III
"What attitude then does the workers' party adopt towards this reorganisation of the army and the ensuing conflict between government and bourgeois opposition?"
For its political activity to develop fully, the working class needs a far wider arena than is offered by the separate states of today's fragmented Germany. Particularism will hamper the free movement of the proletariat, but its existence will never be justified and will never merit serious consideration. The German proletariat will never have any truck with Imperial Constitutions, Prussian hegemonies, tripartite systems[51] and the like, unless it be to sweep them away; it is indifferent to the question of how many soldiers the Prussian state needs in order to prolong its vegetable existence as a great power. Whether reorganisation means some slight increase to the military burden or not, will make little difference to the working class as a class. On the other hand it certainly cannot remain indifferent to the question of whether or not universal conscription is fully implemented. The more workers who are trained in the use of weapons the better. Universal conscription is the necessary and natural corollary of universal suffrage; it puts the voters in the position of being able to enforce their decisions gun in hand against any attempt at a coup d'état.
The only aspect of army reorganisation in Prussia which is of interest to the German working class is the increasingly thorough implementation of universal conscription.
More important is the question: what attitude should the workers' party adopt to the ensuing conflict between government and Chamber.
The modern worker, the proletarian, is a product of the great industrial revolution which has totally revolutionised the whole mode of production in all civilised countries, first in industry and subsequently in agriculture too, especially in the last hundred years, and as a result of it only two classes are still involved in production: the class of capitalists, who are in possession of the tools of labour, raw materials and means of subsistence, and the class of workers who possess neither the tools of labour, nor raw materials, nor food, but must first buy the latter from the capitalists with their labour. The modern proletarian therefore only has direct dealings with one class of society, which is hostile to him and exploits him: the class of capitalists, the bourgeoisie. In countries where this industrial revolution is complete, as in England, the worker really does have dealings only with capitalists, for even on the land the large tenant-farmer is nothing other than a capitalist; the aristocrat, who merely lives off the rent from his estates, has no points of social cotitact with the workers at all.
It is different in countries where this industrial revolution is only now taking place, such as in Germany. Here there are still numerous social elements which have survived from former feudal and post-feudal conditions, and which, if we may so express ourselves, cloud the solution (medium) that is society and deny the social condition of Germany that simple, clear, classical character which distinguishes England's stage of development. Here, in an atmosphere of daily modernisation, and amongst thoroughly modern capitalists and workers, we find the most wonderful antediluvian fossils alive and active: feudal lords, seignorial courts, country squires, birching, central government officials, local government officials, craft corporations, conflicts of authority, bureaucracy with penal powers, etc. And we find that in the«' struggle for political power all these living fossils are banding themselves together against the bourgeoisie, whose property makes it the most powerful class of the new epoch and who is demanding that the former should surrender political power to it in the name of the new epoch.
Apart from the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, the large industry of today also gives rise to a kind of intermediate class between the two, the petty bourgeoisie. This consists partly of the relics of the former semi-medieval burghers and partly of workers who have risen somewhat in the world. Its function consists less in the production than in the distribution of goods; the retail trade is its main activity. Whilst the old burghers were the most stable class in society, the modern petty bourgeoisie is the most changeable; bankruptcy has become one of its institutions. With its slender capital it shares the status of the bourgeoisie, but by the insecurity of its livelihood it shares that of the proletariat. Its political position is as contradictory as its social being; in general however "pure democracy" is its most proper expression. Its political vocation is to encourage the bourgeoisie in its struggle against the relics of the old society and especially against its own weakness and cowardice, and to help win those freedoms — freedom of the press, freedom of association and assembly, universal suffrage, local self-government — without which, despite its bourgeois character, a timid bourgeoisie can manage passably well but without which the workers can never win their emancipation.
In the course of the struggle between the relics of the old, antediluvian society and the bourgeoisie, sooner or later the time always comes when both combatants turn to the proletariat and seek its support. This mpment usually coincides with the first stirrings of the working class itself. The feudal and bureaucratic representatives of the declining society appeal to the workers to join them in attacking the blood-suckers, the capitalists, the sole foes of the worker; the bourgeoisie make it clear to the workers that they jointly represent the new social era and therefore have a common interest at least with regard to the declining, old form of society. At about this time the working class then gradually becomes aware that it is a class in its own right with its own interests and its own independent future; and that gives rise to the question, which has forced itself upon their attention in England, in France and in Germany successively: what attitude should the workers' party adopt towards the combatants?
Above all this will depend on what kind of aims the workers' party, i.e., that part of the working class which has become aware of its common class interests, is striving for in the interests of that class.
It seems that the most advanced workers in Germany are demanding the emancipation of the workers from the capitalists by the transfer of state capital to associations of workers, so that production can be organised, without capitalists, for general account; and as a means to the achievement of this end: the conquest of political power by universal direct suffrage.[52]
This much is now clear: neither the feudal-bureaucratic party, which for the sake of brevity is customarily referred to as reaction, nor the liberal-radical bourgeois party, will be inclined to concede these demands of their own volition. But the proletariat will become a power from the moment when an independent workers' party is formed, and a power has to be reckoned with. Both warring parties know this and will at the appropriate moment therefore tend to make apparent or real concessions to the workers. From which side can the workers wring the greatest concessions?
The mere existence of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat is a thorn in the flesh of the reactionary party. Its power is based on suppressing or at least obstructing present-day social development. Otherwise all the possessing classes will gradually be transformed into capitalists and all the oppressed classes into proletarians, and in the process the reactionary party will disappear of its own accord. To be consistent, reaction will indeed attempt to dispose of the proletariat, however not by proceeding to association but by turning the present-day proletarians back into guild-journeymen or restoring them to a state of complete or semi- peasant serfdom. Is such a restoration in the interest of our proletarians? Do they wish to return to the paternal discipline of the guild-master and "his lordship", if such were possible? Surely not. For it is only when the working class became divorced from all these sham possessions and sham privileges of former times and the naked conflict between capital and labour became apparent that the very existence of a single great working class with common interests, a workers' movement and a workers' party became possible at all. And what is more, it. is simply impossible to turn back the clock of history in this way. The steam-engines, the mechanical spinning and weaving looms, the steam-ploughs and threshing machines, the railways and electric telegraphs and the steam-presses of the present day do not permit such an absurd backward step, on the contrary, they are gradually and remorselessly destroying all the relics of feudal and guild conditions and are reducing all the petty social contradictions surviving from former times to the one contradiction of world-historical significance: that between capital and labour.
The bourgeoisie, on the other hand, has no other historical function than to proliferate in every field the aforesaid gigantic forces of production and means of communication in present-day society and intensify them to the utmost; to use their credit institutions to take over the means of production handed down from former times as well, landed property in particular; to operate every branch of production by modern means; to destroy all relics of feudal forms of production and feudal conditions and thus reduce the whole of society to the simple contradiction that exists between a class of capitalists and a class of unpropertied workers. As these contradictions between classes in society are simplified, so the power of the bourgeoisie grows, but at the same time the proletariat's power, class-consciousness and potential for victory grow even more; it is only this increase in the power of the bourgeoisie that gradually enables the proletariat to become the majority, the dominant majority in the state, as it already is in England, but by no means yet in Germany, where in the country peasants of every kind and in the towns small craftsmen and shopkeepers, etc., are still outnumbering it.
Hence: every victory by reaction impedes social development and inevitably delays the time when the workers will be victorious. Every victory by the bourgeoisie over reaction on the other hand is at the same time in one sense a victory for the workers, contributes to the final downfall of capitalist rule and brings the moment closer when the workers will defeat the bourgeoisie.
Let us compare the position of the German workers' party in 1848 and now. There are in Germany still plenty of veterans who were involved in the initial stages of founding a German workers' party before 1848, and who after the revolution helped develop it for as long as the conditions of the time permitted. They all know the trouble it took, even in those agitated times, to set up a workers' movement, to keep it going and to get rid of reactionary guild-minded elements, and how a few years later the whole movement went back to sleep. If a workers' movement has now sprung up as it were of its own accord, what is the explanation? It is that since 1848 large-scale bourgeois industry has made unprecedented advances in Germany, because it has eliminated a great number of small craftsmen and other intermediaries between worker and capitalist, has brought a great number of workers into direct conflict with the capitalists, and in short has created a significant proletariat where previously one did not exist or did so only on a small scale. This development of industry has made a workers' party and workers' movement a necessity.
That is not to say that there may not be times when it appears advisable to reaction to make concessions to the workers. But these concessions are always of a very particular kind. They are never of a political nature. Feudal-bureaucratic reaction will neither extend the franchise nor grant freedom of the press, association and assembly, nor restrict the power of the bureaucracy. The concessions which it does make are always aimed directly against the bourgeoisie, and are such as do not increase the political power of the workers at all. Thus in England the ten-hour law for factory-workers was passed against the wishes of the manufacturers.™ Thus in Prussia the strict observance of the regulations concerning working hours in the factories — which exist at present only on paper — and in addition the right of association for workers,[54] etc., could be demanded from the government and possibly obtained. But it is clear that all these concessions on the part of reaction are obtained without anything being offered in return by the workers, and rightly so, for simply by aggravating the bourgeoisie reaction has gained its ends, and the workers owe it no debt of gratitude, nor do they ever express any.
But there is another form of reaction which has enjoyed much success in recent times and is becoming highly fashionable in certain circles; this is the form nowadays called Bonapartism. Bonapartism is the necessary form of state in a country where the working class, at a high level of its development in the towns but numerically inferior to the small peasants in rural areas, has been defeated in a great revolutionary struggle by the capitalist class, the petty bourgeoisie and the army. When the Parisian workers were defeated in the titanic struggle of June 1848 in France, the bourgeoisie had at the same time totally exhausted itself in this victory. It was aware it could not afford a second such victory. It continued to rule in name, but it was too weak to govern. Control was assumed by the army, the real victor, basing itself on the class from which it preferred to draw its recruits, the small peasants, who wanted peace from the rioters in the towns. The form this rule took was of course military despotism, its natural leader the hereditary heir to the latter, Louis Bonaparte.
As far as both workers and capitalists are concerned, Bonapartism is characterised by the fact that it prevents them coming to blows with each other. In other words, it protects the bourgeoisie from any violent attacks by the workers, encourages a little gentle skirmishing between the two classes and furthermore deprives both alike of the faintest trace of political power. No freedom of association, no freedom of assembly, no freedom of the press; universal suffrage under such bureaucratic pressure that election of the opposition is almost impossible; police-control of a kind that had previously been unknown even in police-ridden France. Besides which, sections of the bourgeoisie and of the workers are simply bought; the former by colossal credit-swindles, by which the money of the small capitalists is attracted into the pockets of the big ones; the latter by colossal state construction-schemes which concentrate an artificial, imperial proletariat dependent on the government in the big towns alongside the natural, independent proletariat. Finally, national pride is flattered by apparently heroic wars, which are however always conducted with the approval of the high authorities of Europe against the general scapegoat of the day and only on such conditions as ensure victory from the outset.
The most that such a government can do either for the workers or for the bourgeoisie is to allow them to recuperate from the struggle, to allow industry to develop strongly — other circumstances being favourable—, to allow the elements of a new and more violent struggle to evolve therefore, and to allow this struggle to erupt as soon as the need for such recuperation has passed. It would be the absolute height of folly to expect any more for the workers from a government which exists simply and solely for the purpose of holding the workers in check as far as the bourgeoisie is concerned.
Let us now turn to the specific issue we have before us. What can reaction in Prussia offer the workers' party?
Can this reaction offer the working class a real share of political power? — Definitely not. Firstly no reactionary government has ever done so in recent history, either in England or in France. Secondly, the present struggle in Prussia is concerned precisely with whether the government is to unite all real power in itself or to share it with parliament. And the government will certainly not use every means available to it to wrest power from the bourgeoisie, merely to make a present of that power to the proletariat!
The feudal aristocracy and the bureaucracy can retain their real power in Prussia even without parliamentary representation. Their traditional position at the court, in the army and in the civil service guarantees them this power. They may even not want any special representation, since after all there can be no question in Prussia nowadays of permanent chambers of the nobility and bureaucracy such as existed under Manteuffel. They would therefore dearly like to consign parliament and all its trappings to oblivion.
On the other hand the bourgeoisie and workers can only exercise real, organised, political power through parliamentary representation; and such parliamentary representation is valueless unless it has a voice and a share in making decisions, in other words, unless it holds the "purse-strings". That however is precisely what Bismarck on his own admission is trying to prevent. We ask: is it in the interests of the workers that this parliament should be robbed of all power, this parliament which they themselves hope to enter by winning universal direct suffrage and in which they hope one day to form the majority? Is it in their interests to set all the wheels of agitation in motion in order to enter an assembly whose words ultimately carry no weight? Surely not.
But what if the government were to overturn the present electoral law and decree universal direct suffrage? Yes, if\ // the government were to carry out such a Bonapartist trick and the workers swallowed it, they would thereby from the start have acknowledged the government's right to suspend universal direct suffrage again by a new edict whenever it thought fit, and what would all this universal direct suffrage be worth then?
// the government decreed universal direct suffrage, it would from the outset hedge it about with so many ifs and buts that it would in fact not be universal direct suffrage at all any more.
And regarding universal direct suffrage itself, one has only to go to France to realise what tame elections it can give rise to, if one has only a large and ignorant rural population, a well-organised bureaucracy, a well-regimented press, associations sufficiently kept down by the police and no political meetings at all. How many workers' representatives does universal direct suffrage send to the French chamber, then? And yet the French proletariat has the advantage over the German of far greater concentration and longer experience of struggle and organisation.
Which brings us to yet another point. In Germany the rural population is twice the size of the urban population, i.e., [2]/[3] earn their living from agriculture and '/s from industry. And since in Germany the big landowner is the rule and the small peasant with his strips the exception, put another way that means: if '/» of the workers are at the beck and call of the capitalists, [2]/[3] are at the beck and call of the feudal lords. Let those who never stop railing at the capitalists but never utter a word in anger against the feudalists take that to heart![55] The feudalists exploit twice as many workers in Germany as the bourgeoisie; in Germany they are just as directly opposed to the workers as the capitalists. But that is by no means all. The patriarchal economic system on the old feudal estates generates a hereditary dependence of the rural day-labourer or cottager on "his lordship" which makes it far more difficult for the agricultural proletarian to enter the urban workers' movement. The clergy, the systematic obscurantism in the country, the bad schooling and the remoteness of the people from the world at large do the rest. The agricultural proletariat is the section of the working class which has most difficulty in understanding its own interests and its own social situation and is the last to do so, in other words, it is the section which remains the longest as an unconscious tool in the hands of the privileged class which is exploiting it. And which class is that? Not the bourgeoisie, in Germany, but the feudal aristocracy. Now even in France, where after all virtually all the peasants are free and own their land, and where the feudal aristocracy has long been deprived of all political power, universal suffrage has not put workers into the Chamber but has almost totally excluded them from it. What would be the consequence of universal suffrage in Germany, where the feudal aristocracy is still a real social and political power and where there are two agricultural day labourers for every industrial worker? The battle against feudal and bureaucratic reaction — for the two are inseparable in our country — is in Germany identical with the struggle for the intellectual and political emancipation of the rural proletariat — and until such time as the rural proletariat is also swept along into the movement, the urban proletariat cannot and will not achieve anything at all in Germany and universal direct suffrage will not be a weapon for the proletariat but a snare.
Perhaps this exceptionally candid but necessary analysis will encourage the feudalists to espouse the cause of universal direct suffrage. So much the better.
Or do we imagine that the government is only stultifying the press, the right of association and the right of assembly, as far as the bourgeois opposition is concerned (if indeed there is much left to be stultified in present conditions) in order to make a present of a free press and free rights of association and assembly to the workers? Is not the workers' movement in fact calmly continuing on its own untroubled way?
But that is precisely the crux of the matter. The government knows, and the bourgeoisie knows too, that the whole German workers' movement today is only tolerated, only survives, for as long as the government chooses. For as long as it serves the government's purpose for this movement to exist and for the bourgeois opposition to be faced with new, independent opponents, thus long will it tolerate this movement. From the moment that this movement turns the workers into an independent force, and thereby becomes a danger to the government, there will be an abrupt end to it all. The whole manner in which the men-of-Progress agitation in the press, associations and assemblies has been put down, should serve as a warning to the workers. The same laws, edicts and measures which were applied in that case, can be applied against them at any time and deal a lethal blow to their agitation; and they will be so applied as soon as this agitation becomes dangerous. It is of the greatest importance that the workers should be clear about this point, and do not fall prey to the same illusion as the bourgeoisie in the "New Era", when they were similarly only tolerated but imagined they were already in the saddle. And if anyone should imagine the present government would free the press, the right of association and the right of assembly from their present fetters, he is clearly among those to whom there is no point in talking. And unless there is freedom of the press, the right, of association and the right of assembly, no workers' movement is possible.
The present government in Prussia is not so naive as to be likely to cut its own throat. And if it should ever happen that reaction were to throw a few sham political concessions to the German proletariat as a bait — then let us hope the German proletariat will answer with the proud words of the old Lay of Hildebrand5b:
"Mit gêrû seal man geba infâhan, ort widar orte." With the spear one should accept gifts, point against point.
Goncerning the social concessions which reaction could offer to the workers — reduction of working hours in the factories, improved operation of the factory acts, the right of association, etc.—experience in every country has shown that reaction makes such propositions without the workers having to offer the slightest thing in return. Reaction needs the workers, but the workers do not need reaction. Therefore as long as the workers insist on these points in their own independent agitation, they can rest assured that the moment will come when reactionary elements will make the same demands merely in order to provoke the bourgeoisie; and in this way the workers will make gains over the bourgeoisie, without owing reaction any debt of gratitude.
But if the workers' party can expect nothing from reaction except small concessions which will come to it anyway without it needing to go begging for them — what then can it expect from the bourgeois opposition?
We have seen that the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are both progeny of a new era and that in their social function both are striving to eliminate the remnants of the bric-à-brac left over from earlier times. It is true that there is a most serious conflict to be settled between them, but this conflict can only be fought out when they are facing each other alone. Only by jettisoning the old lumber can the "decks be cleared for battle"—except that this time the battle will be fought not between two ships but on board the one ship, between officers and crew.
The bourgeoisie cannot win political power for itself nor give this political power constitutional and legal forms without at the same time putting weapons into the hands of the proletariat. As distinct from the old Estates, distinguished by birth, it must proclaim human rights, as distinct from the guilds, it must proclaim freedom of trade and industry, as distinct from the tutelage of the bureaucracy, it must proclaim freedom and self-government. To be consistent, it must therefore demand universal, direct suffrage, freedom of the press, association and assembly and the suspension of all special laws directed against individual classes of the population. And there is nothing else that the proletariat needs to demand from it. It cannot require that the bourgeoisie should cease to be a bourgeoisie, but it certainly can require that it practises its own principles consistently. But the proletariat will thereby also acquire all the weapons it needs for its ultimate victory. With freedom of the press and the right of assembly and association it will win universal suffrage, and with universal, direct suffrage, in conjunction with the above tools of agitation, it will win everything else.
It is therefore in the interests of the workers to support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against all reactionary elements, as long as it remains true to itself. Every gain which the bourgeoisie extracts from reaction, eventually benefits the working class, if that condition is fulfilled. And the German workers were quite correct in their instinctive appreciation of this. Everywhere, in every German state, they have quite rightly voted for the most radical candidates who had any prospect of getting in.
But what if the bourgeoisie is untrue to itself and betrays its own class interests, together with the principles these imply?
Then there are two paths left to the workers! Either to drive the bourgeoisie on against its will and compel it as far as possible to extend the suffrage, to grant freedom of the press, association and assembly and thereby to create an arena for the proletariat in which it can move freely and organise. This is what the English workers have done since the Reform Bill of 1832 and the French workers since the July Revolution of 1830, furthering their own development and organisation precisely through and with this movement, whose immediate aims were purely bourgeois in nature, more than by any other method. There will always be cases like this, for with its lack of political courage the bourgeoisie everywhere will occasionally be untrue to itself.
Or alternatively, the workers might withdraw entirely from the bourgeois movement and leave the bourgeoisie to its fate. This was what happened in England, France and Germany after the failure of the European workers' movement from 1848 to 1850. It can only happen after violent and temporarily fruitless exertions, after which the class needs to rest. It cannot happen when the working class is in a healthy condition, for it would be the equivalent of total political abdication, and a class which is courageous by nature, a class which has nothing to lose and everything to gain, is incapable of that in the long term.
Even if the worst came to the worst and the bourgeoisie was to scurry under the skirts of reaction for fear of the workers, and appeal to the power of those elements hostile to itself for protection against them — even then the workers' party would have no choice but, notwithstanding the bourgeoisie, to continue its campaign for bourgeois freedom, freedom of the press and rights of assembly and association which the bourgeoisie had betrayed. Without these freedoms it will be unable to move freely itself; in this struggle it is fighting to establish the environment necessary for its existence, for the air it needs to breathe.
We are taking it for granted that in all these eventualities the workers' party will not play the part of a mere appendage to the bourgeoisie but of an independent party quite distinct from it. It will remind the bourgeoisie at every opportunity that the class interests of the workers are directly opposed to those of the capitalists and that the workers are aware of this. It will retain control of and further develop its own organisation as distinct from the party organisation of the bourgeoisie, and will only negotiate with the latter as one power with another. In this way it will secure for itself a position commanding respect, educate the individual workers about their class interests and when the next revolutionary storm comes — and these storms now recur as regularly as trade crises and equinoctial storms — it will be ready to act.
The policy of the workers' party in the Prussian constitutional conflict emerges therefore self-evidently:
above all to preserve the organisation of the workers' party as far as present conditions permit;
to drive the Party of Progress on to make real progress, as far as possible; to compel it to make its own programme more radical and to keep to it; to chide it and ridicule it mercilessly for all its inconsistencies and weaknesses;
to let the military question itself go the way that it will, in the knowledge that the workers' party will one day also carry out its own, 'German "army-reorganisation";
but to reply to the hypocritical enticements of reaction with the words:
"With the spear one should accept gifts, point against point."
Endnotes
[51] The Imperial Constitution was adopted by the Frankfurt National Assembly on March 28, 1849. While proclaiming a number of civil liberties and introducing national central institutions, the Constitution nevertheless shaped the united German state as a monarchy. The Prussian-oriented liberal deputies of the Frankfurt Assembly insisted on handing the imperial crown to the Hohenzol-lerns and King Frederick-William IV was elected "Emperor of the Germans". However, he refused to accept the offer. Apart from the Prussian Government, those of almost all the larger German states (including Saxony, Bavaria and Hanover) refused to recognise the Constitution. Afraid of revolutionary action, liberals and democrats in the Frankfurt National Assembly proved incapable of upholding the Constitution. The people themselves were its sole defender, and in the spring and summer of 1849, they started an armed struggle led by petty-bourgeois democrats. However, the scattered revolts in defence of the Constitution in Dresden, Rhenish Prussia, the Palatinate and Baden were put down by the counter-revolutionary troops. Prussian hegemony (Preußische Spitze). Frederick-William IV of Prussia first used this expression on March 20, 1848 when he spoke of his readiness to stand "at the head (an die Spitze) of the whole fatherland in order to save Germany". It was used later too to denote Prussia's aspiration for unification of the country under its supremacy. Tripartite system—a plan for the reorganisation of the German Confederation which, along with Austria and Prussia, envisaged the formation of a union directed against the Austrian and Prussian supremacy and expressed the particularist tendencies of the Middle states which were trying to maintain their independence.
[52] Here Engels cites the demands put forward in the Programme of the General Association of German Workers (founded in 1863). However, on Marx's advice (see Marx's letter to Engels of February 11, 1865, present edition, Vol. 42), he formulated them in his pamphlet in such a way that they could not be interpreted in the spirit of Lassalle's reformist ideas about the possibility of resolving the social problem. As Engels saw it, the demand for workers' associations acquired a revolutionary meaning because the winning of political power by the working class was specified as the prime condition for its implementation.
[54] A reference to the workers' right to organise trade unions and to go on strike. In January 1865 the Prussian Provincial Diet debated the right of association in connection with the workers' opposition to the trade regulations then in force. Two members of the Party of Progress, Schulze-Delitzsch and Faucher, used the occasion to have the articles restraining capitalism repealed. They proposed to revoke Article 181, which forbade employers to resort to lockouts, and also demagogically demanded the cancellation of Article 182 concerning the punishment of workers for incitement to strike. The workers in turn wanted the repeal of Article 183 which made them obtain police permission to form associations, and of Article 184 banning strikes. On February 14, 1865 the Prussian Provincial Diet annulled Articles 181 and 182 and left the workers' demand for freedom of association unsatisfied.
[55] An allusion to Lassalle's followers, who favoured flirting with the Bismarck Government, the nobility and the Junkers.
[2] This presumably refers to the articles "The Trade and Navigation Returns" and "Pauperism.—July 1850 and 1849", published in The Economist, August 10, 1850.
[3] Garottes—robbers who strangled their victims. In the early 1860s such attacks often occurred in London and were a subject of special debate in Parliament.