[Draft] 
Bridlington Quay, 
10 August 1881 

Dear Mr Shipton, 

I return the proof-sheet '!’* altered as you wish. The first passage 
you seem to me to have misunderstood and the second alteration is 
merely formal.* Anyhow, I do not see what good such alterations 
can do if asked for on Tuesday, received here on Wednesday, to 
arrive again in London on Thursday after the publication of the 
paper. 

But there is another thing. If such very mild and innocent things as 
these begin to appear to you too strong, it must occur to me that this 
must be the case, in a far higher degree, with my own articles, which 
are generally far stronger. I must therefore take your remarks as 
a symptom, and conclude that it will be better for both of us if I dis- 
continue sending you leading articles. It will be far better than going 
on until, upon some inevitable point, we come to an open rupture. 
Moreover my time will certainly not allow me to go on writing lead- 
ers regularly,! and on this ground alone I had come to some similar 
resolution to be executed, as I then thought, after the Trades 
Union Congress.'7°5 But the sooner I stop the better will be perhaps 
your position before that Congress. 

There is another point: I consider you ought to have sent me before 
publication the copy or proof of the article on the Max Hirsch Trades 
Unions in Germany,° as to the only man on your staff who knew any- 
thing of the matter and could make the necessary notes to it. 
Anyhow it will be impossible for me to remain on the staff of a paper 
which, without consulting me, lends itself to writing up these Trades 
Unions, comparable only to those worst English ones which allow 
themselves to be led by men openly sold to, or at least paid by the 
middle class. 

@ See this volume, pp. 120-21.- The Labour Standard-‘ See this volume, pp. 117-18. 

120 74, Engels to Marx. 11 August 1881 

I need not add that otherwise I wish every success to The Labour 
Standard and if desired shall now and then contribute occasional infor- 
mation from the continent. 

Yours truly 
F. E.