Brentano vs. Marx

I.

No. 1

The Incriminated Quotations

 

The original edition is entitled: "Address and Provisional Rules of the Working Men's International Association, established

September 28, 1864, at a Public Meeting held at St. Martin's Hall, Long Acre, London." Price one penny. Printed at the

"Bee-Hive" Newspaper Office, 10, Bolt Court, Fleet Street, 1864. * The address begins: "It is a great fact that the misery of the

working masses has not diminished from 1848 to 1864, and yet this period is unrivalled for the development of its industry and

the growth of its commerce." By way of proof, facts are quoted from the PUBLIC HEALTH Reports about the poor nutrition of

various groups of urban workers and agricultural day labourers in the country. It then continues:

 

"Such are the official statements published by order of Parliament in 1864, during the millennium of free trade, at a time

when the Chancellor of the Exchequer told the House of Commons that

 

"'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.'

 

"Upon these official congratulations jars the dry remark of the official Public Health Report:

 

"'The public health of a country means the health of its masses, and the masses will scarcely be healthy unless, to

their very base, they be at least moderately prosperous.'

 

"Dazzled by the 'Progress of the Nation' statistics dancing before his eyes, the Chancellor of the Exchequer exclaims in

wild ecstasy:

 

'From 1842 to 1852 the taxable income of the country increased by 6 per cent; in the eight years from 1853 to

1861, it has increased from the basis taken in 1853, 20 per cent! The fact is so astonishing as to be almost

incredible!... This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power,' adds Mr. Gladstone, 'is entirely confined to

classes of property.'" *

 

In German translation: [Now gives German translation of the above six paragraphs.]

 

No. 2.

CAPITAL

 MARX, CAPITAL, VOLUME 1, 3RD EDITION, pp. 670-672

 

After these few examples one understands the cry of triumph of the Registrar-General of the British people:

 

"Rapidly as the population has increased, it has not kept pace with the progress of industry and wealth." [101]

 

Let us turn now to the direct agents of this industry, or the producers of this wealth, to the working class.

 

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"It is one of the most melancholy features in the social state of this country," says Gladstone, "that while there was a

decrease in the consuming power of the people, and while there was an increase in the privations and distress of the

labouring class and operatives, there was at the same time a constant accumulation of wealth in the upper classes, and a

constant increase of Capital." [102]

 

Thus spoke this unctuous minister in the House of Commons of February 13th, 1843. On April 16th, 1863, 20 years later, in the

speech in which he introduced his Budget:

 

"From 1842 to 1852 the taxable income of the country increased by 6 per cent.... In the 8 years from 1853 to 1861, it had

increased from the basis taken in 1853, by 20 per cent! The fact is so astonishing as to be almost incredible ... this

intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power ... entirely confined to classes of property ... must be of indirect benefit to

the labouring population because it cheapens the commodities of general consumption. While the rich have been growing

richer, the poor have been growing less poor. At any rate, whether the extremes of poverty are less, I do not presume to

say." [104]

 

How lame an anti-climax! If the working class has remained "poor", only "less poor" in proportion as it produces for the

wealthy class "an intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power", then it has remained relatively just as poor. If the extremes

of poverty have not lessened, they have increased, because the extremes of wealth have. As to the cheapening of the means of

subsistence, the official statistics, e. g. the accounts of the LONDON ORPHAN ASYLUM, show an increase in price of 20%

for the average of the three years 1860-1862, compared with 1851-1853. In the following three years, 1863-1865, there was a

progressive rise in the price of meat, butter, milk,, sugar, salt, coals, and a number of other necessary means of subsistence.

Gladstone's next budget speech of April 7th, 1864, is a Pindaric dithyrambus on the advance of surplus-value-making and the

happiness of the people "tempered by poverty". He speaks of masses "on the border of pauperism", of branches of trade in

which "wages have not increased", and finally sums up the happiness of the working-class in the words: "human life is but, in

nine cases out of ten, a struggle for existence". Professor Fawcett, not bound like Gladstone by official considerations, declares

roundly:

 

"I do not, of course, deny that money wages have been augmented by this increase of Capital" (in the last ten years), "but

this apparent advantage is to a great extent lost, because many of the necessaries of life are becoming dearer" (he believes

because of the fall in value of the precious metals) "...THE RICH GROW RAPIDLY RICHER, whilst there is no

perceptible advance in the comfort enjoyed by the industrial classes.... They (the labourers) become almost the slaves of

the tradesman, to whom they owe money.")

 

(Footnote #104) See the official accounts in the Blue book: "MISCELLANEOUS STATISTICS OF THE UN. KINGDOM",

PART VI, LONDON, 1866, pp. 260-273, passim. An addition to the second edition. Instead of the statistics of orphan asylums

&c., the declamations of the ministerial journals in recommending dowries for the Royal children might also serve. The greater

dearness of the means of subsistence 15 never forgotten there.

 (Footnote 105) "THINK OF THOSE, WHO ARE ON THE BORDER OF THAT REGION (PAUPERISM)", "WAGES... IN

OTHERS NOT INCREASED ... HUMAN LIFE IS BUT, IN NINE CASES OUT OF TEN, A STRUGGLE FOR

EXISTENCE." (Gladstone, HOUSE OF COMMONS, 7th April, 1864). The continual crying contradictions in Gladstone's

budget speeches of 1863 and 1864 were characterised by an English writer by the following quotation from Molière:

 

"Voila' l'homme en effet. Il va du blanc au noir.

Il condamne au matin ses sentiments du soir.

Importun a' tout autre, a' bi meme incommode,

Il change a' tous moments d'esprit comme de mode."

 (The Theory of the Exchanges etc., London, 1864, p. 135).

 

(Footnote 106) H. Fawcett, l. c., [The Economic Position of the British Labourer] pp. 67-68 As to the increasing dependence of

labourers on the retail shopkeepers, this is the consequence of the frequent oscillations and interruptions of their employment.

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