Censorship

[“Neue Rheinische Zeitung”
No. 246, March 15, 1849]

* Cologne, March 14. The German daily press is really the slackest, sleepiest and most cowardly institution existing under the sun! The greatest infamies can occur before its eyes, against itself, and it remains silent, it conceals everything; if one did not learn of it by accident, through the press one would certainly not find out what the grace of God has brought to light in the shape of glorious March violets in individual places.

In Düsseldorf the citizen and communist Drigalski tried last autumn to reintroduce censorship under the pretext of the state of siege. For two days he succeeded; but the storm of public opinion compelled the gentlemen who drag sabres to drop their censorship appetites at once.

And how do things look in the old provinces?

For three months censorship has existed in full glory in two different districts, and the entire old Prussian press quietly tolerates this monstrous infringement of its rights!

Just listen:

Rosenberg, in Silesia, March 7. The “Rosenberg-Kreuzburger Telegraph” carries at the head of No. 19 the following declaration:

“We request the honoured readers of our paper not to hold us responsible for the belated issue of this number and its incompleteness, but to take into account that we are still in a state of siege and that the ‘Telegraph’—which recently was censored by the local royal Landrat, Herr Sack, who has been elected deputy to the Second Chamber—has now, following his departure for Berlin, been placed under direct military censorship. The Editors.”

Furthermore:

In Erfurt censorship has likewise existed unhindered since November 25. The press there was first censored by Herr F. W. Huthsteiner, now a police inspector, former editor of the “Barmer Zeitung”, which under the censorship was once liberal, an alleged liberal or democrat, later a subordinate of Duncker’s and a permanent Prussian policeman. Although this honourable man even struck out articles from the unfortunate Berlin “National-Zeitung” (!), his exercise of office was still not found Prussian enough, and he was replaced by an officer. Hence military censorship also exists in Erfurt.

As if that were not enough, censorship is also introduced for newspapers and publications printed abroad, i.e., outside the siege area. The “Erfurter Adreßblatt” of February 7 contains the following notification:

“By order of the Royal Honourable Commandant’s Office here, the local public is warned, under ‘appropriate police punishment’ and ‘immediate arrest’, against distributing or posting here any publications printed abroad which cast suspicion on the measures of the government or even attack them in malicious opposition and thereby work to alienate the minds of the inhabitants from the existing constitutional government, or which are calculated to arouse bitterness against certain classes of inhabitants and thus provoke excitement and discord in this town.

Erfurt, February 5, 1849

The Municipal Authority, Police Administration”

The reintroduction of censorship, the improvement of ordinary censorship by military censorship—these are indeed matters that concern the press closely enough. And the press of the neighbouring localities, the Breslau, Berlin and Leipzig press, accepts this as if it were all a matter of course! In fact, the German press is still the old “good press”.

We ask, however, our sleepy deputies in Berlin whether they do not yet intend to move forthwith for the impeachment of the ministers.

The Billion

[“Neue Rheinische Zeitung”
No. 247, March 16, 1849]

* Cologne, March 15. Shortly after the February revolution, money troubles began in Paris. Respect de la propriété! was generally proclaimed, and the poor petty bourgeois applied this to themselves. The provisional government was the more willing in its respect de la propriété as the bank immediately advanced it 50 million without interest. The provisional government was composed largely of petty bourgeois from the “National” and allowed itself to be deluded by the bank’s magnanimity. The 50 million were soon spent. Meanwhile the shareholders and holders of banknotes had had time to make the best use of respect de la propriété and to withdraw their metal from the bank. The petty bourgeois, who for their part also sought to turn respect de la propriété to their advantage, went to their banker to have their bills discounted, bills drawn on their propriété, i.e., on their industry, their boutique or their factory: the bankers pleaded want of money and refused to discount. They went to other bankers to have their bills endorsed by their own bankers and discounted at the bank: the bankers refused their endorsement. Respect de la propriété! Thus it was precisely the bankers who first violated respect for property, while they well knew how to exploit this respect themselves. Then the general complaint began that credit, confidence had disappeared. The petty bourgeois, on the contrary, still did not abandon their respect de la propriété; they thought that when “peace and order” were restored, confidence would also return, and then their bills would certainly be discounted on the basis of their propriété. It is known how, after the June battle, when peace and order were restored, the whole of propriété fell into the pockets of the bankers as a result of the judicial concordats, and how the petty bourgeois only grasped the meaning of “respect” when their “propriété” had gone to the devil. Those who suffered most at that time from the money crisis brought about by the big bourgeoisie were obviously the workers. At the same time as the provisional government invented the famous 45-centime tax to relieve its own distress, a placard appeared on the walls, signed by workers, which began with the words: avez-vous besoin d’argent? (Do you need money?) In this placard it was quite directly proposed to reclaim the billion which had been granted to the émigrés in 1825 as an indemnity. Who were the émigrés of that time? Precisely those who had stirred up and maintained the war against France from abroad, and who then returned to France in the train of the foreign powers. Who was among the émigrés to whom the indemnity benefited? The Duke of Orléans, i.e., the king who had just been driven out, and the Legitimists, i.e., the friends of the king who had been driven out long before. The Constituent Assembly and the Convention had decreed the confiscation of the property of the treacherous émigrés; the returning kings and émigrés of the two Restorations had imposed the indemnity on themselves and their friends. The kings had been driven out again, the decrees of the Constituent Assembly and the Convention again acquired full validity, and what was more natural than that the indemnity should again benefit the people. The placard in which the reclaiming of the billion was expounded in this manner was read by the workers with universal jubilation; they stood in thousands before the placard and discussed it in their own way. This went on for a whole day; the next day the placard had vanished from the walls as if by magic. The Legitimists and Orléanists, who recognised the whole danger that threatened them, had hired men for heavy money, who were specially commissioned to destroy this placard during the night down to the last trace. People were then in the whirl of new organisational plans. Everybody thought only of inventing a new system in order to introduce it at once into the “state” in spite of all existing conditions. The provisional government hit upon the unlucky idea of inventing the 45-centime tax on the peasants. The workers believed that the 45 centimes would produce the same effect as the billion: a tax on landed property—and let the billion drop. The “Journal des Débats”, as well as the stupid “National”, reinforced them in this opinion and explained in their leading articles that the true capital was the “land”, the original landed property, and that the provisional government had a perfect right to levy this tax for the benefit of the workers. When the actual levy was proceeded with, there arose from the peasants a murderous outcry against the workers of the towns. “What?” said the peasants, “we are worse off than the workers; we have to raise capital at heavy interest in order to cultivate our land and feed our families, and we are to pay, on top of the taxes and the interest for the capitalist, a maintenance payment for the workers?”

The peasants became disloyal to the Revolution because the latter, instead of promoting their interests, impaired them still further. The workers recognised the perfidy of the tax instigated by the reactionary party; the respect de la propriété now also became clear to them for the first time: the difference between formal and real property came to light; it turned out that bourgeois capital had, so to speak, wrenched the soil free from the earth, that the formal owner of the land had become a vassal of the capitalist, and that the tax affected only the indebted vassal. When, on top of this, the real landed proprietor made the poor peasant feel his influence all the more keenly through the withdrawal of credit, distraints, etc., the Revolution became truly hateful to him. The Legitimists, who through their large landed estates had a great deal of influence in the countryside, exploited this relationship, and this gave rise to the machinations of the Royalists on behalf of Henry V. Amid these circumstances, so distressing for the Revolution, 15 May 1848 drew near. The milliard of Barbès, put forward in a different form though it was, again struck the people like a bolt of lightning and kindled a fire. Even the June battle could not stifle this idea of the milliard, and now, as the trial of Barbès is being heard in Bourges, it has taken on flesh and blood among the peasants. To demand back from the Legitimists, their seigneurs and bloodsuckers, the milliard which they, the peasants, had raised – that is a bait of a different kind from Napoleon. The agitation for its repayment has already spread throughout the whole of France, and if the matter were to be decided by universal suffrage, it would obtain even more votes than Napoleon. The milliard is the first revolutionary measure to hurl the peasants into the Revolution. The petitions which are coming in from all sides, the tone in which these petitions are couched, prove that this demand has already taken firm root. In Cluny people are demanding not only the return of the milliard but also the interest at 3 per cent which it has yielded since 1825. Since the trial in Bourges the petitions have been piling up in such a way as to begin to seem uncanny both to the judges at Bourges and to the whole reactionary party. Today, again, Ägey, Ancey, Malain, St. Wibaldt, Vittaux and a host of other communes have had petitions conveyed to the Chamber by their people’s representatives. Under the heading “Rappel du Milliard”[^1] the journals daily register the names of new communes which are joining in this grand measure. Soon one will read on all the walls, in all the communes: “Rappel du Milliard,” and once the impending elections take place under this cry, we shall see what the capitalists, whether they call themselves Legitimists, Orleanists or bourgeois, can set against this milliard in order to oust the democratic candidates who intend to enter the new Chamber with the dowry of this milliard so as to make it benefit the peasants and workers as *appanage* monies. But that is not all: Louis-Napoléon had everywhere promised the peasants not only the repayment of the 45-centime tax, but an alleviation of taxes in general. In the petitions it is universally demanded that the milliard be used in large part for that purpose. As for the juridical justification of the repayment itself, this was established immediately after the July Revolution of 1830. At that time, payment of what still remained of the milliard was suddenly suspended. If what had already been paid out was not reclaimed then, there was no other reason for this than the fact that Louis-Philippe and his family had themselves received a very large part of these funds.

The counter-revolutionary party, unable to dispute the justice of this measure, contents itself for the time being with drawing attention to the difficulty of carrying it out. The difficulty, they say, consists in discovering those who drew larger or smaller sums from this indemnity once granted. Nothing easier than that. Let us begin with the large sums. At the head of the list stands the Duke of Orléans (the later Louis-Philippe) and his sister Madame Adélaïde, with 50 millions, and these millions need only be charged against the immense estates which the National Assembly quite recently restored to the royal family.

The Prince of Condé received 30 millions, and who inherited these 30 millions? The Duke of Aumale and Mme de Feuchères. Here, then, a fine beginning could already be made. The royal family possesses enormous forests and estates in France, and the peasants are already beginning to calculate what they have lost through not having had these millions returned to them as early as 1830.

[^1]: Return of the milliard