Manchester, 12 April 1865 
Dear Moor, 

It’s good to have you back again, and I certainly hope this lousy 
squabble will soon be over. Letters from Dronke and Borkheim 

a Wilhelm Liebknecht - & With regard to -* K. Marx, ‘The “President of Man- 
kind”’.- 4 Rheinische Zeitung and Düsseldorfer Zeitung 

enclosed. I had told the latter how it was possible to work with 
Kolatschek’s great-German organ supporting Austrian rule in 
Hungary, Poland and Italy, as we would immediately have all our 
friends in the other countries down on us, hence the vague 
reply.’ 

I had always half expected that the naive fraternité in the 
Internationa, Association would not last long. If there were an 
active political movement among the workers here, just the same 
sptirs would occur. It will pass through a Jot more such phases and 
will take up a great deal of your time. But it does still remain 
something quite different from Lassalle’s Association.’ 

I couldn't resist a hearty laugh when I read in Wilhelmchen’s? 
letter that the official Berlin community of that Association 
consists of 5 people, as there was recently a perfectly serious 
report in the Social-Demokrat of their transactions, in which they 
congratulated each other on such a large turn-out.” 

Ad vocem* corron-crisis, things are looking quite cheerful here. 
Cotton (mipunc Orleans) stood at 31%/,d in July, was quoted at 
14°/,d last Thursday, and today, if one is selling, it hardly fetches 
14d. So, it has depreciated by more than half. It was still worth 
27d on 30 December, which is a fall of 121/.-13d in 3 months! On 
top of that, there’s been a fall in flax, wool, sugar and all] imports 
GENERALLY, Which makes a loss of at least £40-50 mill. stg. You will 
readily understand that all the philistines are in a cold sweat. In 
Liverpool, bankruptcy has altogether gone out of fashion now. Anyone 
who becomes insolvent goes to his creditors (generally people 
there have only a couple), notifies them and offers them such and 
such an amount, which is always accepted at once as they are glad 
to get anything at all and have got to avoid any scandal so that the 
whole rotten edifice doesn’t collapse. Hundreds of such settle- 
ments are said to have been reached on the quiet, and today 
rumour even has it here that one of the biggest Stockport 
manufacturers, who owns 3 big factories and is reputed to have 
made £200,000 over the last few years in corron-speculation alone, 
has just come to a similar understanding on the quiet. But what 
we've seen so far is nothing. The bills, which were drawn from 
India against the white cotton, run out in the next 6 weeks, and 
there will be many more besides Joyce who will come to grief. A 
lot of people in Scotland are finished as well, and one fine day it’s 
bound to be the turn of the banks, and that’d be the end of the 

a Wilhelm Liebknecht’s - > Der Social-Demokrat, No. 43, 5 April 1865. - 
© Regarding 

matter. The spinners and manufacturers are becoming bankrupt 
by the dozen in Austria, too—in the whole of Bohemia only ‘the 
great Liebig’ is still on his feet, all the others have gone bust—and 
in Poland it’s all just starting as well. 

Industry itself is not much affected. The small fry mostly went 
bust ages ago or quietly melted away, and the big ones can operate 
reasonably profitably once more, if they can get any orders at all. 
Among them, the only ones who are going bust are those who 
have bad machinery or who couldn’t keep their fingers out of 
cotton. Everyone is making a loss on their stocks of cotton yarns 
and fabrics. We too could sing you a woeful song about that, twice 
as woeful for me in particular as it would have been if droned out 
last year. That’s what comes of being an associé.’ 

Glorious is also the ethics of trade, as at present. You buy 
something today, and by the time it’s delivered, it is worth 3, 4, or 
5d a pound less. This leads to all kinds of dirty tricks and 
repudiations, as people try to get out of these unprofitable 
contracts at any cost, and that lands you in interminable 
altercations and squabbling correspondence. I’m sick to the teeth 
with it. You can have no idea how much letter-writing and 
aggravation this entails. 

I hope your wife got the £3? Final statement of account 
enclosed, Ill send the £12 in a few days, it’s too late for a Post 
Orrice order today. 

Best wishes. 

Your 
F, E.