Letter to Karl Marx, November 8, 1867

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To Marx in London

Manchester, 8 November 1867

Dear Moor,

In great haste:

Siebel will be here tomorrow or in Liverpool, where I shall see him. He can place another 3 articles [on the first volume of Capital], which I have prepared at once and which we shall then despatch with all speed. If I had known that it would be so long before he came, he should have received them in Barmen long ago.

The idea about the Internationale Revue had already occurred to me, too, and shall be attended to. Likewise with The Fortnightly Review, as soon as acceptance is assured. For the moment, however, I believe it is most important to create a rumpus in the German daily press, pour forcer la main à ces gueux d'économistes [to force the hand of these miserable economists]. The downbreak of the police in the trial here has been more rapid and more complete than I had expected. But there is probably even better to come. Old Blackburn also appears to be changing his tune, today he complimented Ernest Jones most fulsomely on his speech.

Have you read Bismarck’s instructions to Usedom (in the Augsburger Abendzeitung denied, of course)? The fellow is making no bones about exposing the Italians’ intrigues with Bonaparte; one has to grant him that he is capable of the most undiplomatic manners if it suits him. (Kölnische Zeitung of Wednesday has reprinted it.) This stance of Bismarck’s also explains the Italians’ retreat and their present grovelling.

Concerning the true nature of the inspections, checks and interferences of the Prussian bureaucracy: my brother writes that the manufacturers want to set up an association on the Rhine and in the Ruhr, like the ones here, to have their boilers periodically examined by competent engineers, and he goes on to say of the government control:

‘Here at our place, a District Architect inspects 7 boilers in half an hour (!!) and goes home quite satisfied, in another factory a similar official took 2 hours for 35 boilers!! If anyone is so foolish as to imagine he can sleep soundly after such an inspection, he is, of course. deceived. It would be a real blessing if this nonsense were done away with and replaced by some sensible practical arrangement. At one inspection, I first explained the boiler with all its fittings to the District Architect, then I carried out his instructions as well and finally wrote the report for the government for him.'

There are the Prussians for you! Portrayed by themselves.