Letter to Karl Kautsky, December 4, 1893

ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN STUTTGART

London, 4 December 1893
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

Dear Baron,

First of all my warmest thanks for your good wishes on my 73rd birthday which has left me fit and well.

Either you misinterpreted my remarks about the 'publisher' or I expressed myself badly.^[1] It never occurred to me to lay the blame on Dietz or, indeed, any one individual, in as much as I was not sufficiently au fait with what had happened over there in regard to the Stepniak business 288 before this had come to my notice. I merely adduced it as an awful example that ought not to be followed. And in view of the position occupied by publishers in this country, there could be no doubt that the German publisher had gratuitously presented Sonnenschein (or so it must seem to him) with £25, which could not but give him, Sonnenschein, a somewhat indifferent idea of the business efficiency of German publishers. Nor can you Stuttgarters contest this. And as the surest way of obviating anything of that kind, I drew your attention to the fact that, in this country, the consent of the author is not in itself, a safeguard since, in nine cases out of ten, the English publisher has the final say, for as a rule he has been assigned the copyright, including right of translation (this is actually stated in print in, for instance, every one of Sonnenschein's contract forms, or else he stipulates that he should have some say in the matter. So please tell Dietz that it never even crossed my mind to cast any aspersion whatsoever on his efficiency as a business man.

As regards international contracts, Sam Moore [originally] looked this up in PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS from which he made extracts, and the information about one year and three years was certainly correct at that time. I know nothing about the Berne Convention 303 and its ten-year term of copyright for translations and I should be grateful if you would let me know the date of the said Convention, in which case I could procure the copy made for Parliament.

Victor writes to say that the general strike in Austria is dead as a door nail; so a discussion of it would not be likely to do any harm.^[2] But at the same time we have had inquiries from the Austrian provinces as to what we in this country think of a general strike.

I still believe that electoral reform, at least in the form hatched up by Taaffe and Franz Joseph, is a foregone conclusion in Austria. 270 Even if the coalition ministry succeeds in tabling and gaining acceptance for a Bill for the extension of the parliamentary franchise without, as it must, foundering in consequence, or in consequence of something else in the meantime, the matter will by no means be settled. In a country as artificially equilibrated as Austria, a stable balance, once destroyed, can be restored only with difficulty, maybe by force alone, and the government is only too well aware that even this will be effective only for a while and will leave the state weaker than it was before. And the fact that Franz Joseph has given his blessing to this particular piece of electoral reform which he has, indeed, declared to be his very own work, rules out once and for all the possibility of Austria continuing as before. Now it's

Humptius in muro sedebat, Dumptius alto, Humptius de muro Dumptius, heul cecidit Nec equites regis, nee agmina cuncta tyranni Humpti te Dumpti restituere queunt.

Or:

HUMPTY DUMPTY SAT ON A WALL, HUMPTY DUMPTY HAD A GREAT FALL, ALL THE KING'S HORSES AND ALL THE KING'S MEN,

CANNOT PUT HUMPTY DUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN. 304

In all probability Taaffe will return to office after a certain interval; he would seem to have taken the Disraeli of 1867 for his model. 305 At the moment this caricature of an artful dodger, along with the irresolute Franz Joseph, is involuntarily engaged in making Austria the spearhead of the political movement in Europe, as Pius IX made Italy in 1846. 274

You are right in leaving the Neue Zeit as it is for the time being. 85 In such a case one shouldn't mess about with something like this unless absolutely necessary. Since it is a weekly, then let it so remain unless really compelled to make a change.

Don't worry about Volume III.^[3] Come what may, we shall see that you are in a position to do a review of it to coincide with the book's appearance.

Love from one household to the other.

Yours,

F. E.