Karl Marx. Capital. Critique of Political Economy. 
Volume One. Hamburg, Meissner, 1867 

We must leave it to others to deal with the theoretical and 
strictly scientific part of this work and criticise the new view the 
author gives of the origin of capital. But we cannot fail to draw 
attention to the great mass of most valuable historical and 
statistical material with which the author at the same time presents 
us and which almost without exception is taken from the official 
Commission Reports which have been put before the English 
Parliament. He is quite right to emphasise the importance of such 
commissions of inquiry for the study of the internal social 
conditions of a country. Provided the right people are found for 
them, they are the best means for a nation to learn to know itself; 
and Herr Marx is surely not wrong in saying that similar 
investigations conducted in Germany would lead to results which 
would definitely horrify us. Before they were introduced, there 
was not an Englishman either who knew how the poorer classes of 
his country lived! 

It stands to reason, moreover, that without such investigations 
all social legislation will be made with only half the knowledge of 
facts available and often quite in the dark, as they now say in Ba- 
varia. The so-called “inquiries” and “investigations” of German au- 
thorities have not remotely the same value. We know the 
bureaucratic routine only too well: forms are sent round, one is 
glad if they are returned filled in some way or another; the 
information thus supplied is all too often sought precisely among 
those who are interested in hushing up the truth. Compare 
with that the investigations of English commissions on working 
conditions in individual industries, for example. Not only the 
manufacturers and masters, but also the workers down to 
the little girls are interviewed, and not only these, but doctors, 
Justices of the Peace, clergymen, teachers, and moreover anyone 

who can give any kind of information on the matter. Every ques- 
tion and every answer is taken down in shorthand and printed 
word for word, and is attached to the whole material on 
which the commission report with its conclusions and proposals 
is based. The report and its material at the same time proves 
in detail whether and how the commissioners have fulfilled 
their duty and makes things very difficult for individual bias. 
The details as well as innumerable examples can be read in the 
above book itself. Here we want only to emphasise the one 
point, that in England the expansion of the freedom of trade 
and business has gone hand in hand with the expansion of the 
legal limitation of the working hours for women and children, 
and therewith the placing of almost all industries under the 
supervision of the government. Herr Marx gives us a detailed 
historical presentation of this development, showing how first, 
since 1833, spinning and weaving mills were in this way 
limited to a 12-hour working day; how after a long struggle 
between manufacturers and workers the working hours were at 
long last fixed at 10'/,—6'/, for children—and then, beginning in 
1850, one industry after another became subject to this factory 
law. First the cotton printers (already in 1845), then in 1860 the 
dying and bleaching works, in 1861 the lace and _ hosiery 
manufactures, in 1863 the potteries, wallpaper factories, etc., and 
eventually in 1867 almost all the remaining industries of any 
importance. One can form a picture of the significance of this last 
Act of 1867 when one learns that it places no fewer than a million 
and a half women and children under the protection and the 
control of the law. We emphasise this point particularly because in 
this respect things are, alas, bad indeed with us in Germany, and 
we must thank the author for having dealt with it in such detail 
and made the facts accessible to the German public for the first 
time. This will be the view of every friend of humanity, whatever 
he may think of the theoretical propositions of Herr Marx. 
Space does not permit us to enter into other valuable materials 
from the history of industry and agriculture, but we are of the 
opinion that no one interested in political economy, industry, 
workers’ condition, the history of culture and, social legislation, 
whatever standpoint he may hold, should leave this book unread.