London, 28 January 1895 

Dear Victor, 

Many congratulations from myself and everyone else here on the rapid 
success achieved by the Arbeiter-Zeitung *”° It was no more than I expected, 
but to see it confirmed in actual fact is, of course, also worth a great deal. 

* Das Westphélische Dampfboot 

There is no need at all for you to worry about the editorial side. During the 
early weeks you, as organiser, are infinitely more important than you would 
be as actual editor. Once everything is going smoothly, you should have no 
difficulty in striking the right note in the paper. You are quite right about it’s 
being a mite too serious. A bit more humour, particularly on the front page, 
which used always to be very funny in the twiceweekly edition, would do no 
harm at all. However, that will come. 

A direct telegraph service from foreign capitals would be of absolutely no 
use to you, That would mean your having a properly organised office in every 
city with a chief correspondent to run it professionally, and solely on your 
account; here in London this would cost between six hundred and a thousand 
pounds a year, and even so you wouldn’t be getting the best news from 
ministerial or opposition circles, for the simple reason that you are only 
accorded priority and given news of this sort ahead of everyone else and 
before it has become common property if you are able to reciprocate by 
giving your informants your support and publishing the ready-made puffs 
they send you. But that is just what our press cannot do. So, where news from 
official circles is concerned, you will never be able to compete with the big 
bourgeois papers who not only monopolise the sources but can also organise 
news-gathering services on a footing similar to that of big industry. 

It’s hard luck, your having to content yourselves during the first few 
weeks with the little provincial assemblies, but the Diet will soon be meeting 
again and then you will have plenty of material, whereupon your personal 
intervention will again become necessary, 

The differences in the Ministry here are of no great account so far as their 
practical consequences are concerned. The Liberal government contains as 
many shades of opinion as it has members. Now that the big bourgeoisie 
together with Whig aristocrats “’’ and the university ideologues have gone 
over to the Conservative camp (a process which began after 1848, gained 
impetus after the Reform Bill of 1867 ** and became very marked after the 
HOME RULE BILL '”'), Liberalism has been largely an omnium gatherum of all 
the sects and sectarian crotchets in this sect-ridden country. And since each 
individual sect considers its own particular crotchet to be the one and only 
panacea, the result is constant strife. 

But of greater moment than that strife is the certain knowledge that only 
cohesion vis-a-vis the outside world can keep them in power for a 

few months longer. Consequently it is a matter of pure chance which 
tendency may gain the upper hand. 

I have been sending you in rotation copies of the three labour newspapers 
which still survive here. Since you get the Clarion by way of exchange I 
shall spare you this in future. There is nothing much in any of the three but 
nevertheless it’s advisable that you should take a look at one or the other 
from time to time. The Labour Leader is an institution for the idolisation of 
Keir Hardie; he is a cunning, crafty Scot, a Pecksniff and arch-intriguer, but 
too cunning, perhaps, and too vain. The financial sources he draws upon to 
keep the paper going are of a dubious kind, which might cause 
unpleasantness when the new elections are held. 

Apropos. Not a single copy of Thursday evening’s issue” (confiscated) 
arrived here. But nevertheless I should like to read the article, K. M. in Wien 
*' Could you get hold of another copy for me? That was an astounding piece 
of cheek, by the way your announcing the confiscation to have been so 
extraordinarily effective that it enabled you to save yourselves the expense of 
another, quite unnecessary, edition. *”” You people are lucky in Austria—if 
you were to say something like that in Prussia they would promptly chuck 
three Subversion Bills *”* at your head. 

We shall be sending you extracts from /a Crawford’s Paris letters when- 
ever they contain something of interest. I would specially call your attention 
to them. She has been in Paris for over forty years, knows every mouse in the 
place by name, possesses dossiers on the career of every politician and is a 
good judge of character. No one in Paris can equal her knowledge of 
personalities and you would therefore be well-advised to file away for future 
reference even those articles for which you have no present use. Over and 
over again she has seen all her Radical and Republican friends plunge into 
the mire of corruption and has thus, bourgeois though she is, acquired a 
remarkable sympathy for Socialists. She has one unshakeable conviction, 
however, and that is that J. Guesde is Marx’s son-in-law. 

Yesterday I sent you another excerpt from one of her articles. °° 

Louise has been especially gratified by the unequivocal rejection of the 
petitions of the Women’s Union—see Clara Zetkin’s article in the supple- 
ment to Thursday’s Vorwarts. °’' Clara is right and did after all manage to 
get the article accepted in the teeth of long and determined opposition. Bravo 
Clara! 

“ of the Arbeiter-Zeitung 

Love from Louise and Ludwig and the baby who always yells with glee 
whenever the Arbeiter-Zeitung arrives, and from 

Yours, 
F.E.