Karl Marx 
Political Consequences of the Commercial Excitement 

New-York Daily Tribune. 
Nr. 3602, 2. November 1852 

Political Consequences 
of the Commercial Excitement. 

Correspondence of The N. Y. Tribune. 

London, Tuesday, Oct. 19, 1852. 

My last letter described the present industrial and commercial situation of 
this country; let us now draw the political consequences therefrom. 

If the outbreak of the anticipated industrial and commercial revulsion will 
give a more dangerous and revolutionary character to the impending struggle 
with the Tories, the present prosperity is, for the moment, the most valuable 
ally to the Tory party; an any, which, indeed, will not enable them to reénact 
the Corn Laws, abandoned already by themselves, but which effectually 
consolidates their political power and assists them in carrying on a social 
reaction that, if let alone, would necessarily end in the conquest of substantial 
class-advantages, as it has been from its beginning started in the name of a 
substantial class-interest. No Corn Laws, says D'Israeli, but a fresh settle- 
ment of taxes in the interest of the oppressed farmers. But why are farmers 
oppressed? Because they, for the most part, continue to pay the old protec- 
tionist rates of rent, while the old protectionist price of corn is gone the way 
of all flesh. The aristocracy will not abate the rent of their land, but they will 
introduce a new mode of taxation which shall make up, to the farmers, for 
the surplus farmers have to pay into the pockets of the aristocracy. 

I repeat that the present commercial prosperity is favorable to Tory reac- 
tion. Why? "Patriotism," complains Lloyd's Weekly Newspaper, "patrio- 
tism is apt to go to sleep in the cupboard if meat and drink be there. Hence, 
free trade is the present security of the Earl of Derby; he lies on a bed of 
roses plucked by Cobden and Peel." 

The mass of the people is fully employed and more or less well off—always 
deducting the paupers inseparable from British prosperity; it is therefore not 

Political Consequences of the Commercial Excitement 

at present a very malleable material for political agitation. But what, above 
all things, enables Derby to carry out his machinations, is the fanaticism with 
which the middle class has thrown itself into the mighty process of industrial 
production, erecting of mills, constructing of machinery, building of ships, 
spinning and weaving of cotton and wool, storing of warehouses, manufac- 
turing, exchanging, exporting, importing, and other more or less useful 
proceedings, the purpose of which, to them, is always the making of money. 
The Bourgeoisie, in this moment of brisk trade—and it very well knows that 
these happy moments are getting more and more few and far between—will 
and must make money, much money, nothing but money. It leaves to its 
politicians ex professo the task of watching the Tories. But the politicians 
ex professo (compare, for instance, Joseph Hume's letter to The Hull 
Advertiser) complain justly that, deprived of pressure from without, they 
can agitate as little as the human frame could react without the pressure of 
the atmosphere. 

The Bourgeoisie have, indeed, a sort of uneasy divination that in the high 
regions of government something suspicious is brewing, and that the ministry 
exploits not overscrupulously the political apathy in which prosperity has 
thrown them. They, therefore, sometimes give the ministry a warning 
through their organs in the press. For instance: "To what extent the democ- 
racy (read the Bourgeoisie,) may carry their present wise forbearance, their 
respect for their own power and for the rights of others, making no attempt 
to strengthen themselves by doing as the aristocracy have done, we cannot 
foresee; but the aristocracy must not infer, from the general conduct of the 

democracy, that they will never depart from moderation."—(London Econo- 
mist.) But Derby replies: Do you think I am fool enough to be frightened 
by you now, when the sun shines, and to be idle until commercial storms 
and stagnation of trade give you the time to mind politics more clearly? 

The plan of the Tory campaign shows itself every day. 

The Tories began by chicaning open-air meetings; they prosecute, in Ire- 
land, newspapers which contain articles unpleasant to them; they indict, in 
this moment, for seditious libel, the agents of the Peace Society, who have 
distributed pamphlets against the use of the lash in the militia. In this quiet 
manner, they push back, wherever they can, the isolated opposition of the 

street and of the press. 

In the mean time, they avoid every great and public rupture with their 
opponents, by delaying the meeting of Parliament, and by preparing every- 
thing in order to occupy it, when met, with the funeral "of a dead Duke, 
instead of the interests of a living people."—(Radical Paper.) In the first week 

of November, Parliament will meet. But before January there can be no 
question of a serious beginning of the session. 

Karl Marx 

And how do the Tories fill up the mean time? With the Registration cam- 
paign and the formation of the militia. 

In the Registration campaign the object is to throw out or to prevent their 
opponents from entering the new lists of parliamentary electors for the 
ensuing year, by making out this or that objection which legally prevents a 
man from being registered a voter. Each political party is represented by its 
lawyers, and carries on the action at its own expense, and the revising 
barristers, named by the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench, decide on the 
admissibility of claims or objections. This campaign has hitherto had its 
principal theater in Lancashire and Middlesex. In order to get up the money 
for the campaign in North Lancashire, the Tories circulated lists of sub- 
scription on which Lord Derby himself had put down his name for the liberal 
sum of £500. The extraordinary number of 6,749 objections to voters have 
been taken in Lancashire, viz., 4,650 for South, and 2,099 for North Lanca- 
shire. For the former, the Tories objected to 3,557 qualifications ; the Liberals 
to 1,093; for the latter, the Tories, to 1,334 qualifications; the Liberals to 765. 
(This, of course, merely amongst County voters, independently of the voters 
for the Boroughs, situated in that County.) The Tories were victorious in 
Lancashire. In the County of Middlesex there were expunged from the 
registers 353 Radicals and 140 Conservatives—the Conservatives thus gaining 
200 votes. 

In this battle, the Tories stand on one side—the Whigs, with the men of 
the Manchester School, on the other. The latter, it is pretty well known, have 
formed freehold land societies—machines for manufacturing new voters. The 
Tories leave the machines alone, but destroy their products. Mr. Shadwell, 
revising barrister for Middlesex, gave decisions by which great numbers of 
the freehold land society voters have been disfranchised, declaring that a 
plot of land did not confer the franchise unless it had cost £50. As this was 
a question of fact and not of law, there is no appeal from this decision to 
the Court of Common Pleas. Everybody conceives that this distinction of 
fact and law gives to the revising barristers, always open to the influence 
of the existing Ministry, the greatest power in composing the new voters' 
lists. 

And what do these great efforts of the Tories, and the direct interference 
of their leader in the Registration campaign, prognosticate? 

That the Earl of Derby has no very sanguine hopes for the continuance 
of his new Parliament, that he is inclined to dissolve it in case of resistance 
on its part, and that in the meantime he seeks to prepare, by the revising 
barristers, a conservative majority for another general election. 

And while thus the Tories, on one hand, hold in reserve the Parliament- 
making machine placed at their disposal by the registration campaign, they 

Political Consequences of the Commercial Excitement 

carry out, on the other hand, the Militia Bill, which places at their disposal 
the necessary bayonets for carrying out even the most reactionary acts of 
Parliament, and for supporting in tranquillity the frowns of the Peace Soci- 
ety. 

"With Parliament to give it a legal semblance, with an armed militia to give 
it an active power, what may not the reaction do in England?"—exclaims the 
organ of the Chartists. 

And the death of the "Iron Duke," of the common-sense-hero of Water- 
loo, has in this particular critical moment, freed the aristocracy of an im- 
portone guardian angel, who had experience enough in warfare to sacrifice, 
often enough, apparent victories to a well-covered retreat, and the brilliant 
offensive to a timely compromise. Wellington was the moderator of the 
House of Lords; he held in decisive moments, often 60 and more proxies; 
he prevented the Tories from declaring open war against the Bourgeoisie 
and against public opinion. But now, with a conflict-seeking Tory Ministry 
under the direction of a sporting character, the House of Lords, "instead 
of being, as under the guidance of the Duke, the steady ballast of the State, 
may become the top-hamper that may endanger its safety." This latter no- 
tion, that the lordly ballast is necessary to the safety of the State, does of 
course, not belong to us, but to the liberal London Daily News. The present 
Duke of Wellington, hitherto Marquis of Douro, has at once passed from 
the Peelite into the Tory Camp. And thus there is every sign that the aristo- 
cracy are about to make the most reckless efforts to reconquer the lost 
ground, and to bring back the golden times of 1815 to 1830. And the Bour- 
geoisie, in this moment, has no time to agitate, to revolt, not even to get up 

a proper show of indignation. 

Karl Marx.