London, Tuesday, Nov. 15, 1853 

“The Trade Returns and the Money Market” is the title under 
which The Economist publishes an article intended to prove the 
general prosperity and the fair prospects of trade, although we are 
told in the same number that 

“provisions are high and are still rising in price,” that ‘a quarter of wheat will sell 
at 80 shillings,” and that “the state of the Cotton trade [...] is not such as to make the 
millowners at al] anxious to recommence work.” * “There is much of instruction,” says 
The Economist, speaking of the tables of importations, “conveyed in these long 
columns of figures—so much that goes to confirm great principles which have been 
the subject of strong political contest—so much that explains the recent events, with 
regard to the Money Market, and [...] casts light upon the future—so much that is 
highly instructive to the statesman, the financier, the banker, and the trader, in 
enabling them to take an accurate view of the state of things at present, and to make a 
just estimate of their position hereafter—that we feel we cannot perform a better 
service than to call attention to some of the main facts developed by these returns, and 
trace their connection with other most important features of the time.” 

Let us then sit down at the feet of this prophet and hearken to 
his very circumlocutory oracles. This time the tables of importa- 
tion are referred to in order to prove, not the lavish expenditure 
of the working classes, but the unspeakable blessings these very 
classes are reaping from free trade. These tables are as follows: 

TABLE I 

Consumed from Jan. 5 to Oct. 10 

1852 1853 
COCOA seiicneeeueennetnes lb. 2,668,822 3,162,233 
COFFEE 35 ies haus Ib. 25,123,946 28,607,613 
8 cr: ere Teer ce ery Ib. 42,746,193 45,496,957 
SUBAM cieiiessicteteccenaues cwt. 5,358,967 5,683,228 
Tobacco ........cceccceeceeeeeeee Wb. 21,312,459 22,296,398 
Wie vue rindacetes gals. 4,986,242 5,569,560 

One glance over this table shows us the fallacy of The Economist. 
All we know of the enumerated commodities is, not that they have 
been consumed, as is stated, but that they have been entered for 
consumption, which is quite a different thing. There is no 
shop-keeper so ignorant as not to be able to distinguish between 
the stock of commodities that may have entered his premises, and 
the stock that has been really sold and consumed by the public. 

“This list may be regarded as including the chief articles of 
luxury of the operative classes,” and down The Economist puts it to 
the account of these classes. Now, one of these articles, viz., coffee, 
enters but sparingly into the consumption of the English 
operative, and wine does not enter it at all. Or does The Economist 
think the operative classes must be better off because their masters 
are consuming more wine and coffee in 1853 than in 1852? As to 
tea, it is generally known that, consequent upon the Chinese 
revolution and the commercial disturbances connected with it, a 
speculative demand has sprung up based on the apprehensions for 
the future, but not on the wants of the present. As to sugar, the 
whole difference between October, 1852 and 1853, amounts but to 
324,261 cwt.; and I don’t pretend to the omniscience of The 
Economist, which knows, of course, that not one cwt. out of these 
324,261 has entered the stocks of the shop-keeper or the 
sweetmeats of the upper classes, but that all of them must have 
inevitably found their way to the tea of the operative. Bread being 
dear, he will have fed his children upon sugar, as Marie 
Antoinette, during the famine of 1788, told the French people to 
live upon macaroons. As to the rise in the import of tobacco, the 
demand for this article on the part of the operatives regularly 
increases in the same proportion as they are thrown out of work, 
and their regular course of living is interrupted. 

Above all, we must not forget that the amount of commodities 
imported in October, 1853, was determined not by the actual 
demand of that month, but by a conjectural demand calculated on 
an altogether different state of the home market. So much for the 
first table and its “connection with other most important features 
of the time.” 

TABLE II 

Imported from Jan. 5 to Oct. 10 

1852 1853 

BACOM wenciasiews ainda cwt. 62,506 173,729 
Beef salted .................0084 cwt. 101,531 160,371 
Pork salted ...........00ccccee cwt. 77,788 130,142 
Hams salted ..............008.. cwt. 6,766 14,123 
Beard ssck scarce posted cwt. 14,511 102,612 

Total.......... 263,102 580,977 
RICE sseuiscenintivian amen cwt. 633,814 1,027,910 
POTATOES ou... .eececeeeeeecesseeees cwt.- 238,739 820,524 
Grain and Flour ............. qrs. 5,583,082 8,179,956 
CHEESE .........0ccsesesccceeseees cwt. 218,846 294,053 
Butter sides diets cwt. 205,229 296,342 
BGG Sci cssteievencolavina ac iieies, qrs. 89,433,728 103,074,129 

To The Economist the glorious discovery was certainly reserved 
that, in years of dearth and imminent famine, the relative excess 
of imports above those of common years, of provisions, rather 
proves the sudden development of consumption than the unusual 
falling off of production. The sudden rise in the price of an article 
is no doubt a premium on its importation. But has any one ever 
contended that the dearer an article the more eagerly it will be 
consumed? We come now to a third class of importations, 
constituting the raw materials of manufactures: 

TABLE III 

Imported from Jan. 5 to Oct. 10 

1852 1853 

FAN soho tah ucaiees neal cwt. 971,738 1,245,384 
Me nip cian eed tacts cwt. 798,057 788,911 

1852 1853 
Silk, Raw .......cccceccceeeeeeeee Ibs. 3,797,757 4,355,865 
Silk, Thrown .................. Ibs. 267,884 577,884 
CORO G:tiepecseniiiseotaieects cwt. 6,486,873 7,091,999 
Wale Gitaiieeess Ibs. 63,390,956 83,863,475 

As the production of 1853 has largely surpassed that of 1852, 
more raw materials were wanted, imported, and worked up. The 
Economist, however, does not pretend that the surplus of 
manufactures produced in 1853 has entered the home consump- 
tion. He puts it to the account of exports. 

“The most important fact is the enormous increase in our exports. The increase 
upon the single months ending the 10th October is no less than £ 1,446,708, 
completing an aggregate increase [in the nine months] of £ 12,596,291; the amount 
being £66,987,729 in the present year, against £ 54,391,438 in the corresponding 
period of 1852.... Taking only ‘our exports of British produce, the increase is no 
less than 23 per cent. in the year.” 

But how does it stand with these additional £ 12,596,291. “A 
large portion of these exports are only on the way to their 
ultimate markets,” where they will arrive just at the proper 
moment to completely undo them. “A considerable part of the 
increase is to Australia,” which is glutted; “to the United States,” 
which are overdone; “to India,” which is depressed; “to South 
America,” which is altogether unable to absorb the over-imports 
repelled from the other markets. 

“The enormous increase of articles imported and consumed, is already paid by 
this country, or [...] the bills thrown for [...] them are running and will be paid in a 
very short period.... When shall we be paid for the exports? In six months, nine 
months, twelve months, and for some in eighteen months or two years’ time.” 

It “is but a question of time,” says The Economist. What an error! 

If you throw this enormous surplus of manufactures upon 
markets already inundated by your exports, the time you wait for, 
may never arrive. What appears in your tables as an enormous 
list of imaginary wealth, may turn out an enormous list of real 
losses, a list of bankruptcies on a world-wide scale. What then 
do table No. III and the boasted figures of exports prove? What 
all of us were long since aware of, that the industrial produc- 
tion of Great Britain has enormously increased in 1853, that 1t 
has overshot the mark, and that its movement of expansion is 
becoming accelerated at the very moment when markets are con- 
tracting. 

The Economist arrives, of course, at an opposite result. 

“The pressure on the Money Market, and the rise in the rate of interest,” he 
tells us, “are but the transitory consequence of the large imports being immediately 
paid, while the enormous surplus of exports is advanced on credit.” 

In his eyes, then, the tightness of the Money Market is but the 
result of the additional amount of exports. But we may as justly say 
that in these latter months the increase of exports has been but 
the necessary result of the pressure on the Money Market. That 
pressure was attended by an influx of bullion and an adverse 
exchange—but is an adverse exchange not a premium on bills 
drawn on foreign countries, or in other words, a premium on 
exportation? It is precisely by virtue of this law that England, in 
times of pressure on her own Money Market, deranges all the 
other markets of the world, and periodically destroys the industry 
of foreign countries, by bombarding them with British manufac- 
tures at reduced prices. 

The Economist has now found out the “two points” in which the 
workingmen are decidedly wrong, decidedly blameable and 
foolish. 

“In the first place they are at issue.in most cases,on the merest fraction of a 
coin.” 

Why is this? Let The Economist answer himself: 

“The dispute has been changed from being a question of contract to being a 
struggle for power.” “Secondly, [...] the operatives have not managed their own 
business, but have submitted to the dictation of irresponsible, if not self-styled 
leaders.... They have acted in combination, and through [...] a body of insolent 
clubs.... We do not fear the political opinions [...] of the working classes 
themselves; but we do fear and deprecate those of the men whom they allow to 
prey upon them and speak for them.” 

To the class organization of their masters the operatives have 
responded by a class organization of their own; and The Economist 
tells them that he will discontinue “to fear” them, if they dismiss 
their generals and their officers and resolve to fight single- 
handed. Thus the mouth-pieces of the allied despots of the north 
assured the world again and again, during the period’ of the first 
struggles of the French revolution, that they did “not fear” the 
French people itself, but only the political opinions and the 
political actions of the savage Comité du Salut Public,*** the insolent 
clubs, and the troublesome generals. . 

In my last letter I told The Economist that it was not to be 
wondered at if the working classes had not used the period of 
prosperity to educate their children and themselves. I am now 

enabled to forward you the following statement, the names and 
particulars of which have been given me, and are about to be sent 
to Parliament: In the last week of September, 1852, in the 
township of ... four miles from ..., at a bleaching and finishing 
establishment called..., belonging to ..., Esq., the undermentioned 
parties attended their work sixty hours consecutively, with the 
exception of three hours for rest! 

Girls Age Girls Age 
IVE pated ss ce cehieeon mas usteieees 22 FAO sass eettse sede ean 15 
PR 5 it Goatoodippavintantnescons 20 MDs ice scanevlectaneheds isonscgoutnd 13 
VA octet eta cieiiadeeanitines 20 Py g eseeiens Washoe nvaedeehia dics 13 
PTA 2 ie Be tseadtasseiaveantuatevsss 18 1) S Reeenee: eee eee are ey ee 13 
CoN sscetitasteen a teyta geeate 18 PT a aiewtvatenteeteuseieelaeerties 12 
BBs ase eiethie tescrusv cata abodes 16 CO wsieaenws 12 
DE teeta cath Seatiods decent 16 SB iosnslsteaiteeestcorndaaeasis 10! 
Por Lax isebace tinea stiawaiaet 15 AMIN B.. ckvecks bce savsvial ses 9! 
MG yess is eepisssesvascenacnvoee 15 

Boys Boys 

WEGs acta hntea te 9 TR cere Reaetens ll 

Boys of nine and ten working 60 hours consecutively, with the 
exception of three hours’ rest! Let the masters say nothing about 
neglecting education now. One of the above, Ann B., a little girl 
only nine years of age, fell on the floor asleep with exhaustion, 
during the 60 hours; she was roused and cried, but was forced to 
resume work!! 

The factory operatives seem resolved to take the education 
movement out of the hands of the Manchester humbugs. At a 
meeting held* in the Orchard by the unemployed operatives at 
Preston, as we hear: 

“Mrs. Margaret Fletcher addressed the assembly on the impropriety of married 
females working in factories and neglecting their children and household duties. 
Every man was entitled to a fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work, by which she 
meant, that he ought to have such remuneration for his labor as would afford him 
the means of maintaining himself and family in comfort; of keeping his wife at 
home to attend to domestic duties, and of educating his children. [Cheers.] The 
speaker concluded by moving the annexed resolution: 

“ Resolved, that the married portion of the females in this town do not intend to 
go to work again until their husbands are fairly and fully remunerated for their 
labor. 

“Mrs. Ann Fletcher (sister of the last speaker) seconded the resolution, and it 
was carried unanimously. 

* On November 7, 1853.—Ed. 

“The Chairman announced that when the 10 per cent. question was settled, 
there would be such an agitation raised respecting the employment of married 
women in factories as the millowners of the country little expected.”* 

Ernest Jones, in his tour through the manufacturing districts, is 
agitating for a “Parliament of Labor.” *”° He proposes that 

“a delegation from all trades shall assemble in the center of action, in 
Lancashire, in Manchester, and remain sitting until the victory is obtained. This 
would be an expression of opinion so authoritative and comprehensive as would 
fill the world with its voice, and divide with St. Stephen’s? the columns of the press.... 
At a crisis like this the ear of the world would hang more on the words of 
the humblest of those delegates than on those of the coroneted senators of the 
loftiest House.” “ 

The organ of Lord Palmerston is of a deg different opinion: 

“Among ourselves [...],” exclaims The Morning Post,’ “the boasted progress has 
been effectually checked, and since the wretched failure of the 10th of April * 76 no 
further attempt has been made to convert laborers into legislators, or tailors into 
tribunes of the people.” 

Written on November 15, 1853 Reproduced from the newspaper 

Tribune, No. 3938, November 30, 1853 

Signed: Karl Marx