Reply to Brentano's Second Article

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Marx wrote this letter because the Concordia, No. 27, July 4, published anonymously a second article by Luigi Brentano, entided "Wie Karl Marx sich vertheidigt" (How Karl Marx defends himself). (See Note 124.) Adolf Hepner, an editor of Der Volksstaat, sent this new article to Marx c/o Engels and asked for a prompt reply stressing the importance of the struggle against the pseudo-socialist bourgeois trend (Katheder-Socialism) to which the author of the article belonged.

TO THE EDITORS OF DER VOLKSSTAAT

In the Concordia of July 4, the German Manufacturers’ Association attempted to prove to me that its “learned men” were as well fitted to judge literary goods as the Association was to fake commercial ones.

With reference to the passage from Gladstone’s budget speech of April 16, 1863, as quoted in the Inaugural Address of the International, the manufacturers’ organ (No. 10) stated:

“Marx has added the sentence lyingly, both in form and in content.”

It thus declares that I fabricated the sentence in both form and content, with hair and bones. Even more: it knows exactly how I did so. The paper writes: “The fact that Gladstone mentioned this, etc., was utilised by Marx in order to have Gladstone say, etc.” By quoting the sentence from a work published before the Inaugural Address, the THEORY OF EXCHANGES, I exposed the crude lie of the manufacturers’ organ. As the paper itself tells, it then ordered from London this work, which it did not know, and convinced itself of the facts of the matter. How could it lie itself out of the situation? See here:

“When we stated that Marx had lyingly added the sentence in question to Gladstone’s speech, we did not claim, either in form or in content, that he himself had also fabricated it.”

Here we obviously have a case of equivocation peculiar to the mind of manufacturers. For example, when a manufacturing swindler, in agreement with business colleagues, sends out into the world rolls of ribbon that contain, instead of the alleged three dozen ells only two dozen, then he has in fact lyingly added one dozen ells, precisely because he “has not fabricated” them. Why, moreover, should lyingly added sentences not behave just like lyingly added ells? “The understandings of the greater part of men,” says Adam Smith, “are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments”, the understandings of the manufacturer included.

Through the Volksstaat, I extended the erudite materials of the manufacturers’ organ, not only with the quotation from the THEORYOF EXCHANGES, but also with the pages from my work Capital concerning Gladstone’s budget speeches. Now, from the material with which I provided it, the paper attempts to prove that I did not quote the disputed passage from a “London newspaper”, but from the THEORY OF EXCHANGES. The chain of arguments is another sample of manufacturers’ logic.

I told the manufacturers’ sheet that the THEORY OF EXCHANGES quotes on page 134 exactly as I quoted, and it discovers—that I quoted exactly as the THEORY OF EXCHANGES quotes on page 134.

And further!

“And the glosses too, which Marx bases on the contradiction contained in this version, are already contained in that book.”

This is simply a lie. On page 639 of Capital, I give my glosses to the words in Gladstone’s speech:

“While the rich have been growing richer, the poor have been growing less poor. Whether the extremes of poverty are less, I do not presume to say.”

My remark on this is: “How lame an anti-climax! If the working-class has remained ‘poor’, only ‘less poor’ in proportion as it produces for the wealthy class ‘an intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power’, then it has remained relatively just as poor. If the extremes of poverty have not lessened, they have increased, because the extremes of wealth have.” And these “glosses” are nowhere to be found in the THEORY OF EXCHANGES.

“And the glosses too ... are already contained in that book, in particular also the quotation from Molière given in Note 105 on p. 640 of Capital.”

So “in particular also” I quote Molière, and leave it up to the “learned men” of the Concordia to detect and communicate to the public the fact that the quotation comes from the THEORY OF EXCHANGES. In fact, however, I state expressly in Note 105, p. 640 of Capital that the author of the THEORY OF EXCHANGES “ characterises with the following quotation from Molière” the “continual crying contradictions in Gladstone’s Budget speeches”.

Finally:

“...in the same way the statement of the LONDON ORPHAN ASYLUM about the rising prices of foodstuffs quoted by Marx appears on p. 135 of that book, though Marx bases his claim for its correctness not on that book, but on that book’s sources (see Capital, p. 640, Note 104)”.

The Concordia advisedly forgets to inform its readers that “that book” gives no sources. What was it trying to prove? That I took from that “book” a passage from Gladstone’s speech without knowing its source. And how does the Concordia prove it? By the fact that I really did take a quotation from that book, and checked it with the original sources, independent of the book!

Referring to my quotation from Professor Beesly’s article in The Fortnightly Review (November 1870), the Concordia remarks:

“This article by Professor Beesly deals, in fact, with the history of the International, and as the author himself informs every enquirer, was written on the basis of material provided him by Marx himself.”

Professor Beesly states:

“To no one is the success of the association so much due as to Dr. Karl Marx, who, in his acquaintance with the history and statistics of the industrial movement in all parts of Europe, is, I should imagine, without a rival. I am LARGELY indebted to him for the information contained in this article.”

All the material with which I supplied Professor Beesly referred exclusively to the history of the International, and not a word concerned the Inaugural Address, which he had known since its publication. The context in which his above remark stood left so little doubt on this point that The Saturday Review, in a review of his article, more than hinted that he himself was the author of the Inaugural Address.

The Concordia asserts that Professor Beesly did not quote the passage in question from Gladstone’s speech, but only stated ‘‘that the Inaugural Address contained that quotation”. Let us look into this.

Professor Beesly states:

“The address [...] is probably the most striking and powerful statement of the workman’s case as against the middle class that has ever been compressed into a dozen small pages. I wish I had space for copious extracts from it.”

After mentioning the “frightful statistics of the Blue Books”, to which the Address refers, he goes on:

“From these appalling statistics the address passes on to the income-tax returns, from which it appeared that the taxable income of the country had increased in eight years twenty per cent, ‘an intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power’, as Mr. Gladstone observed, ‘entirely confined to classes of property’.”

Professor Beesly sets the words: “as Mr. Gladstone observed” outside quotation marks, saying these words on his own behalf, and thus proves to the Concordia with the greatest clarity that he knows Gladstone’s budget speech—solely from the quotation in the Inaugural Address! As the London business friend of the German Manufacturers’ Association, he is the only man who knows Gladstone’s budget speeches, just as he, and he alone, knows: “Persons with an income under 150 pounds sterling, in fact, pay no income tax in England.“ (See the Concordia, Nos. 10 a n d 27.) Yet English tax officials suffer from the idée fixe that this tax only stops at incomes under 100 pound s sterling.

Referring to the disputed passage in the Inaugural Address, the manufacturers’ paper stated:

“ Yet this sentence is nowhere to be found in Gladstone’s speech.” I proved the contrary with a quotation from the Times report of April 17, 1863. I gave the quotation in the Volksstaat in both English and German, since a commentary was necessary on account of Gladstone’s assertion that he would “look almost with apprehension and with pain upon this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power, if it were my belief that it was confined to the CLASSES WHO ARE IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES”. Basing myself on Wakefield, I declared that the “CLASSES WHO ARE IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES”—an expression for which there is no German equivalent—means the “really rich”, “the really prosperous portion“ of the propertied classes. Wakefield actually calls the real middle class “THE UNEASY CLASS”, which is in German roughly “die ungemächliche Klasse”.

The manufacturers’ worthy organ not only suppresses my exposition, it ends the passage I quoted with the words: “Marx quotes The Times to this point”, thus leaving the reader to suppose that it had quoted from my translation; in fact, however, the paper, leaving my version aside, does not translate “CLASSES WHO ARE IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES” as “wohlhabenden Klassen” but as “Klassen, die sich in angenehmen Verhältnissen befinden”. The paper believes its readers capable of understanding that not all sections of the propertied class are “prosperous”, though it will always be a “pleasant circumstance” for them to possess property. Even in the translation of my quotation, as given by the Concordia, however, Gladstone describes the progress of capitalist wealth as “this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power”, and remarks that here he has “taken no cognizance at all of the condition of the labouring population”, closing with words to the effect that this “augmentation is entirely confined to the classes possessed of property”. Once the “learned man” of the German Manufacturers’ Association has, in the report of The Times of April 17, 1863, thus had Gladstone say “both in form and in content”, the same as I had him say in the Inaugural Address, he strikes his swollen breast, brimming with conviction, and blusters:

“Yet despite this ... Marx has the impudence to write in the Volksstaat of June 1: ‘Both inform and in content Mr. Gladstone declared on April 16, 1863 in the House of Commons, as reported in his own organ, The Times, on April 17, 1863 that ‘this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power is entirely confined to the classes possessed of property’.”

The “learned man” of the German Manufacturers’ Association obviously knows exactly what to offer his readership!

In the Volksstaat of June 1, I remarked that the Concordia was trying to make its readers believe I had suppressed in the Inaugural Address Gladstone’s phrases about the improvement in the condition of the British working class, though in fact the exact opposite was the case, and I stressed there with great emphasis the glaring contradiction between this declamation and the officially established facts. In its reply of July 4, the manufacturers’ paper repeated the same manoeuvre. “Marx quotes The Times to this point,” the paper says, “we quote further.” In confrontation with the paper, I needed only to quote the disputed passage, but let us look for a moment at the “further”.

After pouring forth his panegyric on the increase of capitalist wealth, Gladstone turns to the working class. He takes good care not to say that it had shared in the “intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power”. On the contrary, he goes on, according to The Times: “Now, the augmentation of capital is of indirect benefit to the labourer, etc.” He consoles himself further on with the fact “that while the rich have been growing richer the poor have been growing less poor”. Finally, he asserts that he and his enriched parliamentary friends “have the happiness to know” the opposite of what parliamentary enquiries and statistical data prove to be the fact, viz.,

“that the average condition of the British labourer has improved during the last 20 years in a degree which we know to be extraordinary, and which we may almost pronounce to be unparalleled in the history of any country and of any age”.

Before Mr. Gladstone, all his predecessors “had the happiness” to supplement the picture of the augmentation of capitalist wealth in their budget speeches with self-satisfied phrases about the improvement in the condition of the working class. Yet he gives the lie to them all; for the millennium dates only from the passing of the Free Trade legislation. The correctness or incorrectness of Gladstone’s reasons for consolation and congratulation is, however, a matter of indifference here. We are concerned solely with this: that, from his standpoint, the pretended “extraordinary” improvement in the condition of the working class in no way contradicts the “intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power that is entirely confined to the classes possessed of property”. On the contrary. It is the orthodox doctrine of the mouthpieces of capital—Mr. Gladstone being one of the best paid—that the most infallible means for working men to benefit themselves is—to enrich their exploiters.

The shameless stupidity or stupid shamelessness of the manufacturers’ organ culminates in its assurance: “The report in The Times just gives, formally more contracted, what the shorthand report by Hansard gives verbatim.” Now let us see both reports:

I	II
From Gladstone’s speech of April 16, 1863, printed in “The Times” of April 17, 1863	From Gladstone’s speech of April 16, 1863, printed by Hansard, Vol. 170, parliamentary debates of March 27 to May 28, 1863
“That is the state of the case as regards the wealth of this country. I must say for one, I should look almost with apprehension and with pain upon this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power if it were my belief that it was confined to the CLASSES WHO ARE IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES. This takes no cognisance at all of the condition of the labouring population. The augmentation I have described ... is an augmentation entirely confined to the classes possessed of property. Now the augmentation of capital is of indirect benefit to the labourer etc.	“Such [...] is the state of the case as regards the general progress of accumulation; but, for one, I must say that I should look with some degree of pain, and with much apprehension, upon this extraordinary and almost intoxicating growth, if it were my belief that it is confined to THE CLASS OF PERSONS WHO MAY BE DESCRIBED AS IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES. The figures which I have quoted take little or no cognizance of the condition of those who do not pay income tax; or, in other words, sufficiendy accurate for general truth (!), they do not take cognizance of the property (!) of the labouring population, or (!) of the increase of its income. Indirectly, indeed, the mere augmentation of capital is of the utmost advantage to the labouring class, etc.”

I leave it to the reader himself to compare the stilted, involved, complicated CIRCUMLOCUTION OFFICE style of the Hansard publication with the report in The Times.

Here it is enough to establish that the words of the Times report: “ This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power ... the augmentation I have described ... is an augmentation entirely confined to the classes possessed of property,, , are in part garbled by Hansard and in part completely suppressed. Their emphatic “exact wording” escaped no earwitness. For example:

“The Morning Star”, April 17, 1863 (Gladstone’s budget speech of April 16, 1863).

“I must say, for one, I should look with apprehension and with pain upon this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power; if it were my belief that it was confined to the CLASSES WHO ARE IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES. THIS GREAT INCREASE OF WEALTH takes no cognizance at all of the condition of the labouring population. THE AUGMENTATION IS AN AUGMENTATION ENTIRELY CONFINED TO THE CLASSES POSSESSED OF PROPERTY. BUT THAT AUGMENTATION must be of indirect benefit to the labouring population, etc.”

“The Morning Advertiser”, April 17, 1863 (Gladstone’s budget speech of April 16, 1863).

“I must say, for one, I should look almost with apprehension and ALARM upon this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power; if it were my belief that it was confined to the CLASSES WHO ARE IN EASY CIRCUMSTANCES. This great increase of wealth takes no cognisance at all of the condition of the labouring population. THE AUGMENTATION STATED is an augmentation entirely confined to the CLASSES POSSESSED OF PROPERTY. THIS AUGMENTATION must be of indirect benefit to the labouring population, etc.”

Thus, Gladstone subsequently filched away from the semiofficial Hansard report of his speech the words that he had uttered in the House of Commons on April 16, 1863: “ This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power ... is an augmentation entirely confined to the classes possessed of property.” The Concordia did not, therefore, find this in the excerpt provided by their business friend in London, and trumpeted:

“Yet this sentence is nowhere to be found in Gladstone’s speech. Marx has added the sentence Iyingly, both in form and in content.”

It is no surprise that they now weepingly tell me that it is the critical “custom” to quote parliamentary speeches as officially falsified, and not as they were actually delivered. Such a “custom” in fact accords with the “general” Berlin “education”, and the limited thinking of the German Manufacturers’ Association, which is typical of Prussian subjects.

Lack of time forces me to end, once and for all, my pleasurable exchange of opinions with the Association, but as a farewell, another nut for its “learned men” to crack. In what article did a man—and what was his name—utter to an opponent of a rank at least equal with that of the Concordia, the weighty words: “Asinus manebis in secula seculorum”?

Karl Marx

London, July 28, 1872