panied by an introduction and two appendices, with which, for 
better or worse, we are obliged to deal. 

a Play on words: “Sitte’—custom, “sittlich” —ethical.— Ed. 

b See this volume pp. 159-63.— Ed. 
¢ Ibid., pp. 164-69,— Ed. 

Above all we note that here too there is no longer any mention 
of the “lyingly added” sentence. The sentence from the Inaugural 
Address is quoted right on the first page, and it is then claimed 
that Gladstone had “stated in direct opposition to Karl Marx’s 
claim” that these figures referred only to those paying income tax 
(which Marx had Gladstone say too, since he explicitly limits these 
figures to taxable income) but that the condition of the working 
class had at the same time improved in unexampled fashion 
(which Marx also has Gladstone say, only nine lines before the 
challenged quotation). I would request the reader to compare for 
himself the Inaugural Address (Documents, No. 1*) with 
Mr. Brentano’s claim (Documents, No. 13°) in order to see how 
Mr. Brentano either “lyingly adds”, or fabricates in another 
manner, a contradiction where there is none at all. But since the 
charge about the lyingly added sentence has broken down 
ignominiously, Mr. Brentano, contrary to his better knowledge, 
must attempt to take in his readers by telling them Marx tried to 
suppress the fact that Gladstone had spoken here only of “taxable 
income”, or the income of classes which possess property. And 
here Mr. Brentano does not even notice that his first accusation is 
thus turned into the opposite, in that the second is a slap in the 
face of the first. 

Having happily accomplished this “forgery”, he is moved to 
draw the attention of the Concordia to the “forgery” allegedly 
committed by Marx, and the Concordia then asks him to send it an 
article against Marx. What now follows is too delicious not to be 
given verbatim: 

“The article was not signed by me; this was done, on the one hand, at the 
request of the editors in the interests of the reputation of their paper, and, on the other 
hand, I had all the less objection, since following earlier literary controversies 
pursued by Marx it was to be expected that this time too he would heap personal 
insults on his adversary, and for this reason it could only be amusing to leave him in 
the dark as to the identity of his adversary.” 

So the editors of the Concordia wished “in the interests of the 
reputation of their paper” that Mr. Brentano should keep his 
name quiet! What a reputation this implies for Mr. Brentano 
amongst his colleagues in his own party. We can well believe that 
this actually happened to him, but that he himself shouts it from 
the rooftops is a really pyramidal achievement on his part. 
However, this is something which he has to settle with himself and 
with the editors of the Concordia. 

a See this volume, pp. 132-33.— Ed. 
6 Ibid., pp. 169-72.— Ed. 

. 115 

In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx 

Since “it was to be expected that Marx would heap personal 
insults on his adversary”, it could naturally “only be amusing to 
leave him in the dark as to the identity of his adversary”. It was 
hitherto a mystery as to how you can heap personal insults upon a 
person you do not know. You can only get personal if you know 
something of the person in question. But Mr. Brentano, made 
anonymous in the interests of the paper’s reputation, relieved his 
adversary of this trouble. He himself waded in with “insults”, first 
with the “lyingly added” printed in bold type, and then with 
“impudent mendacity”, “simply nefarious”, etc. Mr. Brentano, the 
non-anonymous, obviously made a slip of the pen here. Mr. Bren- 
tano “on the other hand, had all the less objection” to the anonymity 
imposed upon himself, not so that the well-known Marx could 
“heap personal insults” upon the unknown Brentano, but so that the 
concealed Brentano could do this to the well-known Marx. 

And this is supposed to “be amusing”! That’s what actually 
transpired, but not because Mr. Brentano wanted it. Marx, as later 
his daughter, and’ now myself, have all tried to see the amusing 
aspect of this polemic. Such success as we have had, be it great or 
small, has been at the expense of Mr. Brentano. His articles have 
been anything but “amusing”. The only contributions to amuse- 
ment are the rapier-thrusts aimed by Marx at the shady side of his 
“Jeft-in-the-dark person”, which the man at the receiving end now 
wishes to laugh off belatedly as the “loutishness of his scurrilous 
polemics”. The Junkers, the priests, the lawyers and other right 
and proper opponents of the incisive polemics of Voltaire, 
Beaumarchais and Paul Louis Courier objected to the “loutishness 
of their scurrilous polemics”, which has not prevented these 
examples of “loutishness” from being regarded as models and 
masterpieces today. And we have had so much pleasure from 
these and similar “scurrilous polemics” that a hundred Brentanos 
should not succeed in dragging us down to the level of German 
university polemics, where there is nothing but the impotent rage 
of green envy, and the most desolate boredom. 

However, Mr. Brentano once again regards his readers as so 
duped that he can lay it on thick again with a brazen face: 

“When it was shown that The Times too ... carried this” (Gladstone’s) “speech 
in a sense according with the shorthand report, he” (Marx) “acted, as the editors 
of the Concordia wrote, like the cuttlefish, which dims the water with a dark fluid, 
in order to make pursuit by its enemy more difficult, i.e. he tried as hard as he 
could to hide the subject of controversy by clinging to completely inconsequential 
secondary matters.” 

If the Times report, which contains the “lyingly added” 

116. Frederick Engels 

sentence word for word, accords in sense with the “shorthand” 
report—should be with Hansard—which suppresses it word for 
word, and if Mr. Brentano once again boasts that he had 
demonstrated this, this can mean nothing other than the charge 
concerning the “lyingly added” sentence has been completely 
dropped—though shamefacedly and quietly—and Mr. Brentano, 
forced from the offensive onto the defensive, is retreating to his 
second line of defence. We simply note this; we believe that in 
sections III and IV we have thoroughly broken through the centre 
of this second line, and turned both flanks. 

But then the genuine university polemicist appears. When 
Brentano, emboldened by the scent of victory, has thus driven his 
enemy into the corner, the foe acts like the cuttlefish, darkening 
the water and hiding the subject of controversy by focussing 
attention on completely inconsequential secondary matters. 

The Jesuits say: Si fecisti, nega. If you have perpetrated 
something, deny it. The German university polemicist goes further 
and says: If you have perpetrated a shady lawyer’s trick, then lay it 
at your opponent’s door. Scarcely has Marx quoted The Theory of 
the Exchanges and Professor Beesly, and this simply because they 
had quoted the disputed passage like he had, than Brentano the 
cuttlefish “clings” to them with all the suckers of his ten feet, and 
spreads such a torrent of his “dark fluid” all around that you 
must look hard and grasp firmly if you do not wish to lose from 
eye and hand the real “subject of controversy”, namely the 
allegedly “lyingly added” sentence. In his rejoinder, exactly the 
same method. First he starts another squabble with Marx about 
the meaning of the expression CLASSES IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES, a 
squabble which under the best of circumstances could produce 
nothing but that very “obscuration” which Mr. Brentano desires. 
And then dark fluid is again squirted in the matter of that 
renowned relative clause which Marx had maliciously suppressed, 
and which, as we have shown, could perfectly well be omitted, 
since the fact to which it indirectly alluded had already been stated 
quite clearly in an earlier sentence of the speech which had been 
quoted by Marx. And thirdly, our cuttlefish has enough dark 
sauce left over to obscure once again the subject of controversy, by 
claiming that Marx has again suppressed some sentences from The 
Times—sentences which had absolutely nothing to do with the 
single point at issue between them at that time, the allegedly lyingly 
added sentence. 

And the same waste of sepia in the present self-apologia. First, 
naturally, The Theory of the Exchanges must be the whipping boy. 

In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx 117 

Then, all of a sudden, we are confronted with the Lassallean ‘iron 
law of wages” with which, as everyone knows, Marx was as little 
connected as Mr. Brentano with the invention of gunpowder; 
Mr. Brentano must know that in the first volume of Capital Marx 
specifically denied all and every responsibility for any conclusions 
drawn by Lassalle,* and that in the same book Marx describes the 
law of wages as a function of differing variables and very elastic, 
thus anything but iron. But when the ink-squirting has started 
there is no stopping it: the Halle congress,'** Liebknecht and 
Bebel, Gladstone’s budget speech of 1843, the English trade 
unions, all manner of far-fetched things are resorted to so as, 
faced with an opponent who has gone over to the offensive, to 
cover by self-apologia the defensive line of Mr. Brentano and his 
lofty philanthropic principles, treated so scornfully by the wicked 
socialists. One gets the impression that a round dozen cuttlefish 
were helping him do the “hushing up” here. 

And all of this because Mr. Brentano himself knows that he has 
hopelessly run aground with his claim about the “lyingly added” 
sentence, and has not got the courage to withdraw this claim 
openly and honourably. To use his own words: 

“Had he” Brentano “simply admitted that he had been misled by this book”, 
Hansard, “...one might have been surprised that he had relied upon such a source” 
as absolutely reliable “but the mistake would at least have been rectified. But for 
him there was no question of this.” 

Instead the ink was squirted in gallons for obscuring purposes, 
and if I have to be so discursive here, this is only because I must 
first dispose of all these far-fetched marginal questions, and 
disperse the obscuring ink in order to keep eye and hand on the 
real subject of the controversy. 

Meanwhile Mr. Brentano has another piece of information for 
us in petto,” which in fact “could only be amusing”. He has, in fact, 
been so lamentably treated that he can find no peace and quiet 
until he has moaned to us about all his misfortune. First the 
Concordia suppresses his name in the interests of the reputation of 
the paper. Mr. Brentano is magnanimous enough to consent to 
this sacrifice in the interests of the good cause. Then Marx 
unleashes upon him the loutishness of his scurrilous polemics. 
This too he swallows. Only he wished to reply to this “with the 
verbatim publication of the entire polemic”. But sadly 

a See F. Lassalle, Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delttzsch, der 6konomische Julian, oder: 
Capital und Arbeit, Berlin, 1864, Ch. II, see also Capital, Vol. I, “Preface to the 
First German Edition” (present edition, Vol. 35).— Ed. 

b In store.— Ed. 

“editors often have their own judgement; the specialist journal which I 
regarded as suitable above all others refused to publish, on the grounds that the 
dispute lacked general interest”’. 

Thus do the noble suffer in this sinful world; their best 
intentions founder on the baseness or indifference of man. And to 
compensate this unappreciated honest fellow for his undeserved 
misfortune, and since some time will probably pass before he 
rounds up an editor who has not “often his own judgement”, we 
herewith present him the “the verbatim publication of the entire 
polemic”’. 

VI 

In addition to the introductory self-apologia, Mr. Brentano’s 
little pamphlet contains two appendices. The first contains extracts 
from The Theory of the Exchanges, intended to prove that this book 
was one of the main sources from which Marx concocted his 
Capital. I shall not go into detail about this repeated waste of 
sepia. I only have to deal with the old charge from the Concordia. 
His whole life long Marx could not and would not please 
Mr. Brentano. Mr. Brentano thus certainly has a whole bottomless 
sack of complaints against Marx, and I would be an idiot to let 
myself in for this. There would be no end to pleasing him. 

But it is naive that here, at the end of the quotations, “the 
reproduction of the real budget speech” is demanded from Marx. 
. So that is what Mr. Brentano understands by correct quotation. 
However, if the whole actual speech is always to be reproduced, 
then no speech has ever been quoted without “forgery”. 

In the second appendix Mr. Brentano has a go at me. In the 
fourth edition of Capital, volume one, I drew attention to The 
Morning Star in connection with the allegedly false quotation. 
Mr. Brentano utilises this to once again obscure completely, with 
spurts of sepia, the original point at issue, the passage in the 
Inaugural Address, and instead of this to hit out at the passage in 
Capital already quoted by Mr. S. Taylor. In order to prove that 
my source of reference was false, and that Marx could only have 
taken the “forged quotation” from The Theory of the Exchanges, 
Mr. Brentano prints in parallel columns the reports of The Times 
and The Morning Star and the quotation according to Capital. This 
second appendix is printed here as document No. 14b.? 

4 See this volume, pp. 173-74.— Ed. 

119 

In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx 

Mr. Brentano has The Morning Star begin its report with the 
words “I musr say For ONE” etc. He thus claims that the preceding 
sentences on the growth of taxable income from 1842 to 1852, 
and from 1853 to 1861 are missing in The Morning Star; from 
which it naturally follows that Marx did not use The Morning Star 
but The Theory of the Exchanges. 

“The readers” of his pamphlet “with whom he is concerned, 
cannot check up on him!” But other people can, and they discover 
that this passage is certainly to be found in The Morning Star. We 
reprint it here, next to the passage from Capital in English and 
German for the edification of Mr. Brentano and his readers. 

“The Morning Star”, April 17, 
1863 

*“In ten years, from 1842 to 1852 the 
taxable income of the country increased 
by 6 per cent, as nearly as I can make 
out—a very considerable increase in 
ten years. But in eight years from 1853 
to 1861 the income of the country 
again increased from the basis taken in 
1853 by 20 per cent. The fact is so 
astonishing as to be almost incred- 
ible.” * 

“Capital”, Vol. I, Ist ed., p. 639; 
2nd ed., p. 678; 3rd ed., p. 671; 
4th ed., p. 617, Note 103° 

*“From 1842 to 1852 the taxable 
income of the country increased by 
6 per cent... 

..In the 8 years from 1858 to 1861 ... 
it had increased from the basis taken in 
1853, 20 per cent! The fact is so 
astonishing as to be almost incred- 
ible.” * 

In German translation:” 

The absence of this sentence in his quotation from The Morning 
Star is Mr. Brentano’s main trump card in his claim that Marx 
quoted from The Theory of the Exchanges and not from The 
Morning Star. He confronts the claim that the quotation was taken 
from The Morning Star with the incriminating gap in the parallel 
column. And now the sentence is nevertheless to be found in The 
Morning Star, in fact exactly as in Marx, and the incriminating gap 
is Mr. Brentano’s own invention. If that is not “suppression” and 
“forgery”, into the bargain, then these words lack any sense. 

But if Mr. Brentano “forges” at the beginning of the quotation, 
and if he now very carefully refrains from saying that Marx 
“lyingly added” a sentence in the middle of the same quotation, 
this in no way prevents him from insisting repeatedly that Marx 
suppressed the end of the quotation. 

aK. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, Part VII, Chapter XXV, Section 5(a), present 
edition, Vol. 35.— Ed. 

b Then follows the German translation of both quotations.— Ed. 

10* 

In Capital the quotation breaks off with the passage: 
“Whether the extremes of poverty are less, I do not presume to say.” 

Now in the reports in The Times and The Morning Star the 
sentence does not end here; separated only by a comma, there 
follow the words: 

“but the average condition of the British labourer, we have the happiness to 
know to be extraordinary” (in The Times: has improved during the last 20 years in 
a degree which we know to be extraordinary) “and which we may almost 
pronounce to be unexampled in the history of any country and of any age”. 

Thus Marx breaks off here in mid-sentence, ‘has Gladstone 
stop in mid-sentence”’, “making this sentence quite meaningless”. 
And already in his rejoinder (Documents, No. 7*) Mr. Brentano 
calls this an “absolutely senseless version”’. 

Gladstone’s sentence: “Whether the extremes of poverty are 
less, I do not presume to say” is a quite definite statement, 
complete in itself. If it makes sense, it makes sense when taken in 
isolation. If it makes no sense, no addition however long, tacked 
on behind a “yet”, can give it sense. If the sentence in Marx’s 
quotation is “completely senseless”, then this is not due to Marx 
who quoted it, but to Mr. Gladstone who uttered it. 

To probe more deeply this important case, let us now turn to 
the only source which, according to Mr. Brentano, it is the 
“custom” to quote, let us turn to Hansard, pure of all original sin. 
According to Mr. Brentano’s own translation, it says: 

“T will not presume to determine whether the wide interval which separates the 
extremes of wealth and poverty is less or more wide than it has been in’ former 
times” — full stop. 

And only after this full stop does the new sentence begin: 
“But if we look to the average condition of the British labourer”, etc. 

Thus if Marx likewise sets a full stop here, he does just as the 
virtuous Hansard does; and if Mr. Brentano makes this full stop a 
new crime on the part of Marx, and claims that Marx has 
Gladstone stop in the mid-sentence, then he has relied upon the 
“necessarily bungling newspaper reports”, and he can only blame 
himself for the consequences. Thus the argument collapses that 
Marx has made the sentence completely senseless through his full 
stop; this comes not from him but from Mr. Gladstone, and let 
Mr. Brentano now correspond with him about the sense or 
nonsense of the sentence; we have nothing more to do with the 
matter. 

a See this volume, pp. 152-54.— Ed. 

In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx 121 

For Mr. Brentano is anyway in correspondence with Mr. Glad- 
stone. What he has written to the latter we do not learn, of course, 
and we only learn very little of what Mr. Gladstone has written to 
him. In any case, Mr. Brentano has published from Gladstone’s 
letters two meagre little sentences (Documents, No. 16*) and in my 
reply (Documents, No. 17°) I showed that “this arbitrary mosaic of 
sentences torn from their context” proves nothing at all in 
Mr. Brentano’s favour whilst the fact that he indulges in this sort 
of ragged publication, instead of publishing the whole correspon- 
dence, speaks volumes against him. 

But let us assume for a moment that these two little sentences 
only permitted the interpretation most favourable to Mr. Bren- 
tano. What then? 

“You are completely correct, and Marx completely incorrect.” 
“TI undertook no changes of any sort.” These are the alleged 
words—for Mr. Gladstone does not usually write in German, as 
far as I know—of the former minister. 

Does this mean: I did not utter the “notorious” sentence, and 
that Marx “lyingly added” it? Certainly not. The eight London 
morning papers of April 17, 1863 would unanimously give the lie 
to such a claim. They prove beyond all doubt that this sentence 
was spoken. If Mr. Gladstone made no changes in the Hansard 
report—although I am twelve years younger than him, I would 
not like to rely so implicitly on my memory in such trivialities 
which occurred 27 years ago—then the omission of the sentence 
in Hansard says nothing in Mr. Brentano’s favour, and a great 
deal against Hansard. 

Aside from this one point about the “lyingly added” sentence, 
Mr. Gladstone’s opinion is completely inconsequential here. For as 
soon as we disregard this point, we find ourselves exclusively in the 
field of inconsequential opinions, in which after years of strife 
each sticks to his guns. If Mr. Gladstone, should he happen to be 
quoted, prefers the quotation methods of Mr. Brentano, an 
admiring supporter, to those of Marx, a sharply critical opponent, 
then this is quite obvious, and his indisputable right. For us, 
however, and for the question as to whether Marx quoted in good 
or in bad faith, his opinion is not even worth as much as that of 
any old uninvolved third person. For here Mr. Gladstone is no 
longer a witness but an interested party. 

a Ibid., p. 175.— Ed 
b Ibid., pp. 175-76.— Ed. 

Vil 

In conclusion, let us go briefly into the question of what 
Mr. Gladstone said in that—thanks to Mr. Brentano, now “notori- 
ous’ —passage of his budget speech of 1863, and what Marx 
quoted of what he said, or else what he “lyingly added” or 
“suppressed”. In order to oblige Mr. Brentano as far as possible, 
let us take as our basis the immaculate Hansard, and in his own 
translation.* 

“In ten years from 1842 to 1852 inclusive, the taxable income of the 
country, as nearly as we can make out, increased by 6 per cent; but in eight years, 

from 1853 to 1861, the income of the country again increased upon the basis taken 
by 20 per cent. That is a fact so singular and striking as to seem almost incredible.” 

Mr. Brentano himself has nothing against Marx’s quotation of 
this sentence, apart from the fact that it is allegedly taken from 
The Theory of the Exchanges. But of Brentano’s quotation it must be 
said here that it too is far removed from giving “the real budget 
speech”. He excises Mr. Gladstone’s following excursus on the 
causes of this astonishing augmentation without even indicating 
the omission with dots.— Further: 

“Such, Sir, is the state of the case as regards the general progress of 
accumulation; but, for one, I must say that I should look with some degree of pain, 
and with much apprehension, upon this extraordinary and almost intoxicating 
growth, if it were my belief that it is confined to the class of persons who may be 
described as in easy circumstances. The figures which I have quoted take little or 
no cognizance of the condition of those who do not pay income tax; or, in other 
words, sufficiently accurate for general truth, they do not take cognizance of the 
property of the labouring population, or of the increase of its income.” 

There now follows the sentence which according to Mr. Bren- 
tano was “‘lyingly added” by Marx, but which on the testimony of 

all eight morning papers of April 17 was certainly uttered by 
Mr. Gladstone: 

“The augmentation I have described, and which is founded, I think, upon 
accurate returns, is an augmentation entirely confined to classes of property.” (The 
Times, The Morning Star, The Morning Advertiser, Daily Telegraph.) “...is entirely 
confined to the augmentation of capital”. (Morning Herald, Standard, The Daily 
News, Morning Post.) 

After the word “income”, Hansard immediately continues with 
the words: 

“Indirectly, indeed, the mere augmentation of capital is of the utmost advantage to 
the Jabouring class, because that augmentation cheapens the commodity which in 
the whole business of production comes into direct competition with labour.” 

a Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, Vol. CLXX, pp. 244-45.— Ed. 

In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx 123 

Although Hansard omits the “notorious” sentence, it says in 
substance just what the other papers say: it would be very 
embarrassing for the speaker if this intoxicating augmentation were 
confined to classes IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES, but although it pains him, 
this augmentation he has described is confined to people who do 
not belong to the working class and who are rich enough to pay 
income tax; yes, it is indeed a “mere augmentation of capital’! 

And here, finally, the secret of Mr. Brentano’s fury stands 
revealed. He reads the sentence in the Inaugural Address, finds in 
it an embarrassing admission, obtains the Hansard version, fails to 
find the embarrassing sentence in it, and hurries to publish to the 
world: Marx lyingly added the sentence in form and in 
content!—Marx shows him the sentence in The Times, The 
Morning Star, The Morning Advertiser. Now finally, for appearance’s 
sake at least, Mr. Brentano must make a “detailed comparison of 
texts” and discovers—what? That The Times, The Morning Star, 
The Morning Advertiser “fully coincide materially” with Hansard! 
Unfortunately he overlooks the fact that the “lyingly added” 
sentence must then fully coincide materially with Hansard, and that 
then in the end it must turn out that Hansard coincides materially 
with the Inaugural Address. 

The whole hullabaloo therefore because Mr. Brentano had 
neglected to undertake the detailed textual comparison ascribed to 
him by Mr. Sedley Taylor, and because, in fact, he had himself 
not understood what Mr. Gladstone had said according to 
Hansard. Of course, this was not that easy, for although 
Mr. Brentano claims that this speech 

“aroused the interest and admiration of the entire educated world ... notably 
through ... its claritv’, 

readers have been able to see for themselves that in the Hansard 
version it is presented in a particularly stilted, complicated and 
involved language, tying itself up in its own repetitions. In 
particular the sentence stating that the increase in capital is of 
extraordinary advantage to the worker, because it cheapens the 
commodity which in the business of production comes into direct 
competition with labour, is sheer nonsense. If a commodity comes into 
competition with labour, and this commodity (for example, 
machinery) is cheapened, then the first and immediate result is a 
fall in wages, and according to Mr. Gladstone this should be “of 
great benefit to the workers”! How philanthropic it was of some 
London morning papers, i. e. The Morning Star, in their “necessar- 
ily bungling” reports, to replace the above incomprehensible 

sentence by what Mr. Gladstone probably wanted to say, namely 
that an increase in capital is of benefit to the workers because it 
cheapens the main articles of consumption! 

When Mr. Gladstone said that he should look with some degree 
of pain and much apprehension at this intoxicating growth if he 
believed that it was confined to classes in easy circumstances— 
whether Mr. Gladstone thought thereby of another growth of 
wealth than that of which he spoke, namely, in his opinion, of the 
greatly improved situation of the entire nation; whether he forgot at 
that moment that he was speaking of the increase in income of the 
classes that pay income tax and of no others: this we cannot know. 
Marx has been charged with forgery, and what is at issue is the text 
and the grammatical meaning of what Mr. Gladstone said, and not 
what he possibly wanted to say. Mr. Brentano does not know the 
latter either, and on this point Mr. Gladstone, 27 years later, is 
no longer a competent authority. And in no way does this 
concern us. 

The abundantly clear meaning of the words is: taxable income 
has undergone an intoxicating augmentation. I should be very 
sorry if this augmentation just described were confined to classes 
of property, but it is confined to them, since the workers have no 
income liable to tax, and it is thus purely an increase in capital! 
But the latter, too, is of advantage to the workers, because they, 
etc. 

And now Marx: 

“This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power ... is entirely confined to 
classes of property.” 4 

Thus runs the sentence in the Inaugural Address, where it 
provided the occasion for this whole jolly controversy. But since 
Mr. Brentano has no longer dared to claim that Marx lyingly 
added it, since then the Inaugural Address has no longer been 
mentioned at all, and all attacks have been directed against the 
quotation of this passage in Capital. There Marx adds the 
following sentence: 

“but... but it must be of indirect benefit to the labouring population, because it 
cheapens the commodities of general consumption.” 

The “arbitrarily thrown-together mosaic of sentences torn from 
their context” in Marx thus states “materially”, “only formally more 
contracted”, exactly what the immaculate Hansard has Gladstone 
say. The only reproach which can be levelled at Marx is that 

@ See this volume, p. 173.— Ed. 

In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx 125 

he utilised The Morning Star and not Hansard, and thus, 
in the final sentence, placed words of sense in Mr. Gladstone’s 
mouth, although he had spoken nonsense. Further, according to 
Hansard ?: 

“But, besides this, a more direct and a larger benefit has, it may safely be 
asserted, been conferred upon the mass of the people [of the country]. It is a 
matter of profound and inestimable consolation to reflect, that while the rich have 
been growing richer, the poor have become less poor. | will not presume to 
determine whether the wide interval which separates the extremes of wealth and 
poverty is less or more wide than it has been in former times.” 

In Marx: 

“...while the rich have been growing richer, the poor have been growing less 
poor. At any rate, whether the extremes of poverty are less, I do not presume to 
say.” 

Marx gives only the two rare positive statements which, in 
Hansard, swim in a whole tureen of phrases as trivial as they are 
unctuous. It can be stated with certainty that they lose nothing 
thereby, but rather gain. 

Finally the conclusion, according to Hansard: 

“But if we look to the average condition of the British labourer, whether 
peasant, or miner, or operative, or artisan, we know from varied and indubitable 
evidence that during the last twenty years such an addition has been made to his 
means of subsistence as we may almost pronounce to be without example in the 
history of any country and of any age.” 

This sentence is quoted in the Inaugural Address a few lines 
above the “notorious” one just given. There we find: 

“Such are the official statements published by order of 
Parliament in 1864, during the millennium of free trade, at a time 
when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of 
Commons that: 

‘The average condition of the British labourer has improved in a degree we 
know to be extraordinary and unexampled in the history of any country or any 
age.’”> 

Thus everything essential is cited. But that this may be read in 
the Inaugural Address, original edition, p. 4, this fact is stubborn- 
ly concealed from his readers by Mr. Brentano; however, his 
readers cannot check upon him, for we cannot possibly present 
each of them with a copy of the Address, as we did Mr. Sedley 
Taylor. 

Notabene: In his second reply (Documents, No. 6‘) Marx only 

a Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, Vol. CLXX, p. 245.— Ed. 
b See this volume, p. 132.— Ed. 
¢ Ibid., pp. 144-51.— Ed. 

had to defend the Inaugural Address, since up to then 
Mr. Brentano had not got the passage in Capital into his nagging 
range. And in his following rejoinder (Documents, No. 7*) 
Mr. Brentano’s attack is still directed against the Inaugural Address 
and Marx’s defence of this. 

It is only after Marx’s death that a new turn comes, and this not 
through Mr. Brentano but through his Cambridge shield-bearer. 
Only now is it discovered that in Capital Marx suppressed the 
resonant declarations made by Mr. Gladstone about the unexam- 
pled improvement in the condition of the British worker, and that 
this converted Mr. Gladstone’s meaning into the contrary. 

And here we have to say that Marx missed the opportunity for a 
brilliant burst of rhetoric. The whole section in the introduction to 
which this speech by Gladstone is quoted has the purpose of 
furnishing evidence that the condition of the great majority of the 
British working class was straitened and unworthy, just at the time 
of this intoxicating augmentation of wealth. What a magnificent 
contrast Gladstone’s selfsame pompous words about the happy 
condition of the British working class, [a condition] unexampled in 
the history of any country and any age, would have provided to 
this evidence of mass poverty, drawn from the official publications 
of Parliament itself! 

But if Marx wished to refrain from such a rhetorical effect, he 
had no reason to quote these words of Gladstone’s. Firstly, they 
are nothing but the standard phrases which every British 
Chancellor of the Exchequer believes it to be his moral duty to 
repeat in good or even in tolerable business periods; they are thus 
meaningless. And secondly, Gladstone himself retracted them 
within a year; in his next budget speech of April 7, 1864, at a time 
of even greater industrial prosperity, he spoke of masses “on the 
border of pauperism”, and of branches of business “in which 
wages have not increased”, and proclaimed —according to Hansard: 

“Again, and yet more at large, what is human life, but, in the great majority of 
cases, a struggle for existence?” * 

* And here some more from this speech, according to Hansard: the number of 
paupers had fallen to 840,000. ‘““That amount, however, does not include persons 
who are dependent upon charitable establishments; or who are relieved by private 
almsgiving.... But, besides all those whom it comprises, think of those who are on 
the borders of that region, think how many of the labouring classes are struggling 
manfully but with difficulty to maintain themselves in a position above the place of 

4 See this volume, pp. 152-54.— Fd. 

In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx 127 

But Marx quotes this other budget speech of Gladstone’s 
immediately after that of 1863, and if Mr. Gladstone himself, on 
April 7, 1864, declared that the unexampled blessings were 
non-existent, those blessings for the existence of which he had 
possessed “varied and indubitable evidence”, then for Marx there 
was no longer the slightest shadow of a reason to quote these 
vivacious protestations, which were unfortunately ephemeral, even 
for Mr. Gladstone. He could content himself with the speaker’s 
admissions that while the incomes of 150 pounds sterling and over 
had augmented intoxicatingly, the poor had in any case become 
less poor, and that the interval between extreme wealth and 
extreme poverty had scarcely been reduced. 

We shall not comment on the fact that it is the habit of the 
official German economists to quote Marx in sentences torn from 
context. If he had created a hullabaloo in every such case, as 
Mr. Brentano has done here, he would never have been finished. 

But now let us examine more closely the unexampled augmenta- 
tion of the means of subsistence enjoyed at that time by the British 
labourer, peasant or miner, artisan or operative. 

The peasant 1s in England and the greater part of Scotland only 
an agricultural day labourer. In 1861 there were a total of 
1,098,261 such peasants, of whom 204,962 lived as farmhands on 
tenant farms.* From 1849 to 1859 his money wage had increased 
by 1 shilling, in a few cases by 2 shillings a week, but in the final 
analysis this was mostly only a nominal increase. His position in 
1863, the really abject housing conditions under which he lived, 
are described by Dr. Hunter (Public Health, VII Report, 1864): 

“The costs occasioned by the agricultural labourer are fixed at the lowest figure 
at which he can live.” 

paupers.” In the congregation of a clergyman in the East End of London, 12,000 
out of 13,000 souls were always on the verge of actual want; a well-known 
philanthropist had declared that there were whole districts in the East End of London 
in which you cannot find an omnibus or a cab, in which there is no street music, nor 
even a street beggar... The means to wage the struggle for existence were, however, 
somewhat better than previously (!) ... In many places wages had increased, but in many 
others they had not, etc. And this jeremiad came just one year after the pompous 
announcement of the ‘“unexampled” improvement! 

* The figures are taken partly from the census of 1861, partly from the report of