Announcement of the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue”

Neue Deutsche Zeitung.
No. 14, 16 January 1850

In January 1850 will appear:

Neue Rheinische Zeitung

Politisch-ökonomische Revue

edited by

Karl Marx.

The journal bears the title of the newspaper, as whose continuation it is to be regarded. One of its tasks will consist in returning, in retrospective portrayals, to the epoch that has elapsed since the suppression of the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung”.

The greatest interest of a newspaper, its daily intervention in the movement and immediate speaking from out of the movement, the mirroring of the day’s history in all its fullness, the continuous, passionate interaction between the people and the people’s daily press, — this interest is necessarily lost in a review. The review, by contrast, offers the advantage of grasping events in broader outlines and having to dwell only upon the more important matters. It permits a detailed and scientific examination of the economic relations which form the foundation of the entire political movement.

A time of apparent standstill, such as the present, must precisely be used to enlighten the lived-through period of revolution, on the character of the contending parties, on the social relations which condition the existence and the struggle of these parties.

The review appears in monthly issues of at least five sheets at a subscription price of 25 Sgr. per quarter, payable on delivery of the first issue. Single issues 10 Sgr. The book trade distribution is undertaken by Messrs. Schuberth & Comp, in Hamburg.

The friends of the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung” are requested to circulate subscription lists in their respective localities and to send the same as soon as possible to the undersigned for forwarding. Literary contributions, as well as Nova for review in the Revue, will only be accepted postage paid.

London, 15 December 1849.

C. Schramm,
Gerant of the N. Rhein. Ztg.
4. Andersonstreet, Kingsroad. Chelsea.

Friedrich Engels
Letter from Germany I

The political situation in Germany —
The quarrel for supremacy between Prussia and Austria

The Democratic Review.
January 1850

Letter from Germany.

(From our own Correspondent)

Cologne, Dec. 18th, 1849.

“Order reigns in Germany.” Such is the present great motto of our rulers, be they princes, aristocrats, bourgeois, or any other fraction of that recently formed party which you might call in English the party of Order-mongers. “Order reigns in Germany;” and yet never was there, not even under the “Holy Roman Empire” of yore, such a confusion in Germany as there is at present under the reign of “Order.”

Under the old system, before the revolution of 1848, we knew at least who governed us. The old Federal Diet of Frankfort made itself felt by laws against the liberty of the press, by exceptional courts of law, by checks imposed even upon the mock constitutions with which certain German populations were allowed to delude themselves. But now! We hardly know, ourselves, how many Central Governments we have got in this country. There is, firstly, the Vicar of the Empire, instituted by the dispersed National Assembly, and who, although without any power, sticks to his post with the greatest obstinacy. There is secondly the “Interim,” a sort of thing—nobody knows exactly what—but something like a revival of the old Diet, got up under the prevalent influence of Prussia, and which “Interim” is poking at the old Vicar (who more or less represents the Austrian interest), to resign his place into their hands. In the meantime neither has the slightest power. Thirdly, there

is the “Regency of the Empire,” elected in Stuttgardt by the National Assembly during the latter days of its existence, and the remains of that Assembly, the “Decided Left” and the “Extreme Left,” which two Lefts, along with the “Regency,” represent the “moderate and philosophical” Democrats and Shopocrats of Germany. This “Imperial” government holds its sittings in a public house in Berne in Switzerland, and has about as much power as the two preceding. Fourthly, there is what is called the Three-Kings’-League, or the “Confined (or Refined, I don’t know which) Federal State,” got up for the purpose of making the King of Prussia Emperor over all the lesser states of Germany. It is called the “Three-Kings’-League,” because all kings, with the exception of the King of Prussia, are opposed to it! and it calls itself the “Confined Federal State,” because, although travailing in birth ever since the 28th of May last, there is no hope of its ever producing anything likely to live!! There are, fifthly, the Four Kings, of Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, and Wurtemberg, who are determined to do as they like themselves, and not to submit to any of the above “Central Impotencies;” and lastly, there is Austria, trying every means to keep up her supremacy in Germany, and supporting, therefore, the Four Kings in their efforts for independence from Prussian ascendancy. The real governments, in the meantime, those who hold the power, are Austria and Prussia. They rule Germany by military despotism, and make and unmake laws at their liking. Between their dominions and dependencies lie, as quasi neutral ground, the four kingdoms, and it will be upon this ground, and particularly in Saxony, that the pretensions of the two great powers will meet each other. There is, however, no chance of a serious conflict between them. Austria and Prussia, both, know too well that their forces must remain united if they want to keep down the revolutionary spirit spread all over Germany, Hungary, and those parts of Poland belonging to the powers in question. In case of need, besides, “our beloved brother-in-law,” the orthodox Czar of all the Russians, would step in and forbid his lords-lieutenant of Austria and Prussia to quarrel any more amongst themselves.

This never equalled confusion of governments, of pretensions, of claims, of German Federal Law, has, however, one enormous advantage. The German Republicans were, up to this time, divided into Federalists and Unitarians; the first having their principal force in the south. The confusion ensuing upon every attempt to re-organise Germany into a Federative State, must make it evident that any such plan will prove abortive, impracticable, and foolish, and that Germany is too advanced in civilisation to be governable under any form but THE GERMAN REPUBLIC, ONE AND INDIVISIBLE, DEMOCRATIC AND SOCIAL.

I should have liked to have said a few words on the acquittal of Waldeck

and Jacoby, but want of room prevents me doing so. Suffice it to say, that for at least some months to come it will be quite impossible for the government in Prussia to obtain in political trials a verdict of guilty, excepting, perhaps, in some remote corners where the jury-class are as fanaticised as the Orangemen of Ulster. |

Friedrich Engels
Letter from France I

The excise on potable liquors

The Democratic Review.
January 1850

Letter from France.

(From our own Correspondent.)

Paris, December 20th, 1849.

The great question of the day is the excise upon “potable liquors,” now under discussion in the National Legislative Assembly. This question is of such importance, and contains, in fact, in itself, so much of the whole present situation, that it will not be amiss to devote to it the whole of this letter.
The tax on potable liquors is of very old date. It formed one of the principal features of the financial system under the monarchy of the eighteenth century, and one of the main grievances of the people at the time of the first revolution. It was done away with by that revolution. But Napoleon restored it in a somewhat modified shape about the year 1808, at a time when, forgetting his revolutionary origin, he made the establishment of his dynasty, in the midst of the ancient European royal families, his principal aim. The tax was so exceedingly obnoxious to the people, that at the downfall of Napoleon, the Bourbon family promised its immediate repeal, and Napoleon himself, at St. Helena, declared it had been that tax more than anything else which caused his fall, by setting against him the whole of the South of France. The Bourbons, however, never thought of redeeming their promise, and the tax remained as before up to the revolution of 1830, when, again, its abolition was held out to the country. This promise was no more fulfilled than the preceding one; and thus the excise existed when the revolution of 1848 broke out. The provisional government, instead of immediately repealing it and substituting for it a heavy income-tax upon the large capitalists and landed proprietors, only promised either its repeal, or at least its revision; the Constituent Assembly even went so far as to continue the tax altogether. It

was only in the last days of its existence, when royalism was rife than ever, that the “honest” and “moderate” members of that assembly voted the repeal of the tax on potable liquors, to take effect from the 1st of January, 1850.

It is clear that the tax in question belongs essentially to the monarchical

traditions of France. Repealed as soon as the mass of the people got the upper

hand, it was restored as soon as either the aristocracy or the Bourgeoisie, represented by a Louis XVIII. or a Louis Philippe, held the reins of government. Even Napoleon, though in many points opposed to both aristocracy and Bourgeoisie, and overthrown by the conspiracy of both — even the great Emperor thought himself obliged to re-establish this feature of the ancient traditions of Monarchical France.

The tax in itself weighs very unequally upon the different classes of the nation. It is a grievous burden upon the poor, while upon the rich the pressure is exceedingly light. There are about twelve millions of wine producers in France; these pay nothing upon their consumption of wine, it being of their own growing: there are, further, eighteen millions of people inhabiting villages and towns under 4,000 inhabitants, and paying a tax from 66 centimes to 1 fr. 32 centimes per 100 litres of wine; and there are, finally, some five millions inhabiting towns of more than 4,000 inhabitants, and paying upon their wine the droit d’octroi, levied at the gate of the town, and varying in the different localities, but at all events incomparably higher than what is paid by the preceding class. The tax, further, falls quite as heavy upon the most inferior as upon the higher-priced wines; the hectolitre which sells at 2, 3, 4 francs, and the one sold at 12 to 1,500 fr., both pay the same tax;

and thus, while the rich consumer of choice champagne, claret, and Burgundy, pays almost nothing, the working man pays to the government upon his inferior wine a tax of 50, 100, and, in some cases, 500 or 1,000 per cent, upon the original value. Of the revenue derived by this tax, 51 millions of francs are paid by the poorer classes, and 25 millions only by the wealthier citizens. There cannot, under such circumstances, exist the slightest doubt that this tax is exceedingly injurious to the production of wine in France. The principal markets for this produce, the towns, are to the wine-producer so many foreign countries where he has to pay, before bringing his produce to sale, a regular Custom-house duty of from 50 to 1,000 per cent, ad valorem. The other part of the market, the open country, is at least subject to a duty of from 20 to 50 per cent, of the original value. The inevitable consequence of this is the ruin of the wine-growing parts of the country. It is true the production of wine has been augmenting in spite of the tax, but the population has outgrown this augmentation at a far quicker rate.

Why, then, has it been possible to keep up under the middle class government such an obnoxious tax as this? In England, you will say, even Cobden

and Bright would have swept it away long ago. And so they would. But in France, the manufacturers never found a Cobden or a Bright who stood up for their interests with invincible tenacity, nor a Peel to give way to their claims. The French financial system, although so much vaunted by the majority of the Assembly, is the most confused and artificial, mixtum compositum, that ever was imagined. None of the reforms carried in England since 1842 were attempted in France under Louis Philippe. Postage-Reform was considered almost as blasphemy in the blessed time of Guizot. The tariff was, and is now, neither a free-trade nor a mere revenue, nor a protectionist, nor a prohibitive tariff, but contains something of all, except free trade. Old prohibitions and high duties, that for many years have been to no purpose, nay, that are decidedly injurious to trade, are to be found in all parts of the tariff. Yet no one dared touch them. Local taxation, in all towns of more than 1,000 inhabitants, is indirect, and collected upon the produce brought into town. Thus the freedom of trade even in the interior is interrupted every ten or fifteen miles by a sort of inland-custom-house.

This state of things, disgraceful even to a middle-class government, remained untouched from different causes. With all this oppressive taxation, with receipts of 1,400 or 1,500 millions of francs, there was a deficit at the end of every year, and a loan after every fourth or fifth year. The stock-jobbers of the Paris Bourse found an inexhaustible source of profit-making, jobbing, and peddling in this low state of the Public Exchequer. They and their associates formed the majority in the two Chambers, and were thus the real dominators of the state, and always demanding fresh supplies of money. Financial Reform, besides, could not have been effected without sweeping measures, which would have brought the budget to its equilibrium, changed the allotment of taxes, and, besides taxing these stockjobbers themselves, given a greater political weight to other fractions of the middle classes. And what consequences such a change would have had under the worm-eaten government of Louis Philippe you may judge, from the comparatively trifling pretext which led to the revolution of February.

That revolution brought into office no man able to reform the financial system of France. The gentlemen of the National, who took possession of that department, felt themselves borne down by the weight of the deficit. Many attempts were made at bit-by-bit reform; all proved abortive, excepting the abolition of the tax upon salt and the Postage Reform. At last, in a fit of despair, the Constituent Assembly voted the repeal of the wine tax, and now the “honest” and “moderate” men of order in the present precious Assembly restore it! Nay, more: the Minister intends restoring the

salt tax, and re-augmenting the Postage; so that the old financial system, with its eternal deficiencies and difficulties, and consequent absolute sway of the

Paris Bourse, with its jobbing, peddling, and profitmongering, will very shortly be restored in France.

The people, however, do not seem likely to submit quietly to a measure which restores a heavy tax upon an article of prime necessity for the poor, while it almost exempts the rich. Social democracy has spread wonderfully over the agricultural districts of France; and this measure will convert the remainder of the millions who, twelve months ago, voted for that ambitious blockhead, Louis Napoleon. The country once won for social democracy, there will be very few months, nay, weeks, indeed, ere the Red Flag floats from the Tuileries and the Elysée National. Then only will it be possible to radically upset the old, oppressive financial system, by at one stroke doing away with the National Debt, by introducing a system of direct, progressive taxation, and by other measures of a similarly energetic character.

Friedrich Engels

Letter from Germany II

Curious revelations concerning the despots of Germany — Intended war against France—The coming revolution

The Democratic Review. February 1850

Letter from Germany.

(From our own Correspondent.)

Curious revelations concerning the despots of Germany — Intended war against France—The coming revolution.

Cologne, Jan. 20th, 1850.

The day after I sent you my last, news reached here of the “settlement of the question” who was to rule over all Germany. The “Interim,” consisting of two Austrian and two Prussian delegates, have at last prevailed upon old Archduke John to retire from business. They have consequently taken the reins of a power which, however, will not be of long duration. It expires in the month of May next, and there is good reason to expect that even before that term certain “untoward events” will sweep away these four provisional rulers of Germany. The names of these four satellites of military despotism are very significant. Austria has sent M. Kubeck, minister of finance under Metternich, and General Schönhals, the right hand of the butcher Radetzki. Prussia is represented by General Radowitz, member of the Jesuit order, favourite of the king, and principal inventor of all those plots by which Prussia has succeeded, for the moment, in putting down the German revolution; and by M. Bötticher, governor, before the revolution, of the province of Eastern Prussia, where he is fondly (?) remembered as a “putter-down” of public meetings and organiser of the spy system. What the doings of such a lot of rogues will be you will not need to be told. I will name one instance only. The Wurtemberg government, forced by the revolution, had contracted with the Prince of Thurn and Taxis — who, you know, has the monopoly of forwarding letters by post and of conveying passengers in

a large part of Germany, to the exclusion of the governments—the Wurtemberg government, I say, had contracted with this robber on a national scale to part, for a handsome sum, with his monopoly in favour of the said government. Times having got better for those who live upon national plunder, Prince Thurn and Taxis values his monopoly higher than the sum contracted for, and won’t part with it. The Wurtemberg government, freed from the pressure from without, find this change of opinion quite reasonable; and both parties apply—the prince publicly, the government aforesaid secretly—to the “Interim,” which, taking for pretext an article of the old act of 1815, declares the contract void and unlawful. This is all right. It is far better that M. Thurn and Taxis keeps his privilege a few months longer; the people, when they finish with the whole lot of privileges, will take it not only from him without giving him anything, but will, on the contrary, make him give up even the money he has robbed them of up to this time.

The military despotism in Austria is getting more intolerable every day. The press almost reduced to annihilation, all public liberties destroyed, the whole country swarming with spies—imprisonments, courts-martial, floggings in every part of the country—this is the practical meaning of those provincial constitutions which the government publish from time to time, and which they do not care a straw about breaking in the very moment of publication. There is, however, an end to everything, even to states of siege and the rule of the sword. Armies cost money, and money is a thing which even the mightiest emperor cannot create at his will. The Austrian government have, up to this time, managed to keep their finances afloat by tremendous issues of paper money. But there is an end to this, too; and, in spite of that Prussian lieutenant who once would challenge me to a duel because I told him a king or emperor could not make as many paper dollars as he liked—in spite of that profound political economist, the Emperor of Austria sees his paper money, though inconvertible, at the discount of from twenty to thirty per cent, against silver, and almost fifty per cent, against gold. The foreign loan he intended has dropped to the ground through the exertions of Mr. Cobden. Foreign capitalists have subscribed to the amount of £500,000 only, and he wants fifteen times that sum; while his exhausted country cannot afford to lend him anything. The deficit, fifteen millions and a half at the end of September last, will, by this time, have reached from twenty to twenty-four millions—the greater part of the Hungarian war expenses being payable in the last quarter of 1849. Thus there is only one alternative for Austria: either bankruptcy, or a foreign war to make the army pay itself, and to reconquer commercial credit by battles gained, provinces conquered, and war contributions imposed. Thus Mr. Cobden, in opposing the Austrian and Russian loans on the plea of the preservation of peace, has

more than any one else contributed—for Russia is in the same awkward state as Austria—to hasten that coalesced campaign against the French Republic which cannot, under any circumstances, be long delayed.

In Prussia, we assist at another act of “royal conscientiousness.” You know that Frederic William IV., the man who never broke his word, in November, 1848, dispersed by force the national representation, and forced upon his people a constitution after his own heart; that he agreed that this beautiful piece of workmanship was to be revised by the first parliament to be assembled; that in this parliament the Second Chamber (House of Commons) was, even before they got to the revising business, dissolved, another electoral reform forced upon the people, by which universal suffrage was very nicely done away with, and a majority of landed nobility, of government officials, and of bourgeois, was secured. This Chamber, to vote for the election of which every democrat refused, so that it has been elected by one-fifth or one-sixth of the whole number of voters—this Chamber, in conjunction with the old First Chamber, set about revising the Constitution, and made it, of course, even more agreeable to the king than he himself had made it originally. They have now almost done with it. Now, you think, his Majesty will please to accept this amended Constitution, and take the oath prescribed in it? Not he, indeed. He sends his faithful parliament a royal message, stating that he is very much pleased with what his two Chambers have made of his Constitution, but that, before his “royal conscientiousness” permits him to take the oath aforesaid, his own Constitution must be altered in about a dozen points. And what are these points? Why, his Majesty is modest enough not to require any more than the following trifles. 1. The First Chamber, now elected by the large landed proprietors and capitalists, to be a complete House of Lords, containing the royal princes, about one hundred hereditary peers chosen by his Majesty, sixty peers elected by the large landed proprietors, thirty by the large monied interests, six by the universities.
2. Ministers to be responsible to the king and country, not to the parliament.
3. All taxes now upon the budget to be levied for ever, without power of parliament to refuse. 4. A “Star Chamber,” or High Court of Justice, to try political offences—no mention being made of juries. 5. A special law to define and restrain the powers of the Second Chamber of parliament, etc. Now what do you think of this? His Majesty forces upon the good Prussians a new Constitution, to be amended by parliament. His parliament amends it by striking out everything like a remnant of popular rights. And the king, not content with that, declares that his “royal conscientiousness” forbids him to accept his own Constitution, amended in his own interest, without the above further modifications. Verily this is a truly “royal” sort of conscientiousness! There is little chance of even this present mock parliament bowing to such impudence. The consequence will be dissolution, and the end of all parliaments for the moment in Prussia. The secret of all this is the anticipation of the great coalition war, mentioned above. The “conscientious” gentleman on the throne of Prussia expects to have his rebellious country overrun by the month of March or April, by a million of Asiatic barbarians, to march, along with “his own glorious army,” against Paris, to conquer that fair country which produces his heart-cherished champagne. And the Republic once done away with, the scion of Saint Louis restored to the throne of France, what then would be the use of constitutions and parliaments at home?

In the meantime the revolutionary spirit is rapidly reviving all over Germany. The most inveterate ex-Liberal who, after March, 1848, joined the king to combat the people, now sees that—as the saying is in Germany—although he gave to the devil only the end of his little finger, that gentleman has since seized the whole hand. The incessant acquittals by juries in political trials are the best proofs of this. Every day brings a new fact in this way. Thus, a few days ago, the Mülheim workpeople—who, in May, 1849, tore up the railway, in order to stop the sending of troops to insurgent Elberfeld—have been acquitted here at Cologne. In the south of Germany, financial difficulties and increased taxation show to every bourgeois that this present state cannot last. In Baden the very same bourgeois who betrayed the last insurrection, and hailed the arrival of the Prussians, are punished and driven to madness by these very same Prussians and by the government, which under their protection drives them to ruin and despair. And the working people and peasantry everywhere are on the qui vive, waiting for the signal of an insurrection which, this time, will not subside until the political dominion and social progress of the proletarians shall have been secured. And this revolution is drawing nigh.

Friedrich Engels

Letter from France II

Striking proofs of the glorious progress of Red Republicanism!

The Democratic Review.
February 1850

Letter from France.

(From our own Correspondent.)

Striking Proofs of the Glorious Progress of Red Republicanism!

Paris, January 21st, 1850.

A great many important events have occurred since my last, but as the generality of readers will have been informed of them from the daily and weekly papers, I shall refrain from going over the same ground from beginning to end, and instead shall limit this letter to some general observations on the state of the country.

During the last twelve or fifteen months, the revolutionary spirit has made immense progress throughout France. A class, which by its social position was kept apart, as much as possible in civilised society, from taking an interest in public business, which by the old monarchical legislation was shut out from all political rights, which never read a newspaper, and which, nevertheless, forms the vast majority of Frenchmen—this class, at last, is rapidly coming to its senses. This class is the small peasantry, numbering about twenty-eight millions of men, women, and children, counting amongst its ranks from eight to nine millions of small landed proprietors, who possess, in the shape of freehold property, at least four-fifths of the soil of France. This class has been oppressed by all governments since 1815, not excepting the provisional government, which imposed on it the tax of 45 additional centimes upon every franc of the land tax, which in France is very heavy. This class, borne down also by a band of usurers to whom their property almost without exception is mortgaged at extraordinary high interest, is at last beginning to see that no government, except one acting in the interest of the working men of the towns, will free them from the misery and starvation into which, notwithstanding their land-allotments, they are falling deeper and deeper every day. This class, which in a great measure forced the revolution of 1789, and which formed the basement upon which arose the vast empire of Napoleon, has now, in its immense majority, joined the revolutionary party and the working men of Paris, Lyons, Rouen, and the other large towns of France. The tillers of the soil now see clearly enough how they have been cheated by Louis Napoleon, to whose presidential majority they at least furnished six millions of votes, and who has repaid them with the re-imposition of the wine and brandy tax. And thus, the vast majority of the French people are now united to overthrow, as soon as a proper occasion shall present itself, the insolent sway of the capitalist class, which, hurled down by the storm of February, has again seized the helm of government, and exercises its rule far more arrogantly than ever it did under its own well-beloved Louis Philippe.

The history of the last months affords innumerable proofs of this most important fact. Take the circular of Minister D’Hautpoul to the gendarmerie, by which espionage is carried into the very heart of the most obscure village; take the law against the schoolmasters, who, in French villages, are generally the best expression of the public opinion of their localities, and who are now to be placed at the mercy of government, because they now almost all profess social-democratic opinions; and many other facts. But one of the most striking proofs is to be found in the election which has just taken place in the department du Gard. This department is known as the most ancient stronghold of the “Whites”—the legitimists. It was the scene of the most horrid outrages against the republicans in 1794 and ’95, after the downfall of Robespierre; it was the central seat of the “White terrorism” in 1815, when Protestants and Liberals were publicly murdered, and outrages of the most horrible nature were committed on the wives, daughters, and sisters of those victims by legitimist mobs, headed by the renowned Trestaillon, and protected by the government of legitimate Louis XVIII. Well, this department had to elect a deputy, in the place of a legitimist, deceased; and the result was, a great majority for a thoroughly Red candidate, while the two legitimist candidates were in a signal minority.

Another proof of the rapid progress of this alliance of the working men in the towns and the peasantry of the country, is the new law on public education. The most inveterate Voltairians of the bourgeoisie, even M. Thiers, see there is no way left to oppose that progress but by surrendering their old theories and principles, and by prostrating public education at the feet of the priesthood!

Again. There is, now, a general rush of all public papers and public characters, that are not exactly reactionaries, to claim the once despised title of “Socialist.” The oldest enemies of Socialism now proclaim themselves Socialists. The National, even the Siècle, monarchist under Louis Philippe, declare they are Socialists. Even Marrast, the infamous traitor of 1848, now hopes, though in vain, to get elected by proclaiming himself a Socialist. The people, however, are not thus to be duped, and the rope to hang that vagabond is ready, and only waiting for the occasion.

To-day they discuss in the National Assembly the law for killing the remaining 468 prisoners of the June insurrection, by transporting them to, and setting them to work in the most unhealthy parts of Algeria. No doubt the law will pass by an immense majority. But before the unfortunate heroes of that grand battle of labour can reach the shore destined to bury them, there is little doubt but another popular storm will have swept away the voters of this law of murder, and carry, perhaps, to that land of banishment, those of the present majority who may have escaped a prompter, more radical, and most righteous revenge on the part of the people.