Karl Marx
WORKERS’ DISTRESS IN ENGLAND

For the last two months a polemic has been going on in the local
press whose records should be of much more interest to the future
historian of English society than all the catalogues of the Great
Exhibition,’ illustrated or not illustrated.

It will be recalled that shortly before the closing of Parhament a
bill was rushed through both houses in great haste, at the
insistence of the big industrialists, which raises the tax for the poor
in the municipalities of Lancashive and Yorkshire.” This measure,
very limited in itself, in the main affects the lower middle classes
in the factory districts. while it hardly touches the landlords and
the cotton lords.” During the debate on the Bill, Palmerston used
harsh language towards the cotton lords, whese workers were
starving in the streets while they themselves were heaping up
riches by speculative buying and selling of cotton.” He explained
their “masterly maction” during the crisis likewise on “specula-
tive” grounds. Even at the opening of the session, Lord Derby had
declared that the cotton shortage had been dike a deus ex machina’
for the manufacturers, since an enormous flooding of the markets
would have caused a frightful crisis if the American Civil War had

* An Act to enable Boards of Guardians of certarn Unions to obtain temporary Ard to
meet the extraordinary Demands for Relief therein.— Ed.

e Here and below Marx uses the English words “landlords”, “cotton lords” and
“masterly inaction”, and gives the German translation in brackets.-— Fd.

© Palmerston’s speech in the House of Commons on July 30, 1862 (The Times,
No, 24312, July 31, 1862).— kd.

d Laterally: “a deity from a machine” Gn the ancient Greek and Roman theatre,
the intervention of a god, brought in suddenly by stage machmery. to resolve an
apparently Insoluble conflict). Fd.

not suddenly cut off imports of raw materials.* Cobden, as
spokesman for the industrialists, answered with a_ three-day
diatribe against Palmerston’s foreign policies.”

After the prorogation of Parliament, the fight went on in the
press. Appeals to the English public for relief for the suffering
working population, and the constantly growing dimensions of
impoverishment in the factory districts, gave new occasions daily
for continuing the fight. The Morning Star and other organs of
the industrial press recalled that the Earl of Derby and a whole
gang of aristocrats owed their yearly rents of 300,000 and more
pounds sterling on their real estate holdings in the factory districts
solely to industry, in which they had never invested anything, and
which had given their previously worthless land its present price.
The Morning Star went so far as to set a figure for the charitable
contributions that Derby and other big landlords should give. It
set Derby’s contribution, e.g., at 30,000 pounds. In fact, Lord
Derby called a meeting in Manchester shortly after Parliament
adjourned, to collect charitable contributions. He taxed himself at
1,000 pounds and the other large landholders signed for
corresponding amounts. The result was not brilliant, but the
landed aristocracy had done something at least. They beat their
breasts with a “salvavi animam meam”.°

The high dignitaries of the cotton industry, meanwhile, per-
sisted in their “stoic” attitude. They are nowhere to be found,
neither in the local committees that were formed to alleviate the
distress nor in the London committee. “They are neither here nor
there, but they are on the Liverpool market”,’ says a London
paper. The Tory journals and The Times fulminate daily against
the cotton despots who have sucked millions “out of the flesh and
blood of the workers” and now refuse even to contribute a few
pennies to preserve “the source of their wealth”.* The Times has
sent its reporters into the factory districts; their highly detailed
reports are in no way calculated to make the “cotton lords”
popular." On the other hand, the industrial organs of the

a E. G. Derby’s speech in the House of Lords on February 6, 1862 (The Times,
No. 24163, February 7, 1862).— Ed.

b Cobden spoke about foreign policy on August 1, 1862, i.e. on the third day of his
long House of Commons address (The Times, No. 24314, August 2, 1862).— Ed.

¢ “¥ have delivered my soul” (cf. Ezekiel, 3:19, 33:9).— Ed.

d Marx gives this sentence in English and supplies the German translation in
brackets.— Ed.

« “It must tend to relieve...”, The Times, No. 24333, August 25, 1862.— Ed.

f Reports from Blackburn, Wigan, Stockport and Ashton-under-Lyne published
in The Times on August 30 and September 2, 5, 12 and 16, 1862.— Ed.

Workers’ Distress in England 241

press—the Morning Star, Economist,*, Manchester Guardian, etc.—
accuse The Times of fomenting the class struggle in order to cover
up the guilt of the government, its mismanagement in India, etc.
Indeed, The Times is even charged with “communist tendencies”’.
The Times, obviously much pleased at this chance to win back its
popularity, replies with biting sarcasm: While the “cotton lords”
act in a highly economistic manner, on the one hand, in that they
take speculative advantage of the present cotton shortage, on the
other hand, they are hardened communists, and indeed ‘“com-
munists of the most loathsome kind”. These rich gentlemen
demanded that England open its pockets in order to preserve the
most valuable portion of their capital, without any cost to
themselves, whatsoever. For their capital does not consist solely of
factories, machinery and bank balances, but, to an even greater
extent, of the well-disciplined armies of workers in Lancashire and
Yorkshire. And while the gentlemen close down their factories in
order to sell the raw material at 500 per cent profit, they
demanded that the English people keep their discharged armies
going!

During this strange dispute between the landed aristocracy and
the industrial aristocracy, as to which of them grinds the working
class down the most, and which of them is least obliged to do
something about the workers’ distress, things are happening to the
patients themselves that the continental admirers of the “Great
Exhibition”? have no inkling of. The incident that { describe in the
following lines is officially confirmed.

In a small cottage‘ at Gauxholme, near Todmorden (West
Riding of Yorkshire), there lived a father and his two daughters;
the father was old and feeble, and the girls earned their living as
workers at the Halliwells’ cotton mill. They lived in a miserable
room on the ground floor, a few feet from a filthy little brook,
and past their window a staircase, used by the people who lived
upstairs, cut off the light from their dreary habitation. At the best
of times, they earned just enough to “keep body and soul
together’, but for the last 15 weeks they had lost the only source
of their livelihood. The factory had been closed down; the family
could no longer earn the means to buy food. Step by step, poverty
dragged them into its abyss. Every hour brought them nearer to
the grave. Their pitiful savings were soon exhausted. Next came

a See, e.g., “Distress and Relief in Lancashire”, The Economist, No. 994,
September 13, 1862.— Ed.

6b Marx uses the English name.— Ed.

© Marx uses the English word.— Ed.

their few sticks of furniture, clothing, linen, and whatever could
be sold or pawned—to be converted into bread. It is a fact that
during the 14 weeks in which they did not earn a farthing, they
never asked for help from the parish.

To add to their troubles, the old man had been sick for a ont
and unable to leave his bed. The tragedy of Ugolino and his sons"
was repeated, without their cannibalism, in the cottage at
Todmorden. In desperation, about a week ago (on the 12th) the
stronger of the two girls pulled herself together, went to the head
of the poorhouse and told him ets pitiful story. This gentleman,
hard though it may be to believe, told her he could do nothing for
the family until the following Wednesday. The three poor
sufferers would have to perish for five more days until the mighty
bailiff would condescend to give them some help. The family
waited—there was nothing else they could do. When the
appointed Wednesday finally arrived on which official charity was
to throw a crumb to the starving family, the village was horrified
by the report that one of the sisters had died of starvation. The
terrible news was all too true. Stretched out on a wretched plank
bed, among the signs of the most terrible poverty, lay the corpse
of the starved girl, while her father, worn and helpless, sobbed on
his bed and the surviving sister had just enough strength to tell
the story of her woe. We know, by experience, where this horrible
case, by no means an exception today, will lead. An inquest will be
held. The coroner” will dwell at length on the charitable spirit of
the English poor law; he will again adduce the excellence of the
machinery for administering it as prima facie’ proof that the law
cannot possibly be responsible for the deplorable event. The head -
of the poorhouse will be whitewashed, and if not warmly
complimented by the court, will at any rate learn, to his comfort,
that there is not the slightest stain on him. Finally, the jury will
crown the solemn comedy by the verdict: “Died by the visitation of

God.”

2 ; : : cae Paper

“ Dante, La Divina Commedia. Inferno, Canto XXXIII— Ed.

b Marx uses the English word and gives the German translation in brackets.—
Ed.

© Self-evident.— Ed.

d Marx uses the English phrase and gives the German translation in
brackets.— Ed.

Karl Marx