Karl Marx

Palmerston—  
Physiology of the Ruling Classes of Great Britain

[“Neue Oder-Zeitung” No. 343, 26 July 1855]

London, 23 July. Should the guarantee of the Turkish loan meet with the same resistance this evening as last Friday, Palmerston will immediately _dissolve_ the House of Commons. All the circumstances are favourable to the adroit man. Dissolution of the House of Commons on Bulwer’s motion, dissolution of the House of Commons on Roebuck’s motion. Both were equally questionable. The diplomacy unfolded at the Vienna conferences, the administration displayed in the winter campaign—both points of vantage scarcely suited for appealing from Parliament to the electoral bodies. But the _‘guarantee of the Turkish loan’_! The scenery, the situation, the motif are transformed as by a magic stroke. It is no longer Parliament which condemned the Cabinet for treason or incapacity. It is the Cabinet which accuses Parliament of obstructing the conduct of the war, endangering the French alliance, leaving Turkey in the lurch. The Cabinet no longer appeals to the country to acquit it of the verdict of condemnation passed by Parliament. It appeals to the country to condemn Parliament. In fact the loan is so formulated that Turkey receives no money directly, but, under the most degrading conditions for a country, is placed under tutelage and must have the sum allegedly lent to her administered and spent by English commissioners. The English administration has proved itself so brilliantly during the Oriental war that it must indeed be tempted to extend its blessings to foreign realms. The Western powers have seized upon the foreign ministry at Constantinople, and not only the foreign ministry but also the ministry of the interior. Since Omer Pasha’s transplantation from Bulgaria to the Crimea, Turkey has ceased to dispose of her own army. The Western powers are now stretching out their hand towards the Turkish finances.

For the first time the Ottoman Empire contracts national debts without obtaining credit. It falls into the position of a landowner who, on granting mortgages, not only takes up an advance but also binds himself to leave the administration of the sum advanced to the mortgage creditor. To leave him the estate itself is the only remaining step. By a similar loan system Palmerston has demoralised Greece and paralysed Spain. But the _appearance_ is on his side. The participation of the peace party in the opposition to the loan reinforces the appearance. By a volte-face he once again confronts the entire opposition, as representative of the war, with the opposition acting as representative of peace. _What_ war he intends to wage, we know. In the Baltic, to chain Finland more firmly to Russia by useless and resultless murder-burnings. In the Crimea, to perpetuate slaughter in which only defeat, not victory, can bring about a decision. In accordance with his old habit, he throws foreign alliances into the parliamentary scale. Bonaparte has already had the loan sanctioned by his so-called “Corps Législatif.” The English Parliament must condescend to become the echo of the Corps Législatif—the echo of an echo—or the alliance is endangered. While Palmerston uses the French alliance as a shield to parry every blow from himself, he at the same time enjoys the satisfaction that it receives blows. As proof that he “sets the right man in the right place,” Palmerston has promoted Sir William Molesworth to the post of Colonial Minister, and Sir B[enjamin] Hall, in Molesworth’s place, to that of Minister of Woods and Forests. Molesworth belongs to the _Wakefield_ school of colonisation. Its principle is artificially to raise the price of land in the colonies and artificially to cheapen labour in order to “produce the necessary combination of productive forces.” The experimental application of this theory in Canada drove immigrants from there to the United States and to Australia.

At this moment three committees of inquiry are sitting in London, one appointed by the Cabinet, the other two by Parliament. The first, formed of the Recorders (the highest criminal judges) of London, Manchester and Liverpool, on the _Hyde Park scenes_, finds itself daily inundated with proofs, not only that the constables were monstrously brutal, but that they were brutal with premeditation and _on orders_. If it were to be conducted without regard to persons, the inquiry would have to begin with Sir George Grey and the Cabinet as the principal culprits. The second committee, under the chairmanship of _Berkeley_, occupied with the effects of the Act concerning the “sale of spirituous liquors on Sundays,” demonstrates the hypocritical superficiality of Sabbatarian social improvement experiments. Instead of decreasing, the number of excesses arising from drunkenness has increased. Only they have been partly shifted from Sunday to Monday. The third committee, under the chairmanship of _Scholefield_, deals with the adulteration of food, drink and all articles of subsistence. Adulteration presents itself as the _rule_, genuineness as the _exception_. The substances admixed to impart colour, smell and taste to worthless substrata are largely poisonous, all health-destroying. Trade here appears as a great laboratory of fraud, the list of commodities as a diabolical catalogue of shams, free competition as the freedom to poison and be poisoned.

The _“Report of the Factory Inspectors”_ for the half-year ending 30 April has been laid before both Houses of Parliament—an invaluable contribution to the characterisation of the _Manchester_ peace men and of the class which disputes the aristocracy’s monopoly of government. The “accidents caused by machinery” are classified in the report under the rubrics:

1. “Causing death,” 2. “Loss of the right hand or the right arm; loss of a part of the right hand; loss of the left hand or the left arm; loss of a part of the left arm; fracture of hand and leg; injuries to the head and the face,” and 3. “Lacerations, contusions and other injuries not enumerated above.”

We read of a young woman “who lost her right hand,” of a child who “had its nasal bones crushed in and the sight of both eyes destroyed by the machine,” of a man whose “left leg was amputated, the right arm broken in three or four places, the head frightfully mutilated”; of a youth who “had his left arm torn out of the shoulder-joint, besides other injuries” and of another youth who “had both arms torn out of the shoulder-joints, his lower body lacerated so that the bowels protruded, both thighs and the head crushed,” etc., etc. The industrial bulletin of the factory inspectors is more terrible, more horrifying than any of the battle bulletins from the Crimea. Women and children furnish a regular and considerable contingent to the list of wounded and killed. Death and wounds are not more glorious than the stripes which the lash of the plantation owner draws on the body of the Negro. They are almost exclusively attributable to the neglect of the legally prescribed _fencing_ of the machinery. It will be remembered that the manufacturers of Manchester—that metropolis of the peace-at-any-price party—stormed the Cabinet with deputations, with protests against the Act which prescribes certain safety precautions in the use of machinery. Since they could not immediately overthrow the law, they sought to get rid of the factory inspector L[eonard] Horner, to intrigue him out of the way and to foist a more pliant guardian of the law into his place. So far without success. They maintained that the introduction of safety appliances would eat up their profit. Horner now proves that there are few factories in his district which could not be rendered safe at a cost of £10. The total number of accidents arising from machinery during the six months covered by the report amounts to 1,788, of which 18 were _fatal_. The total amount of fines imposed on the manufacturers, of the damages paid by them, etc., comes for the same period to £298. To make up this sum, there are included the fines for “working during illegal hours,” for “employment of children under 8 years,” etc., so that the fines imposed for 18 deaths and 1,770 mutilations do not by any means reach £298. £298! It is less than the price of a third-class racehorse!

The Roebuck committee and the British oligarchy! Scholefield’s committee and the British commercial class! The report of the factory inspectors and the British factory lords—under these three rubrics the physiology of the classes at present ruling in Great Britain can be graphically grouped.