| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 16 March 1895 |
ENGELS TO PABLO IGLESIAS
IN MADRID
[Draft]
London, 16 March 1895
Dear friend Iglesias,
I could not answer your letter of 19 October 1894 earlier because I did not know whether or not you had come out of Malaga prison; 554 nor could I answer your letter of 1 February, being busy finishing some publications[1] for our people in Berlin which had to be circulated before the new repressive draft laws 428 became law.
Before I got your letter of 19 October, friends in Barcelona had asked Comrade Eleanor Marx-Aveling to inform the British Trades-Unions of the Malaga strikers' situation, and she had done all she could, so that nothing more is left for me to do. And as you know, some of the Trades-Unions helped.
As regards really socialist organisations in England, they are so disunited and so poor that no help can be expected from them.
I have been following the progress of this strike with great interest, admiring the workers' tenacity and courage. Marquis de Larios' name reminds me of an episode that occurred about 1850.
At that time there was a firm of Larios Bros. (Jews) in Gibraltar. A British merchant used to send his goods to the firm on commission to be smuggled to other merchants on Spanish territory. Those goods were constantly seized by Spanish Customs, and Larios Bros, would pay the Englishman the guaranteed sum in insurance, as is customary in this kind of business. But that did not suit the Englishman, for he lost his customers in Spain and a substantial amount of profit. He arrived in Gibraltar to see for himself why those accidents always befell his goods but never those of others. However, he could not find out the reason. One day as he was taking a walk in the city, he saw a cart lose a wheel and some boxes with goods fall to the ground and burst open. The boxes were
his—they bore his trade-mark—but he saw that, instead of goods, they contained, yes, sand. The mystery was solved. It became clear that Larios Bros. had always notified Spanish Customs of the dispatch of the boxes of sand, which had been seized, the Englishman being paid insurance; thereupon Larios Bros. had dispatched the goods on their own behalf by a safe route to their Spanish correspondents, thus pocketing without risk the whole profit derived from the operation.
The enraged Englishman descended on Larios. 'I'll disclose all that, I'll make a scandal, I'll have you put on trial!' 'Why get excited, sir? We will pay you for your goods and make the amends you want.' After much argument, the Englishman was paid a definite sum, and Larios Bros. signed the following statement:
'We, Larios Bros., are the greatest swindlers there are here in the city of Gibraltar, and we advise everybody against doing business with us, for they can rest assured that we would cheat them.
'Gibraltar, (date).
'Larios Bros.' The statement was posted for general information in the Bourse of Gibraltar, where old Larios continued for another twenty years to buy and sell goods.
Would the marquis be a relative of the Larios of Gibraltar?