| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 9 April 1890 |
ENGELS TO FERDINAND DOMELA NIEUWENHUIS
IN THE HAGUE
London, 9 April 1890
Dear Comrade,
I fear that there is no chance of your son being taken on as an apprentice in an engineering workshop over here. Thirty or forty years ago, engineering firms used to engage apprentices of this kind and my brother[1] worked as such in Bury near Manchester for a year. He had to pay a premium of one hundred pounds sterling, was enrolled as an apprentice in the Engineers' Trades Union and in due course received 15 shillings a week. But now that the continentals and especially the Germans are competing with the British in the engineering field, they have ceased by and large to accept any more foreigners as apprentices. I shall make further inquiries in Manchester and, if anything more hopeful comes to light, shall get in touch with you straight away.
I'm glad to hear that things are also moving ahead briskly where you are; after the excitements of last summer a certain torpor has set in over here, while at the same time the personal, local and other forms of friction inevitable in England are proliferating again to a greater extent than is desirable. However a practical people like the English and, for that very reason, one that is very terre à terre[2] in its way of going about things, must eventually learn from its own mistakes; it's the only way here, and then again the movement has already penetrated far too wide sections of the working class for it to be held up more than temporarily by all these squabbles.
The third volume of Capital weighs heavily on my conscience; certain parts are in such a state that they won't be fit for publication until they have been carefully revised and to some extent rearranged and, as you may imagine when so imposing a work is at stake, I shan't do anything of the kind without the most mature reflection. Once the 5th section is polished off, the two that follow will involve less work; the first four have to be read over, but apart from that are ready for the press. If I could spend a year right away from the day-to-day affairs of the international movement, a year without newspapers to read, without letters to write, without involvement in anything else, I should polish it off easily. With kind regards.
Yours,
F. Engels