Brentano vs. Marx

 Mr. Brentano knew very well that Marx quoted Mr. Gladstone as speaking about "taxable income" and no other. For in his

first attack (

Documents, No.3

), he quotes the passage from the Inaugural Address, and even translated TAXABLE as

"liable to tax

 If he now "suppresses" this in his rejoinder, and if from now on until his pamphlet of 1890 he protests again and again that

Marx concealed, intentionally and maliciously, the fact that Gladstone was speaking here solely of those incomes liable to

income tax -- should we now sling his own expressions back at him: "lying", "forgery", "impudent mendacity", "simply

nefarious"?

 To continue with the text:

 

"Thirdly and finally, Marx attempted to conceal the agreement between the Times report and the Hansard report by

failing to quote those sentences in which, according to The Times too, Gladstone directly and explicitly testified to

the elevation of the British working class."

 

In his second reply to the anonymous Brentano, Marx had to prove that he had not "lyingly added" the "notorious"

sentence, and in addition had to reject the insolent claim made by Anonymous: in relation to this point, the only point in

question, the Times report and the Hansard report "fully coincided materially", although the former included the sentence

in question verbatim, and the latter excluded it verbatim. For this, the only point at issue, it was absolutely irrelevant what

Mr. Gladstone had to say about the elevation of the British working class.

 On the other hand the Inaugural Address -- and this is the document which Brentano accuses of falsifying a quotation --

states explicitly on p. 4, only a few lines before the "notorious" sentence, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (Gladstone),

during the millennium of free trade, told the House of Commons:

 

"The average condition of the British labourer has improved in a degree we know to be extraordinary and

unexampled in the history of any country or any age."

 

And these are precisely the words which, according to Brentano, Marx maliciously suppressed.

 In the whole polemic, from his first retort to Marx in 1872 (

Documents, No.5

) down to his introduction and appendix to

Meine Polemik, etc., 1890, Mr. Brentano suppresses, with a sleight of hand which we must on no account describe as

"insolent mendacity", the fact that Marx directly quoted in the Inaugural Address these Gladstonian declarations about the

unparalleled improvement in the situation of the workers. And in this rejoinder, which, as already mentioned, remained

unknown to Marx up to his death, and to me until the publication of the pamphlet Meine Polemik, etc., in 1890, in which

the accusation about the lyingly added sentence was only apparently maintained, though in reality dropped, and the lyingly

added sentence not only shamefacedly admitted as genuine Gladstonian property, but also as "speaking for us", i.e. for

Brentano -- in this rejoinder a retreat is beaten to the new line of defence: Marx has distorted and twisted Gladstone's

speech; Marx has Gladstone say that, it goes, the riches of the rich have grown enormously, but that the poor, the working

population, have at the most become less poor. But in fact Gladstone said, in plain words, that the condition of the workers

had improved to an unexampled degree.

 This second line of defence was pierced by the irresistible fact that precisely in the incriminated document, in the

Inaugural Address, these same Gladstonian words were quoted explicitly. And Mr. Brentano knew this. "But what does it

matter? The readers" of the Concordia "cannot check up on him!"

 Incidentally, regarding what Gladstone really said, on this we shall have a few short words to say in a little while.

 In conclusion, Mr. Brentano, in the security, first of his anonymity, and second of Marx's declaration that he has no wish

to bother with him further, indulges in the following private jollity:

 

"When Mr. Marx finally ends his article by breaking into abuse, we can assure him that his opponent could desire

nothing more than the confession of his weakness which lies herein. Abuse is the weapon of those whose other

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means of defence have run out."

 

The reader can check for himself the extent to which Marx "breaks into abuse" in his rejoinder. As far as Mr. Brentano is

concerned, we have already presented some choice bouquets from his attestations of politeness. The "lies", "impudent

mendacity", "lying quotation", "simply nefarious", etc., heaped upon Marx's head by all means constitute an edifying

"confession of weakness", and an unmistakeable sign that Mr. Brentano's "other means of defence have run out".

 

IV

H

ere ends the first act of our song and dance. Mr. Brentano, mysterious though not yet a privy councillor, [Play on words:

"geheimnisvoll" -- mysterious, "Geheimrat" -- privy councillor.-- Trans] had achieved what he could scarcely have hoped

to achieve. Admittedly, things had gone badly enough for him regarding the sentence allegedly "lyingly added"; and in fact

he had dropped this original charge. But he had sought out a new line of defence, and on this line -- he had had the last

word, and with that you can, in the world of German professordom, claim you have stood your ground. And with this he

could brag, at least amongst his own, that he had victoriously repelled Marx's onslaught, and slain Marx himself in the

literary world. The luckless Marx, however, never heard a dying word about his slaughter in the Concordia; on the

contrary, he had the "impudence" to live on for another eleven years, eleven years of mounting success for him, eleven

years of uninterrupted growth in the numerical strength of his supporters in all countries, eleven years of constantly

growing recognition of his merits.

 Mr. Brentano and consorts wisely refrained from freeing the blinded Marx of his self-deception, or making it clear to him

that he had actually been dead for a long time. But after he really did die in 1883, they could no longer contain themselves,

their fingers itched too much. And now Mr. Sedley Taylor appeared on the scene, with a letter to The Times (

Documents,

No. 8

).

 He provoked things himself, if he or his friend Brentano, as it almost appears, had not actually concocted it with M. Émile

de Laveleye [see É. de Laveleye, "To the Editor of The Times, Liège, November 16". The Times, No. 30987, November 26,

1883. -- MECW Ed]. In that stilted style which betrays a certain recognition of his dubious cause, he states that it appears to

him

 

"extremely singular that it was reserved for Professor Brentano to expose, eight years later, the mala fides" of Marx.

 

And then begin the vainglorious phrases about the masterly conduct of the attack by the godlike Brentano, and the speedily

ensuring deadly shifts of the notorious Marx, etc. What things were like in reality our readers have already seen. All that

fell into deadly shifts was only Brentano's claim about the lying addition of the sentence in question.

 And finally in conclusion:

 

"On Brentano's showing, by a detailed comparison of texts, that the reports of The Times and of "Hansard" agreed in

utterly excluding the meaning which craftily isolated quotation had put upon Mr. Gladstone's words, Marx withdrew

from further controversy under the plea of want of time!"

 

The "detailed comparison of texts" is simply farcical. Anonymous Brentano quotes only Hansard. Marx supplies him with

the Times report, which includes verbatim the controversial sentence missing in Hansard. Mr. Brentano now also quoted

the Times report, and this three lines further than Marx quoted it. These three lines are supposed to show that The Times

and Hansard fully agree, and thus that the sentence allegedly "lyingly added" by Marx is not in the Times report, although

it stands there word for word; or at the very least, if it should stand there, that it then means the opposite of what it says in

plain words. Mr. Taylor calls this daredevil operation a "detailed comparison of texts".

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