Letter to Henry Hyndman, July 2, 1881

MARX TO HENRY MAYERS HYNDMAN

IN LONDON

[Draft]

Eastbourne, Sussex, 2 July 1881
43 Terminus Road

My dear Sir,

The state of Mrs Marx's health which becomes daily more critical and demands my continual attendance upon her, will account for my belated reply to your letter d. d. June 5.

I confess to some astonishment at the discovery that, during your stay at London, you should have so closely kept the secret of your plan, then matured and executed, to publish, with certain modifica- tions, the rejected article of The Nineteenth Century as chapters II and III ofEngland for All, that is to say of your comments on the Federation's Foundation Program. 158

In your letter which does not at all refer to the surprise thus kept in store for me, you say:

'If you think I ought to acknowledge your book by your name, etc'

That question, it seems to me, ought to have preceded your publi- cation instead of coming behind it.

You favour me with two reasons for freely using the Capital, a work not yet Englished, without mentioning the book itself or its author.

One reason is, that 'many (Englishmen) have an horror of Social- ism and that name'. Was it with a view to assuage this 'horror' that you evoked [on] p. 86 'the demon of Socialism'?

Your second and last reason is, that 'the Englishmen have a dread of being taught by a foreigner'!

I have not found it so during the times of the 'International', nor of Chartism., 5 9 But let that pass. If this dread of 'the' Englishmen frightened you, why tell them in the preface p. VI that the 'ideas' etc. of chapters II and III, whatever else they may be, bear at all events the stigma of being no home-make? The Englishmen you have to deal

with can hardly be so dense as to fancy that the above-said passage points to an — English author.

Apart, however, from your rather humorous reasons, I am decid- edly of opinion that to have named the Capital and its author, would have been a big blunder. Party programs ought to keep free of any apparent dependence upon individual authors or books. But allow me to add that they are also no proper place for new scientific de- velopments, such as those borrowed by you from the Capital, and that the latter are altogether out of place in a commentary on a Pro- gram with whose professed aims they are not at all connected. Their introduction might have had some fitness in the Exposé of a Program for the foundation of a distinct and independent Working Class Party.

You are good enough to inform me that your brochure 'though marked "price half-a crown" is not published', but 'merely' to be 'distributed to members of the Democratic Federation, etc' I am quite sure that this was your intention, but I know that it is not opinion of your printer. A friend of mine saw your brochure in my study, wanted it, copied its title and place of printing, ordered it through his booksellers Williams and Norgate on the 13th of June and got it by them with their account note d. d. 14th June.

And this brings me to the only point of practical import. In case the public press should pounce upon your brochure, I might be ob- liged to speak, considering that chapters II and III consist in part of passages simply translated from the Capital, but separated by no marks of quotation from a remainder, much of which is not exact or even implies misunderstandings.

I have written with that full frankness which I consider the first condition of friendly intercourse.

Best compliments of Mrs Marx and myself to Mrs Hyndman.

Yours very truly,

K. M.