[London,] 14 April 1870 

Dear Frep, 

Enclosed, Wilhelm returned." From the attached letter from 
Borkheim,*’ you will see what ill-mannered things Wilhelm says 
about me. I don’t like such churlish sentimentality, and since 
Wilhelm is a born Darmstadt man and so has not, at least, the 
excuse that he is a born Westphalian, I have sent him a rather 
blunt reply. 

In your article’ he has intentionally overlooked the fact that the 
People’s Party ** and the ‘National Liberals’ are treated as the two 
poles of the same narrow-mindedness. 

On Tuesday‘ I was at the Central Council“ for the first time 
once again, and took the opportunity to muster Pfander, who had 
entered as a member once more (re-elected), but had not yet 
presented himself.“ He informed me that he had been called 
a week before to Schapper, who is very dangerously ill. 
Schapper wanted to see me; Pfander did not inform me of this, 
because I could not walk well as a result of the business on my 
thigh. But I would have driven there if he had notified me. On 
the same evening (Tuesday), Lessner reported that Schapper was 
in articulo mortis.© I hope it is not as bad as that. 

@ See the previous letter. - > F. Engels, Preface to the Second Edition of ‘The Peasant 
War in Germany’. - © 12 April - 4 General Council - © dying 

While I am on medical matters, just this: I regard the latest 
outbreak simply as after-effects, which arrive with some regularity, 
and then disappear as the warm weather proceeds. I believe, 
therefore, that I am finished with it for this year. As always, 
however, the arrival of warmer weather has produced the liver 
complaint (or whatever it is), and for this I am gulping Gumpert’s 
medicine. Kugelmann claims that the only way to put me properly 
on my feet is to take the cure at Karlsbad* at the end of the 
summer. The whole thing derives from poor nourishment, this 
from poor digestion, and this is connected with the fact that my 
liver doesn’t function properly. I would, therefore, ask you to 
question Gumpert about this. But it would be better if you said 
that the Karlsbad proposal came from my English doctor, for the 
very name Kugelmann might induce him not to judge the case 
objectively, contrary to his inclination and conscience. I feel that, 
in fact, some sort of decisive preventive measures must be taken, 
since one gets a year older every year, and this sort of infirmity is 
not helpful, either for one setr or for ones outside effectiveness. 

Did you know that Meyen had died? 

The copies of Zukunft> give, I must Say, a fine picture of the 
Prussian-Liberal present. But the Future will convert itself into the 
Present. As Future the paper is really bankrupt. In its new form, it 
comes under the sway of Sonnemann in Frankfort (with Weiss, as 
previously, as editor en chef). It should represent, purely 
politically, the People’s Party in Berlin. Quelle imbécilité!’ By 
abandoning its flirtation with the ‘social question’, it will complete- 
ly lose its little bit of influence and circulation among the workers, 
and it will certainly not win over the Prussian, and especially 
Berlin bourgeois by a stronger South pesman coloration. 

I enclose for you 2 Vienna workers’ papers‘ and 1 Egalité, and 
request the return of all three after reading. 

In the Volskswille the ‘structure’ is ‘fine’ which the little Jew Leo Fran- 
kel (Schweitzer’s Paris correspondent, I don’t know whether still?) 

constructs from my explanation of the components of value. Par 
exemple :[(labour Powel Saas labour—wage=independent woreny 
From the l'Égalité you will gather that, at the Congress of the 

Suisse Romande’ in La Chaux-de-Fonds, it came to open warfare 
between the Bakuninists led by Guillaume (the brute calls himself 

a Karlovy Vary -> A pun: Zukunft—the title of the newspaper—means ‘future’. - 
© What stupidity! - 4 Volkswille - ¢ L. Frankel, ‘Ein belauschtes Zwiegesprach. VU’, 
Volkswille, No. 10, 2 April 1870. - £ Romance Switzerland 

professor, is editor of Progrés in Locle, Bakunin’s personal paper), 
and the Conseil Romand* (Geneva).° The presentation is very 
confused. On Tuesday evening Jung informed us of the official 
report of the Geneva Councn,° written by the Russian Utine, who 
holds the function of secretary of the Romance Congress. The 
anti-Bakuninists, 2,000 persons, were outflanked and thereby 
forced to secessio,” by the Bakuninists, consisting of 600 persons, 
who, however, per fas et nefas," including forged mandates, made 
sure of a larger number of delegates. There were stormy 
declarations about Bakunin’s activities, which were exposed by 
Utine, among others. The Counc. Romand now demands, on the 
basis of the resolution of the last (Basle) Congress,°" that the 
Central Council decide. We have replied: all racts, with the minutes 
of the meetings, must be sent here. Ditto, we have commissioned 
Jung to write to Guillaume, so that he may, ditto, submit his 
vouchers. 

Recently also we had to rule on a dispute in Lyons.” And 
finally, in Basle, one clique (under State Attorney Bruhin) has laid 
charges with us against the other (more proletarian one). We have, 
however, referred the latter case, as completely local, to 
J. Ph. Becker as arbitrator. 

In Paris Lafargue got to know a very learned Russian lady° (a 
friend of his friend Jaclard, an excellent young man). She told 
him: Flerovsky—although his book’ passed censorship at the time 
of the .iserar F1r—has been, if you please, banished to Siberia for 
the same. The translation of my book has been confiscated and 
prohibited before being published.'”* 

You will receive, this week or at the beginning of next: Landlord 
and Tenant Right in Ireland. Reports by Poor Law Inspectors. 1870, 
ditto Agricultural Holdings in Ireland. Returns. 1870. 

The reports of the Poor Law Inspectors are interesting. Like 
their Reports on Agricultural Wages, which are already in your 
hands, they show that the conflict between LasourzeRs ON THE ONE HAND, 
FARMERS and TENANTS on the other, began after the raminz.°” As 
regards the Reports on Wages—assuming the present figures on 
wages are correct, and that is probable, considering other 
sources—the former wage rates are either quoted too low, or those 
in the earlier Parliamentary Rerurns, which I'll look out for you in 
my PARLIAMENTARY PAPERS, were too high. On the whole, however, 

a Romance Council - > Federal Council of Romance Switzerland - < to split - ¢ by 
fair means and foul - © A. V. Korvin-Krukovskaya -  ITono2cenie pabouazo xnacca 6 
Pocciu 

what I stated in the section on Ireland is confirmed: that the 
rise in wages has been more than outweighed by that in food 
prices, and that, with the exception of the autumn period, etc., the 
RELATIVE SURPLUS Of Labourers is properly established despite emigra- 
tion. Also important in the Landlord and Tenant Right Reports is the 
fact that the development of Machinery has turned a mass of 
HANDLOOM WEAVERS into PAUPERS. 

You would oblige me if you would tell me, quite shortly, about 
the socs, peats etc., of Ireland. In all the siuxr sooxs I have read, the 
Boc is sometimes situated on the mountain, that is on the 
mountain slope, but also sometimes on the plain. What is the 
situation? What do the Irish understand by tTown.anns*? 

It is clear from the two reports of the Poor Law Commissioners that 
1. since the ramine the clearing of the estates of Lasourers has begun 
as in England (not to be confused with the suppression of the 40s. 
FREEHOLDERS after 1829 °°). 

2. that the Encumbered Estates proceedings have put a mass of small 
usurers in the place of the turnep our prodigal Landlords (the CHARGE 
or LanpLorps '/g according to the same REPORTS). 

I would appreciate it if you and Moore could send me a few £s 
for Dupont. His wife is in hospital with consumption. He himself 
has been turnep out of his old trade. The excuse: his political 
opinions; the real cause: he made ail the inventions, which his 
manufacturer appropriated. For this reason, he has been persona 
ingrata> for a long time for him (he thinks he has sucked him 
completely dry). But the Manufacturer has cut his own throat, so 
Fak as Dupont has made a quite new invention, which solves a 
problem that has existed for a long time in piano manufacture. 
I have already given Dupont a few fs; since, together with his 
3 small girls, he had been condemned to just dry bread. It’s only a 
matter of helping for a few weeks until he finds a new position. 
Who can write the story of workingmen evicted because of inventions! 

And, in addition, the poor devil is also being Harassep by the 
jealousy of the Paris people, and the slanders of the Frencu 
BRANCH,” who naturally immediately cornered Flourens. 

Salut. Va 

K. M. 

Apropos. Stirling (Edinburgh), the translator of Hegel’s Logic, 
and heading the British susscrierion for the Hegel monument— has 

a See this volume, p. 483. - > an uncomfortable person - ¢ An allusion to J. H. Stirl- 
ing, The Secret of Hegel: Being the Hegelian System in Origin, Principle, Form, and Matter.