Letter to Friedrich Engels, December 17, 1858

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 17 December 1858


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 2, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXII, Moscow, 1929
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 40


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 17 December [1858]

DEAR Frederick,

£ 2 received with THANKS.

I knew about Blind's confection (just the kind of thing, as he told me himself, that Hecker used to do), although I wasn't, of course, aware of some of the nicer details. D'abord, this Telegraph Morning Express is edited by several English Seilers, and all its telegraphic despatches, or at any rate the better part of them, are reprinted from London morning papers. I can vouch for the FACT that Blind smuggled a bogus TELEGR. DESPATCH[1] into The Morning Advertiser. This was, OF COURSE, instantly appropriated by the Telegraph Morning Express. Secondly, Dr Bronner is not merely an but the agent of Blind, [he] having 'no other' to send. I also believe it was he himself who 'decreed' that [the missive] be sent to Lupus, since Bronner never does anything [without] official sanction. In today's Daily Telegraph also, you will find in the letter from Berlin: *'Similar petitions have been presented to the (Holstein) Diet by the German merchants resident at Bradford and Liverpool.'* The industry of these little Baden fleas hatched in the democratic midden is touching. Even the Ancients indulged in sundry edifying reflections on the subject of flea jumps.

I've had a satisfying experience with the Tribune. For months that rotten sheet had published as LEADERS all my articles on China[2] (a complete history of Anglo-Chinese trade,[3] etc.) and had even been complimented on them. But when the official text of the Anglo-Chinese treaty[4] was finally released, I wrote an article[5] in which I said inter alia that the Chinese 'would now legalise the import of opium, likewise put an IMPORT DUTY on opium and, LASTLY, might even permit the cultivation of opium actually in China', and thus the SECOND OPIUM WAR' would SOONER OR LATER deal a DEADLY BLOW to the English OPIUM TRADE, and notably to the INDIAN EXCHEQUER. WELL! Mr Dana printed this article as being from an OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT in London, and himself wrote a bombastic LEADER refuting his OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT[6] NOW, [the day before yesterday] (on Monday, RATHER), my predictions were confirmed word for word in the HOUSE OF COMMONS by Fitzgerald and Stanley in the name of the Ministry.[7] So on Tuesday, qua OCCASIONAL CORRESPONDENT I wrote a SOMEWHAT mocking though, of course, restrained piece about my castigator.

Apropos. My brother-in-law,[8] a tall and tedious if worthy Dutchman, is coming up to Manchester on business. And notably to ascertain the solvency of certain individuals. Send me your private address, as he wishes to contact you. But avoid any allusion to my PRIVATE AFFAIRS.

Salut.

Your

K. M.

Little by little philistine Freiligrath is coughing up sundry things about Gottfried.[9] 1. that Gottfried is sending Gerstenberg to see various MERCHANTS in the City, suggesting they subscribe to the Hermann. After all, says he, the poor man has got to 'live' and make up for the loss incurred through the death of his wife. 2. He tells me that Gottfried, immediately after the Mockel woman's death, approached him and asked whether (and how big) a deal might be done with Cotta over her literary estate. 'After all', says Gottfried, 'I enjoy the favour of the public' It could be that Blind himself is again hoodwinking The Morning Advertiser and getting friend Schütz to send bogus telegraphic despatches from Brussels.

Cluss has married someone he met at Dr Wiss's in Baltimore. Apropos, on the strength of Blind's recommendation, Bronner has found Landolphe the grec[10] a schoolmaster's post in Bradford.

Mr Liebknecht has introduced Edgar Bauer into the Workers' Society.50 I WATCH HIM.

  1. ↑ dated Brussels
  2. ↑ First
  3. ↑ K. Marx. 'History of the Opium Trade' (two articles).
  4. ↑ Marx refers to the unequal treaties signed in Tientsin in June 1858 by Britain and France with China during the second Opium War (1856-60). The treaties made new ports available to foreign trade; foreign diplomatic representatives were authorised in Peking; foreigners were allowed to travel freely in the country for commercial or other purposes; Britain and France received economic privileges through the introduction of new commercial rules legalising the opium trade, and were paid indemnities. Marx discussed these treaties in his articles written in August and early September for the New-York Daily Tribune: 'History of the Opium Trade' and 'The Anglo-Chinese Treaty' (see present edition, Vol. 16). However, the article mentioned in this letter was not published in the Tribune.—342, 347, 362, 387
  5. ↑ K. Marx, 'The British and Chinese Treaty'.
  6. ↑ 'Our London correspondent suggests...', New York Daily Tribune, No. 5455, 15 October 1858
  7. ↑ Marx is mistaken here. Fitzgerald and Stanley could not have spoken in the House of Commons on Monday, 13 December, for Parliament did not meet from 2 August 1858 to early January 1859. On 14 December The Times (No. 23176) reprinted excerpts from Lord Stanley's speech of 13 December 1858 before the young cadets of the Manchester military school, one of the topics being the situation in India. (The speech was reported in greater detail in The Manchester Guardian.) Fitzgerald too may have spoken at this meeting. This warrants the assumption that Marx actually meant these speeches.—363
  8. ↑ Johann Carl Juta
  9. ↑ Kinkel
  10. ↑ swindler