London, 5 January 1888 

Dear Sir, 

I have removed and my new address is: Mrs Rosher, Cottesloe, 
Burton Road, Kilburn, London N. W. There is no number, Cottesloe 
being the name of the house. 

I have at once ordered from my bookseller here the work of Dr 
Keussler.> Even if the first volumes are based on imperfect materials I 
have seen enough of the work of your Zemstvos to know that the 
résumé of them must contain immensely valuable material and, being 
written in German, prove a perfect revelation to Occidentals.?!? I shall 
take good care that these materials are made use of. 

I am afraid your land-bank for the nobility? will have about the 

4 The rough copy of the manuscript ends here — ° J. V. Keussler, Zur Geschichte 
und Kritik des bauerlichen Gemeindebesitzes in Russland 

same effect as the Prussian land-banks have had. There the nobility 
took up loans under pretext of improving their estates, but really spent 
most of the money in keeping up their habitual style of living, in 
gambling, trips to Berlin and the provincial chefs-liewx* etc. For the 
nobility considered it their first duty standesgemass zu leben,» and the 
first duty of the state seemed to them to enable them to do so. And so, 
in spite of all banks, of all the enormous direct and indirect money- 
presents made to them by the state, the Prussian nobles are over head 
and ears indebted to the Jews, and no raising of the import duties on 
agricultural produce will save them. And I remember one well-known 
half-German Russian, attached illegitimately to the Russian nobility, 
finding these Prussian nobles still too stingy. When, on arriving from 
one shore to another,° he saw them at home he exclaimed: why these 
people try to save money while with us a man would be considered the 
meanest of the mean unless he spent half as much again as his income! 
If this be really the principle of the Russian nobility, then I wish them 
joy of their banks. 

The peasants’ bank?!* too seems similar to the Prussian peasants’ 
banks, and it is almost inconceivable how difficult it is for some people 
to see that all fresh sources of credit opened up to landed proprietors 
(small or large) must result in enslaving them to the victorious 
capitalist. 

My eyes still require des ménagements,* but anyhow I hope in a short 
time, say next month, to be able to resume my work on the 3rd volume’; 
unfortunately J cannot as yet make any promises as to the time of finish- 
ing it. 

The English translation’ has sold and is selling very well, indeed 
surprisingly well for a book of that size and class; the publisher is 
enchanted with his speculation. The critics are on the other hand very, 
very much below the average low level. Only one good article in the 
Athenaeum*’; the rest either merely give extracts from the preface or, if 
trying to tackle the book itself, are unutterably poor. The fashionable 
theory just now here is that of Stanley Jevons,?!> according to which 
value is determined by utility, i.e. Tauschwert-Gebrauchswert' and on 

* big cities — > to live according to their social status — ¢ in Russian in the original 
letter. An allusion to Alexander Herzen’s book From Another Shore) — 4in 
Russian in the original © good care — of Capital — § of Vol. I of Capital — 

h William Swan Sonnenschein — ' exchange value = use value 

the other hand by the limit of supply (i.e. the cost of production), 
which is merely a confused and circuitous way of saying that value is 
determined by supply and demand. Vulgar Economy everywhere! 
The second great literary organ here, the Academy, has not yet 
spoken. 

The sale of the German edition of I and II volumes goes on very well. 
There are a great many articles written about the book and its theories, 
an extract, or rather independent reproduction in: Karl Marx’s 
Okonomische Lehren von* K. Kautsky, not bad, though not always 
quite correct, I will send it you. Then a miserable apostate Jew Georg 
Adler, Privatdozent in Breslau,> has written a big book, the title of 
which I forget, to prove Marx wrong,° but it is simply a scurrilous and 
ridiculous pamphlet by which the author wants to call attention—the 
attention of the ministry and bourgeoisie—on himself and his impor- 
tance. I have asked all my friends not to notice it. Indeed if any miser- 
able impotent fellow wants to faire de la réclame* for himself, he attacks 
our author.* 

Friends in Paris have doubted the accuracy of your very sad news 
about Mr Mutual. Could you give me in some way or other any partic- 
ulars of this event?’2!6 

I enclose a little thing published some years ago. 

Yours sincerely, 
P. W. Rosher