| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 29 November 1852 |
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, Monday, 29 November 1852
Dear Marx,
I've been toiling over the enclosed article[1] until one o'clock in the morning, but another post goes at 9 a.m. I'll try it as an experiment and see whether you get it in time for the STEAMER (Tuesday evening per first MAIL to Liverpool); if not, you'll have to send it by Friday's steamer.
Tomorrow I have to go out of town. If I'm back early enough I shall send you some money.
Shall I be getting an article on England for the Tribune soon? I am now able to work again.
Cobden seems to have been disappointed in the ministerial hopes he had pinned on Graham and Russell; the latter would appear to be giving him the cold shoulder. I can see no other explanation for his rage on Friday.[2] Not since 1844 has the fellow spoken with such fury. HE IS A DISAPPOINTED DEMAGOGUE AGAIN for as long as this continues. By the way, it's a good thing the Tories were in a majority, for now we shall get to hear about Disraeli's budget after all. If the chap's knowledge and intelligence were greater and his cunning and thieving propensities less, nothing would be easier than to arrange a FREE TRADE BUDGET for the FREE TRADERS that would make them see stars. If only the fellows hold out until the crisis comes! We are décidément in EXCITEMENT. Although even this is still going very piano piano. But no matter. The six pages of JOINT-STOCK prospectuses in today's Daily News—on the strength of which it thinks to outshine The Times—are bound to have an effect, likewise the 50-80 or so foreign railway, gold mining, steamship, etc., etc., companies. Inevitably this will create a taste 'for more'. Fortunately the only circumstance which might have brought over-production in the cotton industry to a premature end has now been eliminated; the new crop will be far in excess of 3 million bales, i.e. the biggest there has ever been, and cotton is again going down; so there'll be no shortage of raw material. Only let the corn harvest fail next year and we shall see a merry dance. But unless it does so, it is difficult to say whether anything decisive will happen as early as next year, given the abnormal conditions, given the mushroom growth of the markets in Australia and California where, as there are hardly any women and children, one individual consumes perhaps four times as much as elsewhere and gold is freely squandered in the towns, given the new market which the Calcutta houses are already exploiting in Burma, given the way Bombay and Karachi are expanding their trade with North-East India and the adjacent territories (particularly so in the case of the latter), etc.
Your
F. E.