in Leipzig  

London, 10 January 1880  

Dear Liebknecht,  

Your letter arrived right in the midst of the holiday bustle, which, with the multiplication of the Marx family, and as two of our friends from Manchester were visiting me, assumed quite considerable dimensions. In order to be able to forward your letter I had to look up the latest Post Office Directory, and this could only be had at some distance from my dwelling. Enfin, at the beginning of this week I tracked it down and sent your letter to  

Alexander Macdonald Esq. M.P.  
Well Hill (the Directory has Well hl.)  
by Hamilton, North Britain (N.B.)  

M[acdonald] is the greater scoundrel of the two, but in deeper official involvement with the coal miners. Perhaps you will receive his reply before mine. As soon as Parliament opens you can simply address [letters to] Alexander Macdonald, House of Commons.  

Since you say you have asked M[acdonald] for the documents requested in the body of your letter, I naturally do nothing further in this matter until I hear from you again.  

The silver or rather double currency story is the brainchild of some Liverpool cotton speculators. Because in India and China only silver circulates in trade in practice and silver has fallen over the last 10 years from 1/15½ to 1/17½–1/18 of the gold value, this circumstance has naturally intensified the crisis in this article caused by the over‑export of cotton goods to the Far East. First, prices fell through increased supply, and then, on top of that, these fallen prices expressed an even lower gold value for the English exporter than before. The smart people in Liverpool now, who cannot imagine that cotton can ever fall in price, blame everything on the difference in currency and think that all will be well and the Indo‑Chinese trade will flourish as soon as it is decreed here that silver shall once again be worth 1/15½ of gold, i.e. the English public should let itself be saddled with silver 13–15% above its value, so that the cotton‑goods exporters gain as much. That is the whole swindle, to which a few crotchet‑mongers?⁵ have attached themselves. It was never of any significance. The *Times* was recently so philanthropic as to opine that the gold standard does not suit such a poor country as Germany, that one should rather return to the more convenient silver standard – with the hidden wish to create for the London money market an outlet whither it could unload its depreciated silver above its value. Naturally also a pious wish, just like the childish fantasy of our friend Bismarck recently to swing back to the double standard and to re‑issue the talers as full legal tender in all payments, although they are worth 15% less than what they are supposed to be worth. The German money people have, after all, become so smart under friend Bismarck that this no longer worked, and the issued talers rushed back to the bank and imperial treasuries with ape‑like speed.  

I likewise congratulate you and all of you on the New Year and on the Russian revolution which will certainly get under way in it and which will immediately impress a different character on the whole of Europe. This too we again largely have to thank our friend Bismarck for, who by his demonstrative Austrian journey and alliance placed the Russian government, precisely at the right moment (for us!), before the alternative: war or revolution.  

Quel génie!  

Yours,  
F.E.  

⁵ visionaries. — What a genius!