KARL MARX
POLITICAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE COMMERCIAL
EXCITEMENT
London,  Tuesday, October 19,  1852
My  last letter described the
present industrial and commercial situation of this country;
let us  now  draw the political consequences therefrom.
If the outbreak of the anticipated industrial and commer cial revulsion will give a more  dangerous and revolutionary
character to the impending struggle with the Tories, the
present prosperity is, for the moment,  the most  valuable
ally to the Tory  party; an ally, which, indeed, will not
enable them to re-enact the Corn  Laws, abandoned already
by  themselves, but  which effectually consolidates their political power  and assists them in carrying on  a social reaction
that, if let alone, would  necessarily end in the conquest of
substantial class-advantages, as it has been from its beginning  started in the name of a substantial class-interest. No
Corn  Laws, says Disraeli, but  a fresh settlement of taxes in
the interest of the oppressed farmers. But  why  are farmers
oppressed? Because they, for the most  part, continue to pay
the old protectionist rates of rent, while the old protectionist
price of corn is gone  the way of all flesh. The aristocracy
will not  abate the rent of their land, but  they will introduce
a new  mode of taxation which shall make up,  to the farmers,
for the surplus  farmers have to pay into the pockets of the
aristocracy.
I repeat that the present commercial prosperity is favourable to Tory  reaction. Why?

“Patriotism” , complains Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper “patriotism
is apt to go  to sleep in the cupboard if meat and drink be there. Hence,
free trade is the present security of the Earl of Derby; he lies on  a bed
of roses plucked by  Cobden  and Peel.”
The mass of the people is fully employed and more  or
less well off— always deducting the paupers inseparable
from British prosperity; it is therefore not  at present a very
malleable material for political agitation. But  what, above
all things, enables Derby  to carry out  his machinations, is
the fanaticism with which the middle class has thrown  itself
into the mighty  process of industrial production, erecting of
mills, constructing of machinery, building of ships, spinning
and weaving of cotton and wool,  storing of warehouses,
manufacturing, exchanging, exporting, importing,  and other
more  or less useful proceedings, the purpose  of which, to
them, is always the making of money. The Bourgeoisie, in
this moment  of brisk trade— and it very well knows  that
these happy moments  are getting more  and more  few and
far between— will and must  make money,  much  money;
nothing  but  money. It leaves to its politicians ex professo the
task of watching the Tories. But  the politicians ex professo
(compare, for instance, Joseph  Hume ’s letter to The Hull
Advertiser5^ complain justly that, deprived of pressure from
without,  they can agitate as little as the human  frame could
react without  the pressure of the atmosphere.
The Bourgeoisie have, indeed, a sort of uneasy divination
that in the high regions of government  something  suspicious
is brewing,  and that the ministry exploits not  overscrupu-
lously the political apathy in which prosperity has thrown
them. They, therefore, sometimes give the ministry a warning through  their organs in the press. For  instance:
“To  what extent the democracy [read the Bourgeoisie] may carry
their present wise forbearance, their respect for their own  power  and
for the rights of others, making no  attempt to strengthen themselves by
doing as the aristocracy have done, we  cannot foresee; but  the aristocracy
must  not  infer, from the general conduct of the democracy, that they
will never depart from moderation.” [London  Economist}
But  Derby  replies: Do  you  think I am fool enough  to be
frightened by  you  now,  when  the sun  shines, and to be idle

until commercial storms  and stagnation of trade give you
the time to mind politics more  clearly?
The plan of the Tory  campaign shows  itself every day.
The Tories began by  chicaning open-air meetings; they
prosecute, in Ireland, newspapers which contain articles
unpleasant to them; they indict, in this moment,  for seditious
libel, the agents of the Peace Society,55 who  have distributed
pamphlets against the use of the lash in the militia. In this
quiet manner, they push  back, wherever they can, the
isolated opposition  of the street and of the press.
In the meantime, they avoid every great and public rup ture with their opponents,  by  delaying the meeting of Parliament, and by  preparing everything in order to occupy it,
when  met, with the funeral “of a dead Duke, instead of the
interests of a living people” . [Radical Paper.*]  In the first
week of November,  Parliament will meet. But  before January there can be no  question  of a serious beginning  of the
session.
And  how  do the Tories fill up  the meantime? With  the
Registration campaign and the formation of the militia.
In the Registration campaign the object is to throw  out
or to prevent their opponents  from entering the new  lists of
parliamentary electors for the ensuing  year, by  making out
this or that objection which legally prevents a man from
being registered a voter. Each political party is represented
by  its lawyers, and carries on  the action at its own  expense,
and the revising barristers, named by  the Chief Justice of
the Queen ’s Bench,56 decide on  the admissibility of claims
or objections. This campaign has hitherto had its principal
theatre in Lancashire and Middlesex. In order to get up  the
money  for the campaign in North  Lancashire, the Tories
circulated lists of subscription on  which Lord Derby  himself
had put  down  his name for the liberal sum  of £500. The
extraordinary number  of 6,749  objections to voters have been
taken in Lancashire, viz., 4,650 for South,  and 2,099 for
North  Lancashire. For  the former, the Tories objected to
3,557 qualifications; the Liberals to 1,093; for the latter, the
Tories, to 1,334 qualifications; the Liberals to 765. (This, of
The People’s Paper.—Ed.

course, merely amongst  County  voters, independently of the
voters for the Boroughs,  situated in that County.) The Tories
were victorious in Lancashire. In the County  of Middlesex
there were expunged from the registers 353 Radicals and 140
Conservatives— the Conservatives thus gaining 200 votes.
In this battle, the Tories stand on  one side— the Whigs,
with the men  of the Manchester School, on  the other. The
latter, it is pretty well known,  have formed freehold land
societies— machines for manufacturing new  voters. The
Tories leave the machines alone, but  destroy their products.
Mr. Shadwell, revising barrister for Middlesex, gave decisions  by  which great numbers  of the freehold land society
voters have been disfranchised, declaring that a plot of land
did not  confer the franchise unless it had cost £50. As  this
was a question of fact and not  of law, there is no  appeal
from this decision to the Court  of Common  Pleas.57 Everybody  conceives that this distinction of fact and law gives to
the revising barristers, always open  to the influence of the
existing Ministry,  the greatest power  in composing  the new
voters’ lists.
And  what do these great efforts of the Tories, and the
direct interference of their leader in the Registration campaign, prognosticate?
That the Earl of Derby  has no  very sanguine hopes  for
the continuance of his new  Parliament, that he is inclined
to dissolve it in case of resistance on  its part, and that in the
meantime he seeks to prepare, by  the revising barristers, a
conservative majority for another general election.
And  while thus the Tories, on  one hand, hold in reserve
the Parliament-making machine placed at their disposal by
the Registration campaign, they carry out,  on  the other hand,
the Militia Bill, which places at their disposal the necessary
bayonets for carrying out  even the most  reactionary acts of
Parliament, and for supporting  in tranquillity the frowns  of
the Peace Society.
“With  Parliament to give it a legal semblance, with an armed
militia to give it an active power,  what may not  the reaction do in
England?”— exclaims the organ of the Chartists.*
* The People’s Paper.—Ed.

And  the death of the “Iron  Duke ” , of the common-sense-
hero of Waterloo, has in this particular critical moment  freed
the aristocracy of an importune  guardian angel, who  had
experience enough  in warfare to sacrifice, often enough,
apparent victories to a well-covered retreat, and the brilliant
offensive to a timely compromise. Wellington was the mod erator of the House  of Lords; he held in decisive moments
often 60 and more  proxies; he prevented the Tories from
declaring open  war against the Bourgeoisie and against
public opinion. But  now,  with a conflict-seeking Tory  Minis try under the direction of a sporting  character,"' the House
of Lords,
“instead of being, as under the guidance of the Duke, the steady
ballast of the State, may become the top-hamper that may endanger its
safety” .
This latter notion,  that the lordly ballast is necessary to
the safety of the State, does of course not  belong  to us, but
to the liberal London  Daily News. The present Duke  of
Wellington, hitherto Marquis of Douro,  has at once passed
from the Peelite into the Tory  Camp. And  thus  there is every
sign that the aristocracy are about to make the most  reckless
efforts to reconquer the lost ground,  and to bring  back the
golden times of 1815 to 1830. And  the Bourgeoisie, in this
moment,  has no  time to agitate, to revolt, not  even to get
up  a proper  show  of indignation.
Written by  K. Marx
on  October 12, 1852
Published in the New-York
Daily Tribune No.  3602,
November  2, 1852
Printed according
to the newspaper text
Signed: Karl Marx
*  Derby.— Kd.