30th of September, 1861, 

shall only pay the said minimum, and shall be free from tunnage dues. The 
minimum referred to, is 25 cents the hectolitre (about 2°/, bushels). Conse- 
quently, while France in the years 1858 and 1859 sent more wheat— 
2,014,923 quarters—and more flour-4,326,435 cwt—to England than any 
other country, it will now seriously compete with England in the purchase 

of grain in the foreign markets—the provisional suspension of the French 
sliding scale affording the wanted facilities for such competition. The two 
main markets of export which both England and France find themselves 

Corn Prices—European Finances and War Preparations—The Oriental Question 

limited to are the United States and Southern Russia. In regard to the latter 
country, the news as to the state of the harvest is of the most contradictory 
character. On the one hand, it is asserted that the harvest is most plentiful; 
on the other, that heavy rains and high floods having damaged the crops in 
all parts of the Empire, the roads and corn-fields of the southern provinces 
had been greatly devastated by locusts, a scourge which made its first 
appearance in Bessarabia, and whose depredations it was vainly attempted 
to circumscribe within a limited area by an army of 20,000 men drawing a 
cordon around them. The ultimate extent of the disaster cannot, of course, 
be estimated, but at all events it must tend to accelerate the upward move- 
ment of food prices. Some London papers fancy that the drain of bullion 
inseparable from large and sudden corn imports may be counterbalanced in 
its usual effect upon the money market by the gold supplies from Australia. 
No notion could be more preposterous. We witnessed, during the crisis of 
1857, a lower ebb of the bullion reserves than in any similar epoch before 
the discovery of Australia and California. On former occasions I have shown 
by incontrovertible facts and figures that the extraordinary goldimports into 
England since 1851 have been more than counterbalanced by extraordinary 
gold exports. There is, moreover, the fact that the bullion reserves in the 

20 Bank of England have, since 1857, not only not exceeded the average amount, 

but were continually falling off. While they amounted in August, 1858, to 
£17,654,506, they had declined to £16,877,255 in August, 1859, and to 
£15,680,840 in August, 1860. As the gold drain has not yet set in, this phe- 
nomenon may be accounted for by the circumstance that the prospect of a 

25 failing harvest is only beginning to operate, while, till now, the rate of interest 

has continued to be higher at London than at the other principal exchanges 
of the Continent, viz.: Amsterdam, Frankfort, Hamburg, and Paris. 
Continental Europe exhibits at this moment a very curious spectacle. 
France is known to labor under heavy financial difficulties, but she is creating 
armaments on a scale as gigantic, with an energy as untiring, as if she owned 
Aladdin's lamp. Austria totters on the very brink of bankruptcy, but, some- 
how or other, the money is found for feeding an immense army, and crowding 
the fortresses of the Quadrilateral with rifled cannon. And Russia, where all 
the monetary operations of the Government have failed and the national 
bankruptcy is talked of as a probable event—where the army grumbles in 
consequence of arrears not paid, and even the loyalty of the Imperial Guard 
is put to a severe test, their pay having been withheld for the last five 
months—Russia, nevertheless, is pouring her troops down to the Black Sea, 
and holds 200 ships ready at Nicolaieff, in order to embark them for Turkey. 
The inability of the Russian Government to cope with the slave question, 
the money question, and the reviving Polish question, seems to have decided 

Karl Marx 

it to try war as a last resource of national soporification. The complaints 
arising from all parts of the empire, and all ranks of Russian society, are 
consequently, by Government order, drowned in the fanatical cry of revenge 
for the poor, down-trodden Christians of Turkey. Day by day the Russian 
press teems with illustrations and demonstrations as to the necessity of an 
intervention in Turkey. The following extract from the Invalide may be 
considered a fair sample: 

"The Oriental question has reached a stage which is certain to keep it 
before the Powers for a long time to come, and, as it now engrosses the 
attention of all Europe, it would ill become us to leave it undiscussed in our 
columns. Those only who are indifferent to the interests of humanity can 
allow this topic to pass by unnoticed. We, however, are obliged not only to 
relate the details of Oriental occurrences, but also to allude to the eventuali- 
ties of the future, especially as it behooves us to show the public what 
measures must be taken in order to do away with such an unnatural state 
of things, forming, as it does, the disgrace of our century and civilization. 

Considering what acts of barbarism the Turks are allowed to commit, we 
are, in deference to truth and justice, compelled to acknowledge that Europe 
must be held accountable for the origin and consequences of Mussulman 
fanaticism. We will not hesitate to speak out frankly. What were the motives 
that prompted Europe to engage in an unjust war against Russia in 1853-4? 
Europe herself put forward two objects as the grounds of the Crimean 
campaign: One was, to thwart the power and ambition of Russia; the other 
to prevent the oppression of Christians by the Turks. Europe, consequently, 
acknowledged the existence of such oppression, but in order to remove it, 
declared her determination to maintain the integrity of Turkey as anecessary 
condition of the balance of power. The war being at anend, diplomacy began 
to busy itself with the means for the attainment of this double object. The 
first step was to receive Turkey into the family of European Powers, and 
to protect her against the overweening interference of any one of their 
number. This being easy enough of accomplishment, one of the two objects 
was consequently secured. But how is it with the other? Have any guarantees 
been given for the protection of Christians against murder and every de- 
scription of ill usage? Alas! Europe in this respect put her faith in words, 
papers, and documents, without any solid security being accorded for their 
fulfillment. As early as the 8th of August, 1854, when the cessation of 
hostilities was contemplated, the Porte was called upon to grant an equal 
share of religious rights to its Christian and Mussulman subjects. The same 
demand was raised by the St. Petersburg Cabinet in the memorials of the 
28th December, 1854; and finally, the preliminary conditions of peace drawn 
up at Vienna on the Ist of February, 1856, and afterward embodied in the 

Corn Pricees—European Finances and War Preparations—The Oriental Question 

minutes of the first sitting of the Paris Congress, were made to include the 
following words: 'The rights of the rayahs will be protected, without preju- 
dice, however, to the independence and sovereign dignity of the Sultan. 
Austria, France, Great Britain, and the Porte, are of accord respecting the 
maintenance of the Turkish Christians in the enjoyment of their political and 
religious rights ; and they will request the consent of Russia to this proposition 
in the instrument of peace.’ 

The same object occupied the Congress in various other sittings, as may 
be seen from the minutes of the 28th of February, and of the 24th and 25th 

10 of March. In all this it was desirous of attaining two objects mutually destruc- 

tive of each other—to preserve the sovereign rights of the Sultan, and to place 
those of his Christian subjects under the guardianship of Europe. The 
Congress altogether forgot that the same rights of the Christians, which it 
was so desirous of establishing, had been conceded over and over again by 
the Porte in its previous treaties with Europe—treaties which, moreover, had 
already abolished the sovereign power of that monarch, who, as Europe now 
said, ought to be assisted in its maintenance. To establish a little harmony 
between these two contradictory points, the Sultan, while induced to issue 
the celebrated Hatti Humayoum, was acknowledged to have acted from his 
own free will and sovereign inclination. So he had to promise that he would 
respect and increase the rights of his Christian subjects, and this promise 
was received into the treaty of peace, by way of guaranty for its fulfillment 
as one of its constituent parts. On these conditions, the Congress, inthe 9th 
clause of the treaty, resigned all further interference with the internal affairs 
of Turkey. 
But has the Congress really obtained any guaranty for the carrying out of 
the Hatti Humayoum? Have any effective obligations been entered into by 
the Sultan? Of this nothing was provided. For, although the wisdom of the 
Hatti Humayoum is much extolled in the treaty, that document, as all Europe 
predicted, has remained a dead letter. But, worse than this— Europe, in virtue 
of the new treaty, is deprived of all right of legal interference, even though 
the Hatti Humayoum may never have been executed, and notwithstanding 
the perpetration of the most horrible atrocities only four years after its issue. 
Quite recently, Russia warned all the Cabinets of Europe that the fanaticism 
of the Turks had diminished neither in zeal nor fierceness; that new out- 
breaks were soon to be expected, although, indeed, there had never been any 
interval of relaxation. But even then Europe was satisfied with the promises 
of the Porte, and indulged herself in the hope that the guilty parties would 
be punished, and law and order speedily restored. It needed the wholesale 
slaughter at the hands of these savages to effect a change in her opinions. 
Then at length Europe resolved to interfere, though not without such delay 

Kal Marx 

and circumlocution as would justify the belief that she intended to let the 
guilty ones escape. Everything was made to depend on the letter of the treaty 
of the 30th March, 1856; and, just as in the case of Italy last year, the suffer- 
ings of a people weighed nothing against the text of a diplomatic document. 

But our opinion on all this is very different. The treaty of Europe with 
Turkey, in our eyes, guarantees the principles of humanity, religion, and 
civilization. If Turkey violates these principles, she alone brings upon herself 
the interference of Europe. 

Until the year 1856, the Powers of Europe, in virtue of several treaties 
concluded with the Porte, owned a legal right of remonstrance respecting 
the position of the Christian rayahs. To-day, however, it may be questioned 
whether or not this right has been abrogated by the treaty of the 30th March, 
1856. Has Europe resigned the privileges of protecting its co-religionists? It 
has, if it ever reckoned upon the execution of the Hatti-Humayoum, of the 

18th February ; if it ever believed that reforms promised are one and the same 15 

with reforms carried out; if it ever hoped that the customs, passions, and 
laws of the Mussulmans are capable of a change. But, of course, Europe 
never was, never could be, of that opinion. Carried away by the belief that 
the integrity of the Ottoman Empire is a sine qua non for the balance of 
power, she allowed the Sultan to enter into her family of States. But this was 

only accorded on the condition that Turkey, dissevering herself from Mus- 
sulman traditions, should become European in her institutions; that a sword 
should no longer be the only law-giver between believers and unbelievers; 
that the Christians should no longer be the slaves of their masters and the 
property of the royal rayahs cease to form the common plundering-ground 

of Mussulmans. This, indeed, was the leading idea of Europe in 1856. With 
all its wrath against Russia, the natural consequence of a sanguinary and 
unjust war, it did not release the Porte from its previous obligations; but, 
on the contrary, demanded a progressive improvement in the situation of the 
Christians. To secure the attainment of this object was the only purpose of 
the common protectorate of Europe over the Porte and for this price alone 
Europe guaranteed the integrity of the Sultan's dominions. Without this, 
neither the war nor the peace would have been justifiable. Without this, 
Turkey would never have been received into the family of Powers, nor 
protected in the integrity of her possessions. The two conditions are so 
intimately connected that they cannot be separated; every one can see that, 
who wishes to see at all. The form of the condition it is true, might have been 
less effective than itis; if the letter of the treaty ruled supreme, Europe, in 
virtue of the 9th clause, has formally resigned her right of interference in 
the internal affairs of Turkey; but even in this clause mention is made of the 

Hatti Humayoum of the 18th February, in accordance with which the Chris- 

Corn Prices— European Finances and War Preparations—The Oriental Question 

tians are to be placed on an equal footing of right with the Mussulmans. It 
is but in harmony with the laws of sound logic to infer, that if the Hatti 
Humayoum has been disregarded, the 9th clause falls to the ground. 

In vain Turkey now affects to quell the latest outbreak in Syria. That 
outbreak was unavoidable, considering that the situation of the Christians 
has not been ameliorated, but on the contrary, rendered worse than before. 
In vain England strives to prevent the interference of Europe; it is just 
possible she has her own policy, and is swayed by political and commercial 
motives, the justice and importance of which we do not care to consider; 
but she cannot base her objections on the 9th clause of the Paris Treaty. In 
vain Europe seeks to conceal the fact of her interference, under the pleathat 
it has been undertaken in consequence of a wish of the Sultan. We say that 
all this is in vain; and although Ilion did not believe in the prophecies of 
Cassandra, we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that Ilion was 
destroyed." 

Friedrich Engels 
Arbeitsnotizen tiber den Feldzug Garibaldis 
in Süditalien 1860 

17. Insurrection in Foggia. 1. Dragoner und 2 Companien des 13. Regiments 
gingen über. 4 Companien vom 6. Regiment bei Aulette überg[egangen]. 

18. August Abends, 7.[Uhr] Abfahrt im Torino[,] Frariklin etc. von 
Taormina. 9000 Mann Brigade Bixio. Landet Morgens. Missoris Corps bis 
dahin gegen 2000. Die Neapolitaner concentriren vor Scylla — S. Giovanni, 
und Monteleone. Die Flotte wollte nichts thun (8 Kriegsschiffe und 7 Trans- 
port!!). 1800 Mann hinter Missori hergeschickt. In Reggio 8 Companien 
V2 Linie, V2 Jäger, 6 sollen übergegangen sein. 

Cosenz muß gegen den 20sten in der Meerenge gelandet haben, ihm sollen 
die beiden Brigaden Melendez und Briganti und das Fort Pezzo sich ergeben 
haben (nicht Pizzo das hinter Monteleone). 

21. August. Das Fort von Reggio capitulirt nach einem Gefecht um die 
Stadt. Ville S. Giovanni nach einem kurzen Gefecht bes[etzt]. 

24. Gefecht bei Piale? Nach Neapolitanischen Berichten Reggio nicht 

capitulirt. Nach dem Gefecht bei Piale die Neapolitaner auseinandergelaufen 15 

während eines Waf f Waffenstillstandes und 9 der Batterien überlassen. Bosco, der 
Kriegsmann und 6 Batterien von Neapel nach Calabrien. 

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Arbeitsnotizen 

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Engels