London, 17 March 1868 

Dear Friend, 

Your letter‘ affected me both unpleasantly and pleasantly (you 
see I always move in a dialectical contradiction). - 

Unpleasantly, since I know your circumstances, and it would be 
wretched of me to accept such presents at your family’s expense. I 
therefore regard these £15 as an advance, which I shall repay when 
I am able. 

Pleasantly, not simply as a mark of your great friendship (and in 
the bustle of the world, friendship is the only personal thing that 
matters), but also because you have helped me over a great 
embarrassment in regard to the coming wedding.™' In the past 4 
months—quite apart from medicine and doctors—I have spent so 
much money on Buus Booxs,**? Enquétes and Yankee Reports, etc., 
on Banks that I really had nothing left for my daughter.‘ 

You can imagine that I have often discussed moving from 
London to Geneva, not only with myself and my family, but also 
with Engels. Here I have to spend £400-500 annually. In Geneva I 
could live on £200. But CONSIDERING ALL 1n ALL this 1s impossible for the 
time being. I can only complete my work* in London. And only 
here can I hope finally to derive a decent or at least adequate 

a of the first volume of Capital- > E. Dihring, Die Verkleinerer Carey's und die 
Krisis der Nationalékonomie. - © of 13 March 1868 - 4 Laura Marx - © Capital 

monetary profit from this work. This is why it is necessary that I 
stay here for the time being. Apart from the fact that, were I to 
move away from here at this critical period, the whole working- 
class movement, which I influence behind the scenes, would fall 
into very bad hands and leave the right track. 

For the time being, therefore, fate binds me to London ait 
DRAWBACKS NOTWITHSTANDING. Quant a* Coppel, you do him an 
injustice. Had I not been indisposed he would have amused me 
and such a diversion never hurts the family. 

Engels and I have hitherto written nothing for Liebknecht’s 
paper.” (Engels has now sent him 2 articles about my book.‘) 
Eccarius is the regular London correspondent. Borkheim has 
written an article against Herzen et Co." 

Meyer’s* letter gave me great pleasure. However, he has partly 
misunderstood my exposition. Otherwise he would have seen that 
I depict large-scale industry not only as the mother of the 
antagonism, but also as the producer of material and intellectual 
conditions for resolving these antagonisms, though this cannot 
proceed along pleasant lines. 

With regard to the factory act—as a first condition, whereby 
the working class obtains reLtsow-room for development and move- 
ment—I demand it from the state, as a forcible law, directed not only 
against the manufacturers, but also against the workers them- 
selves. (Page 542, note 52, I indicate the resistance of women 
workers to a limitation of hours.) By the way, should Mr Meyer 
develop the same energy as Owen, he can break this resistance. 
That the individual manufacturer (apart from the extent to which 
he endeavours to influence legislation) can do little in the matter, I 
state ditto p. 243: ‘But looking at things as a whole, all this does 
not, indeed, depend on the good or ill will of the individual 
capitalist, etc.’ and ib. note 114.8"? Despite all this, the individual 
working person can do something, and this has been abundantly 
shown by such manufacturers as Fielden, Owen, etc. Their main 
effectiveness must naturally be of a public nature. As for the 
Dollfuses in Alsace, they are humbugs who have managed, through 
their conditions of contract, to establish a comfortable and at the 
same time for them very profitable serfdom-relationship with their 
workers. They have been duly exposed in the Paris press, and for 

a As for - > Demokratisches Wochenblatt - © F. Engels, ‘Review of Volume One of 
Capital for the Demokratisches Wochenblatt’. - 4 S. B[orkheim], ‘Russische politische 
Flichtlinge in West-Europa’, Demokratisches Wochenblatt, Nos. 5 and 6, 1 and 8 
February 1868 (the end of the article was published in Nos. 17 and 20, 25 April 
and 16 May 1868). - ¢ Gustav Meyer (see this volume, p. 549) 

this very reason one of these Dollfuses, in the Corps législatif, 
recently introduced and carried one of the most infamous 
paragraphs of the Press Law, namely that ‘vie privée doit étre 
murée’. 

With heartiest greetings to your dear wife? 

Yours 
K. M. 

Apropos: Did you see that my personal enemy Schweitzer has 
heaped eulogies on my head in 6 numbers of the Social-Demokrat 
on account of my book?‘ Very harrowing for that old harlot 
Hatzfeldt.