Letter to Friedrich Engels, May 7, 1870

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 7 May 1870


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


MARX TO ENGELS

IN MANCHESTER

[London,] 7 May 1870

DEAR FRED,

All sorts of interesting things have happened here this week. But the English post is too INQUISITIVE at the moment, and I don't feel the call to SUPPLY it indirectly with news. So, about this, later by word of mouth.[1]

The Marseillaise did not arrive today. Possibly it has been confiscated. Last Wednesday[2] we informed them by telegraph that they would receive the General Council resolution[3] on Thursday in the original French; they should not translate it from English. This telegram naturally came immediately to the attention of the Paris police, and Pietri does not, perhaps, want our proclamation one day before the plebiscite.

The absurd Reuter-Havas telegrams have finally given us the long-awaited opportunity to declare publicly in the Paris press that the SO-CALLED LONDON FRENCH BRANCH does not belong to the International.[4]

Yesterday and the day before The Standard published two lousy articles against the International, dictated directly from the French Legation, as, ditto, the article in the London French paper L'International.

All London papers have received instructions from Bruce—and naturally obey them like the born dogs they are—not to mention a word in their columns about the steps the English police have taken very quietly in past weeks with regard to Flourens and the International GENERAL COUNCIL (they make a HODGE PODGE out of the two).

Ten thousand COPIES of The Standard mentioned have been sent to France. Is this, also, a method of payment, or has the Société du 10 Décembre[5] suddenly learned English?

Last Tuesday the rumour was spread in London that we were going to be arrested in our meeting room. As a result PRESS REPORTERS, for once hungry for news, were in attendance.

In England, at a moment of panic the fellows immediately forget their own laws, and allow themselves to be carried away by the press, which is partly ignorant, and partly lies with intent.

T o be nice to the police, let us assume that everything reported by Grandperret, Reuter and the Journal officiel is gospel truth. Even so, the English Government could d o nothing, apart, at the most, from making fools of themselves.

T h e r e can, d'abord,[6] be n o question of the extradition of Flourens— Gaulois says it has been demanded. T h e r e is only one Extradition Treaty between France a n d the UNITED KINGDOM, that of 1843. In 1865 the French Government declared it would denounce it after 6 months, since it was practically unworkable because of the ENGLISH LAWS OF EVIDENCE. A S a result, in 1866 some of the formalities regarding EVIDENCE were changed, without any change in the content of the treaty. This specifies very precisely the crimes that lead to extradition, including murder (PARRICIDE, INFANTICIDE, a n d m u r d e r by poison) and attempted murder, notabene, attempts in the sense qu'il y avait un commencement d'exécution[7] 'THE DIRECT CONSEQUENCE OF WHICH WOULD PROBABLY BE THE DEATH OF THE INDIVIDUAL WHOSE LIFE WAS ATTACKED'.

Under this treaty Beaury, for instance, could not be extradited had he fled to England, let alone Flourens.

T h e only question is whether a FOREIGNER here could be sentenced by an English court for COMPLICITY IN A CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT THE CRIME OF MURDER ABROAD. Before 1828 nobody—Englishman or FOREIGNER—could be prosecuted here for MURDER COMMITTED OUT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. English duellists made use of this. SECT. 7 OF 9, GEO. IV stipulated,

'THAT IF ANY OF H. M.S "SUBJECTS" SHOULD BE CHARGED WITH MURDER OR WITH ANY ACCESSORY TO MURDER COMMITTED ON LAND OUT OF THE UNITED KINGDOM HE SHOULD BE TRIABLE FOR SUCH OFFENCES IN THE UNITED KINGDOM'.

T h e law was, in fact, made to fit English duellists, and therefore applies only to 'HER MAJESTY'S SUBJECTS'.

At Dr Bernard's TRIAL in 1858 h e therefore pleaded 'THAT THE COURT HAD NO JURISDICTION'. T h e SERVILE COURT reserved this point, without taking a decision, and ruled that, for a start, A PLEA OF NOT GUILTY SHOULD BE RECORDED. His ACQUITTAL prevented any further decision on this LEGAL POINT.

Immediately after the Orsini PLOT of 1858, Palmerston introduced the CONSPIRACY BILL into the HOUSE OF COMMONS,[8]

'WITH THE OBJECT OF MAKING CONSPIRACY TO COMMIT MURDER EITHER WITHIN THE UNITED KINGDOM OR WITHIN THE TERRITORY OF ANY FOREIGN STATE A FELONY".

This BILL was justified by the following in

1. 'CONSPIRACY WAS ONLY A MISDEMEANOUR' and that, under English LAW, a CONSPIRACY TO MURDER is nothing more nor less than A CONSPIRACY TO BLACKEN A MAN'S CHARACTER.

2. And this was shown very emphatically by the ATTORNEY GENERAL Sir R. Bethell—

'THAT THE 9 GEO. IV SECT. 7 ONLY APPLIED TO NATIONAL BORN BRITISH SUBJECTS, AND THAT FOREIGNERS RESIDENT IN THIS UNITED KINGDOM COULD CONSPIRE TO COMMIT MURDER ABROAD WITH IMPUNITY'.

T h e CONSPIRACY BILL, as everyone knows, was rejected, and Lord Palmerston fell FOR THE TIME BEING, together with the bill.

T h e whole commotion in the English and French press is, therefore, complete nonsense. If the worst comes to the worst, Flourens could be prosecuted for a MISDEMEANOUR in order, finally, to obtain a DEFINITIVE JUDICIAL DECISION on 9 GEO. IV SECT. 7 and certainly to fail thereby, and be forced to table the CONSPIRACY BILL. Gladstone will tempt the devil where Palmerston failed.

If this PLOT—for the ASSASSINATION of Badinguet[9] —is not simply a police invention, then it is the biggest possible bit of tomfoolery open to man. Luckily, the EMPIRE can no longer be saved even by the stupidity of its enemies.

Bakunin's agent Robin, now in Paris and a member of the Paris Federation (Internationale),[10] immediately proposed a resolution there recognising the new Conseil Romand as the genuine one, and making a public announcement in the Marseillaise that only its supporters are really MEMBERS of the Internationale. But we had advised o u r people in Paris.[11] Robin thus failed gloriously with his resolution. It was decided that the Federation Parisienne had absolutely no autorité to intervene; the matter was something for the Conseil Général in London. This business is, however, characteristic of the modus operandi of Gospodin[12] Bakunin.

T h e Paris PLOT brings to a sorry end the well-advanced plan to hold the Congress in Paris, and to take this opportunity also to transfer the General Council there.

I have received from Bakunin the 5 first Nos. of Kolokol and its French supplément. Even the Russian programme is very characteristic.[13] T h e paper should be in no way the expression of an exclusive party (Bbipa>KeHie KaKoö-AHÖo HCKAioHHTeAbHoft nap-rin) but of all decent people (HecTHbixi» AK>4eft) who desire the 'liberation of Russia' and who are 'dissatisfied with the present conditions'. No pedantry, above all practical] For our part, we, Western Europe and the UNITED STATES, should confine ourselves exclusively to propaganda of the theory of Mr Bakunin (i.e., the absence of all theory), and this in such a manner as though all nations had already been abolished. He thus bans us from any intervention, in either domestic or foreign policy. What an artful dodger!

Things are going slowly with Borkheim, but he is improving. I visited him again last Thursday[14] (on this trip I caught a frightful cold, which is almost driving me mad). He was delighted with your letter.[15] From his 'enclosure' you will see his need to make a fool of himself.[16] The gentility with which he—a born figure of fun[17] —delivers his estimate of Lever, was so patronising—he laughs now and then, and excuses this with his sickness—and the naivety with which he believes one can supply him with Harry Lorrequer par douzaines[18] like blackberries[19] ! After this I sent him Peter Simple[20] and, in fact, he finds this 'much better'.

Schapper was buried last Wednesday.[21] Write down for me any biographical notes about him you have in your head. We shall have to compose a short obituary.

COMPLIMENTS TO MRS LIZZY, Moore, Jollymeyer.[22]

El Moro (My beard becomes whiter daily.)

You will receive with this: two numbers of Égalité, and of the pamphlets plébiscitaires:

Aux Electeurs, Par Alceste (finely written), Le Plébiscite Impérial par Rogeard (very bad), Le Plébiscite de Boquillon par A. Humbert (one of the Marseillaise editors, fine burlesque) (in the style of Offenbach's music).

  1. ↑ Marx and his daughter Eleanor went on a visit TO ENGELS in Manchester on 23 May and stayed there until about 23 June 1870.
  2. ↑ 4 May
  3. ↑ K. Marx, Concerning the Persecution of the Members of the French Sections. Declaration of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association (present edition, Vol. 21).
  4. ↑ On 3 May 1870, the French Section in London (see Note 72) gave a banquet for Flourens, who had fled from France under threat of arrest. An account of the banquet was forwarded to France, Germany and some other countries by Reuter and Havas-Bullier agencies and published, specifically, in the Journal des Débats on 5 May. It stated that the banquet was chaired by 'M. Le Lubez, président de la Société Internationale', when Le Lubez had in fact been expelled from the International for slander back in 1866. On 10 May 1870, the General Council approved Marx's 'Draft Resolution of the General Council on the "French Federal Section in London"', in which it resolutely dissociated itself from the provocative activities of the French Section (see present edition, Vol. 21).
  5. ↑ Société du dix Décembre (Society of December 10), a Bonapartist organisation established in 1849 and consisting, for the most part, of déclassé elements. A detailed account of the Society can be found in Marx's work The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (see present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 149-51, 186, 193-96).
  6. ↑ for the time
  7. ↑ in which a deed was commenced
  8. ↑ After an attempt on the life of Napoleon III made by the Italian revolutionary Orsini, in February 1858, Palmerston introduced in the House of Commons the Conspiracy to Murder Bill, under which émigrés and natives were to be severely punished for participation in political plots. The Bill was introduced under the pretext of threats by the French Government, which accused England of granting asylum to political refugees. Under pressure from a mass protest movement, the Bill was voted down by the House of Commons and Palmerston was obliged to resign.
  9. ↑ a nickname of Napoleon III (the name of a stonemason in whose clothes he fled from the prison in 1846)
  10. ↑ The Paris Federation of the International Working Men's Association was founded on 18 April 1870, at a general meeting of the International's sections in Paris under the chairmanship of Louis Eugène Varlin. The meeting, which attracted 1,200-1,300 participants, adopted the Rules of the Federation (see this volume, pp. 555-56). However, the police reprisals and arrests of the International's members which began in France late in April 1870 in connection with preparations for the plebiscite (see Note 612) disrupted the activities of the Federation.
  11. ↑ See this volume, p. 489.
  12. ↑ Mr
  13. ↑ The words in brackets are given in Russian by Marx.
  14. ↑ 5 May
  15. ↑ Engels' letter to Borkheim, written later than 28 April 1870, has not been found.
  16. ↑ A reference to Sigismund Borkheim's letter to Marx of 3 May 1870, in which he thanked Marx for sending him Charles Lever's novel Harry Lorrequer.
  17. ↑ In the 19th century satirical journal Kladderadatsch, published in Berlin, there was a character named Borkheim
  18. ↑ by the dozen
  19. ↑ Paraphrased Falstaff's words (see Shakespeare, King Henry IV, Part I, Act II, Scene 4).
  20. ↑ F. Marryat, Peter Simple.
  21. ↑ 4 May
  22. ↑ Carl Schorlemmer