Hence the need of the Liberals to make sham or real concessions to the workers, especially the former. Despite all this they are too stupid to know where to begin and many are still too strongly committed by their antecedents. So far the elections are proceeding as if made to our order. The Liberals are getting a slight majority; in many constituencies they are even losing votes in comparison with the last elections so that the tremendous Liberal landslide that was to overwhelm England has as yet not been noticeable. To-day is very important as its results will probably be decisive. If the Liberals are conspicuously victorious to-day the vacillating philistines a very populous herd will be driven to side with them, and then they will be on top. What we need is a moderate Liberal majority (including the Irish) so that Gladstone will be dependent here on the Irish, because if he can get along without them he is sure to cheat them. What is very fine, however, is that in West Ham, in the East End of London, Keir Hardie, the workers candidate one of the few who did not accept any Liberal money and gave no pledges to the Liberals is so far the only one who has succeeded in changing a Conservative majority (of over 300 in the last elections) into an anti-Conservative one (of over 1,200). It is also very good that elsewhere, too, as for instance in Aberdeen, etc., workers candidates who come out against both the Liberals and Conservatives have received as many as 1,000 votes. An independent labour party is casting its shadow before. There are three kinds of workers candidates here:
Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1892