[London,] 20 May 1865 

Dear Frep, 

Cutting enc.osep which includes my address to Johnson.* 

Edgar’s reappearance did, of course, surprise us greatly. Quite 
THE FELLOW I thought Him, and his career quite as I expected it. Iris a 
pity that he could not always have been right-hand to Garibaldi 
He would have suited him to a tee. But the poor devil is still very 
weak. He will be staying here for some time, apropos of which you 
could be doing a good work by contributing to the replenishment of 
my wine-cellar. 

I am working like a horse at the moment, as I must make use of 
the time when I am fit for work, and the carbuncles are still with 
me, though they only trouble me locally and do not disturb the 
brain-pan. 

In between times, since one cannot always be writing, I am 

doing some DIFFERENTIAL CALCULUS. I have no patience to read 

anything else at all. Any other kind of reading always drives me 
back to my writing-desk. 

Special meeting of the ‘International.’ this evening. A good old 
codger, an orp Owenist, Weston (carpenter), has put up the 
following two propositions that he is constantly defending in The 
Bee-Hive: 

1. that a GENERAL RATE IN THE RISE OF THE RATE OF waces Would be of no 
benefit to the workers; 

2. that the Trapes-Unions for that reason, etc., are harmful 

If these two propositions, in which he alone in our society 
believes, were to be accepted, we should be in a terrible mess, both 
in respect of the Trapes-Unions here and the infection oF strikes NOW 
prevailing on the Continent. 

He will be supported in the matter by a native Englishman— 
since non-members are also admitted to this meeting—who has 
written a pamphlet to the same effect.“ I am, of course, expected 

a K. Marx, (‘Address from the Working Men’s International Association to President 
Johnson’). - » Edgar von Westphalen’s - © T. J. Dunning, Trades Unions and Strikes: 
Their Philosophy and Intention. 

to produce a refutation. I ought therefore really to have worked 
out my réplique for this evening, but I thought it more important 
to get on with writing my book,’ and so IJ shall have to rely on 
improvisation. 

I know in advance, of course, what the two main poinrs will be: 

1. that wages determine the value of commodities; 

2. that if the capitalists pay 5s. today instead of 4, tomorrow 
they will sell their commodities for 5s. instead of 4 (being ENABLED 
to do so by the increased demand). 

Trite though that is, and however little it penetrates the topmost 
surface of things, it is, nevertheless, not easy to explain to the 
ignorant all the competing economic questions involved. You can’t 
COMPRESS A COURSE OF Po iticaL Economy INTO 1 Hour. Bur we SHALL DO OUR 
pest.7/4 

Edgar regards it as a good omen that he met you first in England. 
He liked Lizzy” very much. 

Salut. Your 

K. M. 

It is a most strange irony of fate that this Edgar, who never 
exploited anyone other than himself and was always a workman in 
the strictest sense of the word, went through a war or and wiry 
starvation for the slave-owners. Ditto that both brothers-in-law 
have for the moment been ruined by the American war.