ENGELS TO JOSEPH WEYDEMEYER ” 

Manchester, 27 Feb. 1852 

Dear Weydemeyer, 

I am glad to see that some of my letters have at last arrived and 
hence that no further obstacles stand in the way of our 
correspondence.© The first two were addressed to J. W., Deutsche 
Vereinsbuchhandlung, William Str., New York. The copies of the 
Revolution and the Demokrat have arrived safely and are being 
forwarded to London today. Mr Heinzen will be delighted by your 
riposte.”. You summed him up very neatly. Send all further 
consignments of printed matter in the same way, open at both 
ends; the postage costs very little. 

Of my articles, you could at very most include only the one on 
the invasion’ in any future miscellany. The others are unsuitable 
and have already been overtaken by events. 

As for confrere Standau, the fellow’s an erstwhile conspirator 
who fits exactly into the category we depicted in the Revue, in the 
critique of Chenu’—very useful in certain respects, very prone to 
idleness, not always reliable and something of a Rodomonte. 
Anyhow, give him my regards. 

Schmidt of Léwenberg is conducting a crusade against the 
Jesuits in the neighbourhood of St. Louis.and has for chief ally 
the ex-trickster and agent of Duchatel, Mr Bornstein of Parisian 
fame. What else he is up to I do not know. That Dr Maas is a 
supporter of the Marx clique is news to me. I know him only as an 
ex-Palatinate ranter. Fischer, the editor of the New Orleans 
Deutsche Zeitung, is an acquaintance of mine and was a member of 
my bodyguard in Kaiserslautern,* but this day-dreamer has since 
become infernally corrupted and Kinkelified, and if Kinkel 
himself has been in New Orleans, he will have done a great deal 
of mischief since he will have met with no opposition. 

4 An allusion to Weydemeyer’s article against: Heinzen, New-Yorker Demokrat, 
No. 311, 29 January 1852.-> K. Marx and F. Engels, Reviews from the Neue 
Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-dkonomische Revue, No. 4: ‘Les Conspirateurs, par 
A. Chenu’, ‘La naissance de la République en février 1848, par Lucien de la Hadde’. 

So far as the question of a war against England is concerned,* 
just now it interests me primarily as a military problem which one 
tries to elucidate and solve in just the same way as an exercise in 
geometry. But I do not regard a coalition war of this kind as out 
of the question although for the time being, so long as Derby 
remains at the helm, it will certainly be deferred. The gentlemen 
of the Holy Alliance assess their forces today no less incorrectly 
than was done in the various coalitions from 1792 to 1807. And as 
for Russia’s dependence on England, 1. one cannot expect the 
Tsar? to be sensible of it, and secondly, a suspension of trade, 
while it would result in stagnation, poverty and the spoiling of 
produce, could, after all, be endured for 2-3 years just as could a 
commercial crisis of the same duration. Bear in mind that in 
Russia virtually no money circulates in the country among the 
peasantry, the vast majority, and that these barbarians’ every 
household necessity can be produced in any village. True, the 
cities and the aristocracy would suffer, but the Russian Empire is 
founded on peasants and on petty country gentry. An uprising 
on the Continent instigated by England presents great difficulties; 
Spain was helped by her terrain, her great size and sparse popu- 
lation, and the lack of provisions, and also the fact of being sur- 
rounded on nearly all sides by the sea. But Hungary and Poland 
are land-locked countries while Italy, save for the islands, could 
hardly be held by the English and the insurgents against the superior 
forces of the coalition. Furthermore, England is not now in a 
position, and will not be so a year after the outbreak of war, to 
muster an army like the one sent to Wellington in Spain.” But 
ships without a landing force can never gain a foothold. 

It’s a rea] stroke of luck that the Tories should have taken the 
helm. As a result of the continual victories in the field of com- 
mercial policy and the long era of prosperity, the manufacturers 
had grown thoroughly indolent. Parliamentary reform, even when 
more far-reaching than Russell’s paltry Bill,”’ failed to arouse 
the slightest interest. Now, with the devil hard on their heels, they 
are already scared out of their wits, the more so since every one of 
the new ministers represents, and most brazenly, some aspect or 
other of protectionism. The Anti-Corn Law League” is being re- 
vived here. Parliamentary reform, the extension of the franchise, 
the equalisation of constituencies, secret ballot, have all become 
questions of vital moment to the industrial bourgeoisie, whereas before 

@ See this volume, pp. 18-19. - & Nicholas I 

a 

they were of immediate interest only to the philistines. Derby must 
announce a dissolution and will probably do so as soon as the 
Army Act and the taxes for the coming year have been voted. In 
May we shall doubtless have another election. The Protectionists 
will gain a few votes and in exchange throw out a few Peelites.” 
But they are still in the minority and, should Derby dare to 
propose the immediate introduction of protective tariffs, he will 
unquestionably take a tumble. But he may be cunning enough to 
defer this. At any rate the movement is now FarrLy under way in 
England. With Palmersion’s dismissal’* the fun began, as it was 
bound to do after the endless ministerial defeats of the previous 
session. Derby is the second act. Dissolution will be the third. As 
for England’s foreign policy under Derby it too, of course, will be 
reactionary; but httle that is decisive will happen; maybe a few 
prosecutions of refugees, in which the government will fail, 
attempts to introduce Aliens Bills,” which will likewise fail, 
perhaps support for attempts to form an anti-Louis Napoleon 
coalition, which will also come to nothing. The Tories are 
frightfully circumscribed in England and, unless they attempt to 
restore the Sidmouth-Castlereagh despotism of 1815-21, whereby 
they could burn their fingers devilish badly for, within the law and 
on behalf of rree rrape, your English bourgeois fights like a 
tiger—the conservative gentlemen will make sorry fools of 
themselves. But Derby (formerly, in his father’s lifetime, Lord 
Stanley) is a hot-head and may well have recourse to extreme, if 
not illegal, measures. 

All that is lacking now is a commercial crisis and, with Derby up, 
I rather suspect that it will soon be upon us. The rapid succession 
of English free rrap—e measures, followed by the opening up of the 
Dutch colonies, the lowering of tariffs in Spain, Sardinia, etc., etc., 
and the fall in cotton prices (since Sept. 1850 down to half their 
former value), are keeping prosperity going longer than might 
have been expected. But, given the state of the Indian and to 
some extent the American markets (appreciably fewer manufactures 
were exported to the United States last month than in the same 
period last year), the thing cannot be expected to last much longer. 
If, as seems hardly probable, the crisis comes as early as May, then 
the fun will begin. But it will hardly be here before September or 
October. 

My regards to your wife. 

Your 

Shortly an article on the position _ of the English industrial 
bourgeoisie and on commercial matters ”°—I shall be very busy for 
the next fortnight or so.