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194 debt, which now they cannot pay. Well, I already pay £2 a week to Commonweal (this £4 loss being in addition to that) and absolutely cannot pay the extra £4: nor ought I to do so, as 1½d. (three half-pence) a week from each member of the League would tide us over, and if that cannot be raised it is a sign that the League members don't care about Commonweal.

Perhaps you will put these facts before our friends, who I am sure are anxious to do their best in the matter. You see when so very little more would save us, it does seem a pity to drop the only satisfactory English-written Socialist print.

I shall be glad to hear from you as often as convenient.

August 29th (1888).

—I was very glad to have news from you, and thank you for it. I wish I could give you as good news from London as you give us from Glasgow, but I consider we are in a poor way mostly. Our own branch is very good still and keeps up wonderfully; I don't know that we increase in mere muster roll, but we do in members who take an interest in the work, and we really are brisk. Elsewhere I can't say much for us, the few who take an interest are pig-headed and quarrelsome. The Sec. is (to speak plainly) a failure as such, though a very good fellow. The East End agitation is a failure; the sale of Commonweal falls off, or rather has fallen off all round; which of course was inevitable after the business of the Conference.

This sounds very gloomy; but, after all, I doubt if we are worse than we were before; a great deal of the excitement of our East End Leaguers was the result of 'indoor' agitation, i.e. quarrelling amongst ourselves, and the Parliamentarians having gone off the excitement has gone with them, and the excited friends withal. Now all this does not discourage me simply because I have discounted it; I have watched the men we are working with and know their weak points, and knew that this must happen. One or two of them