| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 11 April 1894 |
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 11 April 1894
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
My dear Löhr, Your agreeable letter comes just in time. I was on the point of writing to Paul this morning, and so I have a good pretext of changing the address of my letter. I had just read your translation in the Ere Nouvelle and was quite charmed by it.[1] It reads better than the original, there are only two or three slight alterations I would suggest for a possible reprint.
This leads me at once to the libertaire, alas not libertin! Dühring.[2] dear girl, vous avez fait vos preuves[3] ! You arrange yourself with Bonnet as most convenient. Provided the Manuscript passes through your hands, it's all right and I will gladly look it over—within the limits of my time, cela s'entend,[4] which limits I am sorry to say are very narrow and don't look as if they were going to expand, on the contrary!
But I do wish you could use your talents and energies for some other kind of work which, besides credit, would also bring cash into the pocket of the worker. Could no arrangement be made with Carré for something of that sort?
I send you a No. of the Rheinische Zeitung, edited, as maybe you are aware, by the grand Karl Hirsch (since the 1st April). It is not, however, in order to give you a specimen of his elucubrations that I send it to you, but because it gives a report of the motion brought out in the Reichstag by Count Kanitz,[5] one of the most shining lights amongst those Prussian Junkers who are, according to Hermann Wagener, their theoretical champion, either Ochsen von Geburt oder Ochsen aus Prinzip.[6] This motion, made in the interest of the landed aristocracy of Eastern Germany, is almost literally the proposition [made by] Jaurès[7] which was to show the way to the socialist world how to use their parliamentary position in the interest of the working class and the peasantry. The same Count Kanitz has, the other day, proclaimed a new way to pay old debts, for the benefit of the German Empire: sell all your gold coin and replace it by about 4 milliards silver coin, which will leave 2 milliards clear profit (silver being bought at 28 pence the ounce and being turned into money at 60 pence an ounce) wherewith to wipe out the Imperial debt. Now if I wanted to be malicious, I might ask M. Jaurès whether, in return for Kanitz's acceptance of his corn motion, he would not accept Kanitz's silver motion which looks equally socialistic, and which, from an economic standpoint, is not a bit more objectionable. But I will be generous, even with Jaurès, and leave him alone; our French comrades, however, I cannot refrain from observing, ought really to look a little closer into the proposals of their ex-radical allies,[8] before they accept them blindfolded. A few more such escapades, and their reputation as political economists will be in great danger.
Of the Discours sur le libre échange[9] there exists but one copy which I by some accident got hold of through a second-hand catalogue. If that were to get lost, the whole thing, in the French original at least, would be lost for ever, I cannot send it unless there are strong guarantees against loss. I expect to-night a new Postal guide containing the latest information as to the international postal insurance arrangements; if these are satisfactory I will forward the thing to you at once, otherwise try some other means. Anyhow a reprint would be in every respect highly desirable.[10] In the meantime I will send you another copy of the English translation published in Boston.[11]
Sorel's Métaphysique[12] I really have not had time to read. I am awfully busy; deep in the Rent of Land (Vol. III[13] ) which causes me a deal of trouble by Mohr's tables being almost without exception miscalculated—you know what a genius he was for figures!—and having to be recast. And 15 sheets are already printed so that there is no time to be lost with the remainder of the Manuscript. And then the hot weather—just as you have it at Le Perreux. In there anything in that Sorel's study?
Louise thanks you for your letter and will soon write to you; sends her kindest regards. Her husband is getting quite a reputation here as an anatomical preparator; he works a good deal for the anatomical Museum at Middlesex Hospital; the clumsy people here cannot come up to the Vienna standard in these delicate matters.
We have Gertrud Liebknecht here, back from America, but hardly much improved there.
Just read Paul's letter in the Vorwärts—capital.[14] So good that even Berlin translations cannot spoil it.
Ever your old
F. Engels