London, 18 September 1890 

Dear Kautsky, 

I have had your letters of 22 August and 8 September. [ should re- 
ally have answered the first from Folkestone where I spent a month. 
But I overlooked the bit about your leaving for Stuckart* on 25 Au- 
gust and so didn’t know where to write to. 

The littl rumpus among the students'* soon collapsed. 
C. Schmidt was able to keep out of it and Bebel writes to say he is att 
ricut. Apart from that I know no more about the silly business than 
you do. 

The editor in you was certainly well to the fore when you tried to 
involve me in your critique of the programme.?° But you know your- 
self that I have no time. Nicego?! 

In view of the many plans that are of necessity being made in Ger- 
many these days, only to be replaced by others, no purpose would be 
served by my seeking to comment on the plans you told me about in 
your last other than to say that J know of nobody here whom I could 
recommend for the Neue Zeit and the Schwabische Tagwacht. Schmidt 
would be unlikely to want to leave Berlin. Cannot Bebel get hold of 
anyone for you? 3! 

A telling blow has been struck in Liverpool.?”? And by a quirk of 
history the noble Brentano happened to be present on the platform to 

@ Stuttgart-? Absolutely none (Russ.) 

witness the collapse of his contention, which he had been disseminat- 
ing with such tenacity and passion, that the English Trapes Unions 
were the best defence against socialism.* 

The struggle is now in full swing. An eight hours’ legal working- 
day — that was the critical turning point and with its acceptance 
came the collapse of the empire of the old, conservative labour move- 
ment that was based on capitalist relations of production. The socialisa- 
tion of land, mines and transport was universally conceded, while 
that of the other means of production had the support of a large mino- 
rity. In short, things are now moving and the events between | and 
4 May have greatly contributed to this. The 4th of May was the 
pronunziamento,” the Liverpool congress the first skirmish. 

The Belgians have taken advantage of the congress to invite the 
English to an international congress in Belgium, a most perfidious 
manoeuvre. In Liverpool the delegates from the new unions, which of 
late have been making impassioned calls for international action, ac- 
cepted with alacrity. Since the Belgians have hitherto been able to do 
nothing off their own bat save issue an invitation to the Possibilist con- 
gress in Belgium, the above manoeuvre is intended to force our hand. 
This time the English are seriously committed, thanks to the idiotic 
nature of our resolutions in Paris concerning the place and the convo- 
cation of the next congress,? which condemn us to inactivity while 
the others act. 

Something has got to be done about it. Having discussed the mat- 
ter with the others over here, I wrote to France‘ and as soon as there 
is anything definite in the wind, you will doubtless hear from Ede or 
me. For the present, absolute discretion is called for, as well as a cau- 
tious approach to the Belgians’ action (in the meantime it would be 
best simply to record it in the press), lest any unnecessary obstacles 
should arise. Will you be going to Halle on 12 October? !? 

There’ll be an article by me‘ in the final No. of the Sozialdemokrat 
which will cause a good deal of annoyance over there. But I can’t 
pitch into the literary gang without also taking a sideswipe at the 
philistine element in our party, which provided the former with a 
pretext for a row. Indirectly, of course—a valedictory number 
is not the place for attacks. For that reason I was glad that the 

* An allusion to L. Brentano’s Die Arbeitergilden der Gegenwart.-° See Engels’ letters to 
August Bebel of 9 May and to Laura Lafargue of 10 May 1890 (present edition, 
Vol. 48).-° See previous letter.-4 ‘Farewell Letter to the Readers of the Sozialdemokrat’ 

literati forced me to square accounts with them beforehand.* 

I continue to get good news from Sam Moore in Africa. Every 6 or 
8 weeks he goes down with fever for 2 or 3 days, but the attacks are 
very mild and leave no after-effects. 

Schorlemmer is back here, having arrived from Manchester yester- 
day evening. Since his return from the Norwegian trip he has been 
suffering from deafness and buzzing in the ears—a stubborn aural 
catarrh; though it is improving somewhat, it has undone the good ef- 
fects of his 6 weeks’ holiday. 

According to the English, young William went to Norway simply 
because he could play at sailors there without getting seasick. Indeed 
you can sail from Skudenes in the south right up to North Cape with- 
out ever leaving perfectly calm water, and only in 2 or 3 places are 
you likely to suffer 2 or 3 hours of seasickness. And as for the fjords! 
They’re so calm that the smallest lake in the Alps is a storm-tossed 
ocean by comparison. A landlubber of an admiral can feel as safe 
there as on a drive from Charlottenburg ° to Potsdam. It so happened 
that the young man sneaked past us in a torpedo boat while entering 
the Sunelv Fjord from the Geiranger Fjord. When we landed in 
Molde, Schorlemmer and I climbed the Moldehaj, a vantage point 
approximately 1,300 feet above sea level (the same as the one that ap- 
pears in Ibsen’s Fruen fra Havet (The Lady from the Sea) which is set in 
Molde). At the top we found half a dozen young lieutenants from the 
fleet below, dressed in civilian clothes. I thought I was back in Pots- 
dam. The same old haw-haw voices of the Prussian guards,“ the 
same old ensigns’ jokes, the same old subalterns’ swagger. By contrast 
we later ran into a bunch of engineers who seemed quite nice, decent 
fellows. And the sailors, who were to be seen all over the place, really 
were splendid lads. But as for the admirals—~ what obesity!