London, 8 March 1892 

Dear August, 

We were all very glad to hear that your parliamentary anniversary 
was such a jolly occasion.*! So far as the address is concerned, I did, 
as requested, certainly send off a draft '°* which — since I had to take 
account of the wishes, specific but unknown to me, of a parliamentary 
group most of whose 35 members were likewise personally unknown 
to me— seemed to me distinctly flat nor, till that moment, had I 
heard anything about either it or its fate. The French wrote one for you, 
published in today’s Soczaliste, in which they could let themselves go 
a bit more.*33 

So Liebknecht has been chucked out of the Dresden froggery.*3* 
Considering how petty those philistines are, little else was to be ex- 

* high politics-> ‘Der Sozialismus in Deutschland’ -° Katharina Sorge 

pected. Pretexts are never wanting and, while the affair may have ac- 
corded their vindictiveness some small personal satisfaction, the jack- 
asses have derived no advantage whatever therefrom. The Vorwarts, 
by the by, has shown a marked improvement of late. 

I am glad that the rumpuses in Berlin are over and that our people 
have held themselves so strictly aloof.+?” There might very well have 
been a bit of shooting and that would have sufficed to make things 
awkward for us in all kinds of ways. Had there been shooting in Ber- 
lin, the National Liberals *'* would have been quite capable of en- 
thusiastically supporting the Elementary School Bill*?! while the 
hitherto indeterminate anger of certain people would finally have 
been directed against ourselves. The one reactionary mass,>?? which 
is looming larger every day, is not much use to us as yet; so long as we 
cannot actively make history ourselves, our interests demand that his- 
torical developments should not stand still, and to that end it is neces- 
sary that the bourgeois parties remain at loggerheads. And here the 
present regime is invaluable in that it provides that very situation for 
us. But if the shooting starts foo soon, i.e. before the old parties have 
become more closely locked in combat, it might drive them to seek 
a reconciliation with each other and to form a united front against us. 
It will happen some time, as surely as eggs is eggs and, if it happens 
when we are, say, twice as strong as at present, it will no longer mat- 
ter very much. Though even were it to happen now, the exercise of 
personal power would undoubtedly see to it that the opponents fell 
out with each other again. But it’s better to be on the safe side. Things 
are going so famously now that we can only hope they'll be allowed to 
proceed without interruption. 

However, unemployment might well get worse next year. For pro- 
tectionism has had exactly the same effect as free trade — the flooding 
of individual national markets and this almost everywhere, though 
it’s not so bad over here as where you are. But in this country where 
we have come through two or three insidious little crises since 1867, 
we would at last seem to be heading for another acute one. The 
enormous cotton crops of the past 2 or 3 years (up to 9 million or 
more bales a year) have depressed prices to the same extent as in the 
worst days of the 1846 crisis, and are thus exerting tremendous pres- 
sure on production which means that the manufacturers here are hav- 
ing to overproduce because of overproduction by the American 
planters! At the same time they are steadily losing money because the 
falling price of raw materials invariably means that their product, 

spun from expensive cotton, has already fallen in value by the time it 
reaches the market. Indeed, that is the reason for the cries of distress emanat- 
ing from the German and Alsatian cotton spinners, though no one has said 
anything about this in the Reichstag. Nor are other branches of in- 
dustry faring much better over here. For the past 15 months there 
has been a marked decline in railway revenues and in the export of 
industrial goods so that in this country, too, the outlook for next win- 
ter is pretty bleak. No improvement can really be looked for in conti- 
nental countries that have protective tariffs and, even though trade 
agreements might bring momentary relief, this will be offset before 
the year is out. And if next winter the same rumpus, but on a larger 
scale, recurs in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome and Madrid and finds an 
echo in London and New York, a still more serious situation might 
arise. On the other hand, it’s a blessing that Paris and London, at any 
rate, have municipal councils that are all too aware of their depend- 
ence on the Labour vote, and are the less inclined to put up any seri- 
ous resistance to demands, realisable even today, such as employment 
on public works, shorter working hours, wages in accordance with 
trades union demands, etc., etc., in that these represent the best 
means of safeguarding the masses against worse socialist — genuinely 
socialist — heresies. It remains to be seen whether the municipal 
councillors of Berlin and Vienna, who owe their election to a suffrage 
that is based on class and property, are forced nolentes volentes,* to 
flounder along in their wake. 

Yesterday’s Standard carried a telegram from St Petersburg according 
to which, after William’s” speech in the Brandenburg Landtag, one 
of the gentlemen pointed out that the ‘glory’ to which he had alluded 
was opposed by, inter alia, Russia. Whereat William replied: ‘I shall 
PULVERIZE RUSSIA’, or words to that effect. Shuvalov, it seems, got to hear 
of this and, having assured himself of the authenticity of the report, 
passed it on to Azs Emperor. Whereupon Alexander promptly sought 
occasion to reprimand Schweinitz, instructing him to tell his Empe- 
ror that ‘should he again feel the urge to pulverise Russia, I shall have 
the pleasure of sending half a million soldiers across his borders’. 

On Saturday * Russia won a victory here in London which, how- 
ever, will no longer be of any use to it. In the County Council elec- 
tions (in London what is known elsewhere as a municipal council is 
called County Council) the Liberals scored a resounding victory and 

@ willy -nilly-° William II-° 5 March 

there is no longer any doubt — if indeed there ever was — that, after 
the next parliamentary elections, Gladstone will come to power. But 
Gladstone is fanatically pro-Russian, anti-Turk and anti-Austrian, 
and his accession would provide Alexander with a further incentive 
for war since it would mean England’s benevolent neutrality, not to 
mention English pressure on Italy to keep her neutral as well. The fa- 
mine and the internal conflicts which we may hope it will evoke in 
Russia will redress the balance — provided, that is, nothing silly is 
done on either side of the Russian border, a possibility which can 
never entirely be excluded. 

For the rest, and so far as this country is concerned, the Liberal vic- 
tory is not a bad thing. The Conservatives aren’t up to much unless 
they have at their head a chap like Disraeli capable of leading the 
whole party by the nose and getting it to do the opposite of what it 
actually intended. The present leaders are nothing but fools and 
coxcombs who allow the local party leaders, i. e. the stupidest men on 
earth, to dictate what their programme should be. Moreover 6 years 
in office have exhausted and staled them. So there has got to be 
a change and that is what the whole of this farce ultimately boils 
down to. 

Ede tells me he has had a letter from Mehring saying that neither 
the Neue Zert nor the Vorwéris nor any other party newspaper has 
taken the slightest notice of his antz-Richter*; he considers this inexcus- 
able, feels inclined to give up politics altogether, etc. I can see that, to 
an author accustomed to literary pretentiousness — this is not to im- 
ply any blame, for in the bourgeois press, even at its most literary, 
that sort of thing is not only the rule but a sine qua non—TI can see, 
then, that to a man like this, who has grown up in the non- 
Social-Democratic press, these Social-Democratic customs could be 
highly objectionable. But then we should all of us have to raise our 
voices in complaint, for the same thing is done to you and me and all 
the rest. None the less, and however unpleasant it may sometimes be 
for the individual, I consider this haughty indifference on the part of 
our press to be one of its greatest merits. Mehring’s stuff will be 
bought and read even if the Vorwdrts doesn’t puff and it is better not 
to boost anything than to boost the masses of party trash which, 
worse luck, are also launched upon the world. And if any one thing were 

°F. Mehring, Herr Eugen Richters Bilder aus der Gegenwart. Eine Entgegnung von Franz 
Mehring. 

to be singled out, ‘equal rights for all’ would be demanded for every- 
thing else, in accordance with time-honoured democratic custom. 
That being so, I would rather put up with the equal right of being 
passed over in silence. 

But there is one thing your chaps might do — come to an equitable 
arrangement with Mehring’s publisher as regards regular and fre- 
quent advertising. That, however, is another example of the total 
lack of business sense which is congenital to our newspapermen. 

I recently got hold of a copy of the 3rd edition of Mehring’s Deut- 
sche Socialdemokratie and took a look at the historical part. I should 
say that, in Kapital und Presse, he skates rather lightly over this inci- 
dent.*** But it’s all one to us and we’ve got nothing to reproach him 
with; whether he’s got anything to reproach himself with is his own af- 
fair and no concern of ours. In his place / should have admitted my 
change of heart quite openly, since there’s nothing whatever for him 
to be ashamed of and it would have saved him a great deal of time, 
vexation and strife. It would, by the by, be absurd for him seriously to 
consider withdrawing from politics since he would thereby only be 
doing the ruling powers and the bourgeoisie a service; his leaders in the 
Neue eit are indeed really first-rate and we eagerly await the appear- 
ance of each one. Such verve should not be allowed to wither away or 
be wasted on rotten belletrists. 

We all liked Siegel very much. He is yet another of those German 
working men whom one would be proud to be seen with in any com- 
pany. The fact that he left in order to escape quite exceptionally ri- 
gorous and systematic persecution is in no way reprehensible. It’s just 
because they are only now entering the movement that the miners are 
being persecuted with especial rigour, nor can the victims in any way 
rely on the support of their fellow workers — and for the same reason 
solidarity has not yet gained general recognition. Cunninghame- 
Graham and Keir Hardie have procured work for him in Scotland 
and his family is following him there. The company he is working for 
are advancing him the money and deducting it from his wages. Now, 
it’s not going to be easy for him to repay this. I have given him five 
pounds for the journey to Scotland and to help him settle in, but can- 
not well do more. Would it not be appropriate for you people to grant 
him a subsidy of, say, 100 or 150 marks? I have read the letters Schro- 
der wrote him and there seems small likelihood of his getting any- 
thing from that quarter. Think the matter over. 

From the enclosed chit from the Witch’s kitchen you will see that 

your lobster mayonnaise will, ‘by virtue of the true elapse’ of time (to 

use Arnold Ruge’s words) put in an appearance only to disappear 

a moment later. Let us hope this dialectical process will then be 

crowned by a smoothly functioning negation of the negation. 
Cordial regards. 

Your 
F.E. 

The 10th of April is Palm Sunday. You should leave no later than 
the 8th, in which case you would be here by the evening of Saturday 
the 9th at the latest. That would be the best and most convenient ar- 
rangement. You won’t be needed for the Queen’s Speech. So we shall 
expect you here on the 9th.