Brentano vs. Marx

 

"This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power is entirely confined to classes of property." (In the German

translation: ...)

 

That is, word for word, exactly what I quoted.

 This proves irrefutably that the German Manufacturers' Association "lied both in form and in content" in decrying this

"sentence as a fabrication "by me"!

 Incidentally: honest old Concordia printed in bold face another passage, in which Gladstone prattled about an elevation of the

English working class, over the last 20 years, that was supposedly "extraordinary and unparalleled in all countries and in all

periods". The bold-face type is supposed to indicate that I had suppressed this passage. On the contrary! In the Inaugural

Address I emphasised most strongly the screaming contrast between this shameless phrase and the "APPALLING

STATISTICS" as Professor Beesly rightly calls them, contained in the official English reports on the same period. [Marx note:

Other whimsical apologetics from the same speech are dealt with in my work Capital (p.638, 639).]

 The author of The Theory of the Exchanges quoted, like myself, not from Hansard, but from a London newspaper which, on

April 17, published the April 16 budget speech. In my collectanea of cuttings for 1863, I have searched in vain for the relevant

extract and thus, also, for the name of the newspaper that published it. This is, however, not important. Although the

parliamentary reports of the London newspapers always differ from one another, I was certain that none of them could

completely suppress such a striking quotation from Gladstone. So I consulted The Times of April 17, 1863 -- it was then, as

now, Gladstone's organ -- and there I found, on p.7, column 5, in the report on the budget speech:

 

"That is the state of the case as regards the wealth of this country. I must say for one, I should look almost with

apprehension and with pain upon this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power, if it were my belief that it was

confined to classes who are in easy circumstances. [Marx note: The words "EASY CLASSES", "CLASSES IN EASY

CIRCUMSTANCES" were apparently first introduced by Wakefield for the really rich portion of the propertied class.]

This takes no cognizance at all of the condition of the labouring population. The augmentation I have described, and

which is founded, I think, upon accurate returns. n an augmentation entirely confined to classes of property."

 

In the German translation: ...

 So, on April 16, 1863, Mr. Gladstone declared "both in form and in content" in the House of Commons, as reported in his own

organ, The Times, on April 17, 1863 that "this intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power is entirely confined to the classes

possessed of property", and his apprehension gives him a sort of shiver, but only because of his scruples that this was confined

to one part of this class, the part in really easy circumstances.

 Italiam, Italiam! Finally we arrive at Hansard In its edition, here botchily corrected, Mr. Gladstone was bright enough

clumsily to excise the passage that would be, after all, compromising on the lips of an English Chancellor of the Exchequer.

This is, incidentally, traditional English parliamentary practice, and by no means the invention of little Lasker versus Bebel. A

careful comparison of Gladstone's speech itself, as it appeared in The Times, and its subsequent form, as distorted by the same

Gladstone, would provide an amusing description of this unctuous, phrase-mongering, quibbling and strictly-religious

bourgeois hero, who timidly displays his piousness and his liberal "ATTITUDES OF MIND".

 One of the most infuriating things in my work Capital consists in the masses of official proof describing how manufacturers

work, something in which no scholar could previously find a thing wrong. In the form of a rumour this even reached the ears of

the gentlemen of the German Manufacturers' Association, but they thought:

 

"Was kein Verstand der Verstländigen sieht,

Das über in Einfalt ein kindlich' Gemüt."

 

No sooner said than done. They find a suspicious-looking quotation in the Inaugural Address and turn for information to a

business friend in London, the first best Mundella, and he, being a manufacturer himself, rushes to despatch overseas, in black

and white, the extract from Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. Now they have my fabrication secret. I manufacture not only the

text, but the quotations too. Drunk with victory, they trumpet out to the world "How Karl Marx Quotes!" So my wares were

discredited, once and for all, and, as is fitting for manufacturers, in the way of normal business, without the expense of Teamed

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men.

 The irksome subsequent events will perhaps teach the Manufacturing Associates that, however well they may know how to

forge goods, they are as well fitted to judge literary goods as a donkey is to play the lute.

 London, May 23, 1872

Karl Marx

 

No. 5.

RETORT BY ANONYMOUS

 CONCORDIA, No. 27, July 4, 1872

HOW KARL MARX DEFENDS HIMSELF

 I

 

Our readers will perhaps recall the article "How Karl Marx Quotes" in No. 10 of this paper on March 7 this year. In it we dealt

with a passage from the Inaugural Address of the International, written by Karl Marx, a passage which has won a certain fame

and is frequently quoted by the Social Democrats as convincing proof of the irrevocable ruin of the working class should the

state and social conditions of today persist. Here Marx quotes Gladstone's budget speech of April 16, 1863. In this speeds

Gladstone first notes that there has been "an extraordinary and almost intoxicating growth" of the income of the country, and he

uses the increase in income tax [revenue] to prove this. But the figures he quotes for this purpose "take little or no cognizance

of the condition of those who do not pay income tax"; they "do not take cognizance of the property of the labouring population,

or of the increase of its income". Persons with an income under 150 pounds sterling, in fact, pay no income tax in England. And

the fact that Gladstone had mentioned this to allow a proper appreciation of his yardstick was utilised by Marx in order to have

Gladstone say: "This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power is entirely confined to classes of property. However, this

sentence is nowhere to be found in Gladstone's speech. On the contrary, Gladstone said that he did not believe this

augmentation "had been confined to the class of persons who may be described as in easy circumstances". And indignant at the

impudence with which Marx quoted distortingly, we exclaimed: "Marx has added the sentence lyingly, both in form and in

content!"

 This was a serious charge; combined with the convincing evidence provided, it was absolutely devastating for the widespread

trust amongst our Social Democrats in the unparalleled and thorough learnedness, truthfulness and infallibility of the London

oracle. It could therefore not be allowed to pass without a refutation, or at least something which looked like a refutation. In

number 44 of the Volksstaat dated June l, * Marx attempted to give such a refutation. But our opponent has by no means been

able to wash himself clean of the charge of mala fides in his quotations. In fact, the ways and means of his defence are more

suitable than anything to prove his mala fides. The brazenness, namely, with which he once again abuses the fact that the

readers of the Volksstaat have no possibility of checking his claims, this brazenness even exceeds his frivolity in quotation.

 * [Brentano note: That is almost a full three months after the article appeared in the Concordia Despite this, the Volksstaat was

impudent enough scarcely 14 days after carrying Marx's rebuttal to accuse us of "heroically silencing" this rebuttal. We believe

that the Volksstaat had no reason to press so hard for the second, and sharper, treatment of its lord and master. Incidentally, the

reason for the delay in our reply is partly due to the fact that one of the sources cited by Marx was not available here and had to

be obtained from England, partly to the fact that the elucidation of this quotation demanded lengthy extracts from the relevant

sources and consequently the above article became unusually long, so that, for reasons of space, we were obliged to postpone

publication several times. The editors of the "Concordia".]

 Marx naturally does not go so far as to challenge the correctness of our quotation from the shorthand report of Parliament. His

immediate aim is to prove his bona fides in quotation, and to this end he refers to the fact that others have quoted like he did.

He writes:

 

"In an article in The Fortnightly Review (November 1870), which attracted great attention and was discussed by all the

London press, Mr. Beesly, Professor of History at the university here, quoted as follows, p. 518: 'An intoxicating

augmentation of wealth and power, as Mr. Gladstone observed, entirely confined to classes of property.' -- Yet Professor

Beesly's article appeared six years later than the Inaugural Address!"

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