Letter to Victor Adler, March 20, 1894

ENGELS TO VICTOR ADLER

IN VIENNA

London, 20 March 1894

Dear Victor,

A short while ago you asked me about translating the article in the Critica Sociale on the position, etc., of Italy. 334 Louise at once wrote a postcard on my behalf saying THAT YOU WERE WELCOME TO IT and I confirmed this a day or two later in a letter to you. 25 Soon afterwards an inquiry arrived from K. Kautsky who wanted to know if I would let him have the thing for the Neue Zeit. In my reply I told him that you had already snaffled it.^[1]

But the article has not, in the meantime, appeared in the Arbeiter-Zeitung, and that puts me in an awkward position vis-à-vis K. Kautsky. So could you please let me know what is happening about it? I must say this makes me feel like the English landlady who, having on the one hand a nubile daughter and, on the other, a susceptible German lodger, demanded of the latter at the first sign of a flirtation: "WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS WITH REGARD TO MY DAUGHTER?" But the fact that K. Kautsky has entered into competition with you will doubtless exonerate me.

Over here things are tending towards a general election 345 and everything that happens is done by way of preparation for it. The Liberals are as craven as ever. They must know that they can only retain their position by increasing the political power of the workers and yet they hesitate and flounder about nervously. Neither a cut-and-dried extension of the suffrage, nor the elimination of a property qualification which consists in burdening the candidate with all the election expenses while failing to give him a salary, nor any provision in the shape of a second ballot for the putting up of a third candidate (alongside those of the two official parties). At the same time they want to abolish the house of lords but don't lift a finger to produce a Lower House with the courage and ability to do this. The Tories for their part are making mistake after mistake. For two years they have been turning Parliament into a complete farce on the pretext of smashing HOME RULE; 171 with the Liberals, who took this lying down, they have played, and continue to play, Old Harry, as Randy Churchill demonstrated last night, 346 although, with elections in the offing, this is a risky business and might seriously shake the peace-loving [?]^[2] British philistine's faith in the Conservatives. Furthermore, Salisbury attempted to make the PARISH COUNCILS BILL 163 an occasion for playing a dirty trick on his Liberal Unionist allies, 206 Devonshire and Chamberlain, and exploiting them for purely TORY ends, so that the said alliance is no longer as steadfast as heretofore. In short, things are getting into a frightful tangle, and at the moment it is difficult to guess what the outcome will be.

My congratulations on the way you lulled the general strike to sleep and likewise on your articles on the coalition government's electoral reform 347 and on the situation generally in Austria. The one in the issue of the sixth of this month was particularly brilliant. Not for a moment do I doubt that your party conference 323 will go off splendidly. My regards to all our friends and also to August and Paul Singer and Gerisch, if they attend the same.

Louise sends much love, as does

Yours,

F.E.