Page:Karl Marx - The Poverty of Philosophy - (tr. Harry Quelch) - 1913.djvu/223

 216 APPENDIX

and wages are therefore low, he can save almost nothing on bread for the purchase of other articles.

The English workingmen have shown the English Free Traders that they are not the dupes of their illu- sions or of their lies; and if, in spite of this, the workers have made common cause with the manufacturers against the landlords, it is for the purpose of destroying the last remnant of feudalism, that henceforth they may have only one enemy to deal with. The workers have not miscalculated, for the landlords, in order to revenge themselves upon the manufacturers, have made common cause with the workers to carry the Ten Hours Bill, which the latter had been vainly demanding for thirty years, and which was passed immediately after the repeal of the Corn Laws.

When Dr. Bowring, at the Congress of Economists, drew from his pocket a long list to show how many head of cattle, how much ham, bacon, poultry, &c., is imported into England, to be consumed—as he asserted—by the workers, he unfortunately forgot to state that at the same time the workers of Manchester and other factory towns were thrown out of work by the beginning of the crisis.

As a matter of principle in Political Economy, the figures of a single year must never be taken as the basis for formulating general laws. We must always take the average of from six to seven years, a period during which modern industry passes through the successive phases of prosperity, over-production, crisis, thus com- pleting the inevitable cycle.

Doubtless, if the price of all commodities falls,—and this is the necessary consequence of Free Trade,—I can buy far more for a franc than before. And the working- man’s franc is as good as any other man’s. There-