London, 20 June 1892 

Dear August, 

Herewith the Judenflinten? under sealed cover, for if sent by 
book post they might well be confiscated. 

Schorlemmer is still so-so. I found him weak, apathetic, his facul- 
ties slightly clouded, but not otherwise in pain. Gumpert writes to say 
that the lung tumour is growing slowly but surely, with (due to pres- 
sure on the big arteries which should carry back the blood from the 
upper part of the body to the heart) a concomitant disturbance of 
cerebral activity; also apathy and loss of memory. He is still taking 
sufficient nourishment, however, so that, barring accidents, things 
might go on as they are for some little while. 

The fact that Warken is still holding his own in the Saar ought not 
to surprise you in view of the fact that Schroder is able to hold his 
own in the Ruhr. I wrote a line or two to Siegel telling him what Bunte 
had said to you about his flight.* Siegel sent that letter to Schréder 
along with a wholly guileless letter of his own saying that Bunte had 
been caught embezzling money, and Schréder gave me both of 
them — Siegel’s and my own—to read. Whether it’s true about 
Bunte I don’t know. At all events you can see that Schréder is still 
firmly in the saddle. In the case of so young a movement as that of the 
miners, one ought always to consider carefully whether it wouldn’t be 
better to give untried johnnies like Schroder and Warken enough 
rope to hang themselves, or at any rate enough to provide us with de- 
finite, tangible evidence against them. And there’s really nothing new 
in that, for wherever the movement arises anew the first leaders to 
push their way to the fore are more often than not place-seekers and 
blackguards. 

Bax is now editor of Justice and will remain so until the end of July; 
and it is now a decent paper; yesterday it gave a decent mention to 
Aveling’s speeches in Aberdeen, while internecine strife (i. e. indi- 
rectly Hyndman himself) was condemned.°°* Indeed, yesterday Bax 

* See this volume, p. 429. 

came hurrying round here in order to get his pat on the back, as the 
Witch, with her keen nose for such things, had prophesied the mo- 
ment she set eyes on the paper. What Hyndman actually has in view 
is not yet very clear to me. Most likely he realises that he’s been com- 
promised by his previous policy and that a change of front is called 
for. His paper is running at a loss, his Socia, Democratic Feperation ?° 
isn’t getting anything like its share in the general growth of the move- 
ment over here —a share which would entitle it to take over the lea- 
dership; nor is it succeeding in its rivalry with the Fastans?— on the 
contrary, it has been left in the lurch, and will continue to be so left, 
by its foreign allies Brousse and Gilles. In short, he might well deem it 
advisable to turn elsewhere and seek a rapprochement with us. That 
would be very far from pleasant for, as I have told anybody who was 
prepared to listen, I would far sooner have Hyndman for an enemy 
(when he is virtually powerless) than for a friend (when one has to 
keep a constant and very time-consuming watch on him). Another 
thing that may have impelled him to adopt this course is the total loss 
of any electoral prospects in Chelsea from which he proposed to oust 
Sir Charles Dilke but where Quelch, the test candidate put forward 
by Hyndman in the Country Counciz elections,*!? polled only 153 vo- 
tes, since which time he has abandoned all hope. At all events Hynd- 
man will find it difficult in August to resume the old attitude so pub- 
licly disavowed by Bax in the self-same paper, nor could or should he 
do so if he wishes to compete successfully with the Fasians. Well, we 
shall see. 

Over here we are already in the thick of the electoral fray °°* and 
the Tories and Liberal Unionists °°° are proferring an abundance of 
money so as to provide Labour candidates with cash and thereby 
enable them to steal votes from the Liberals. Champion, one of the To. 
rigs’ chief agents in this respect, offered Aveling the means to contest 
Labouchére’s seat in Northampton but needless to say Aveling re- 
fused. These financial blandishments have put the Labour leaders into 
a state of tremendous excitation and such of the good fellows as think 
they can get something out of it are tussling with their consciences in 
an attempt to convince the latter that there is after all some honest 
way of accepting Tory money without blushing, though admittedly 
the blushing is mainly due to the fear of eventually doing themselves 
more harm than good. Knowing the extent to which all political life 
over here is riddled with parliamentary corruption, one can only 
wonder that the chaps should feel even this modicum of shame. 

True, the Horlacherliesl* is closely related to the Witch; neverthe- 
less, I still prefer the latter. Greatly though Anzengruber may on oc- 
casion idealise his Austrian peasant, and uncommonly restricted 
though the background may be against which his excellent dramas 
take place, nevertheless one is painfully aware of the separation of 
that splendid race from the rest of Germany and of the necessity for 
reunification which, however, only we are capable of bringing about. 

Well, I wish I could drop Mrs Julie,” honorary bookkeeper, 
a couple of lines to thank her for her last letters which have, alas, not 
yet had an answer, but I am up to my eyes in work. I have two more 
long and somewhat ticklish letters to write after which I intend at 
long last to get down to Volume III. ° Hence I have got to put on one 
side all the correspondence that merely gives me pleasure and devote 
myself solely to business matters. So be my advocate with your wife 
and don’t let her be too angry with me. I shall make vp for it, if possi- 
ble before I come to Berlin, but otherwise when I get there; I look for- 
ward so much to meeting her and know in advance that we 
shall get on very well. So warm regards to her and yourself from both 
of us. 

Your old 
General