Between whiles, as one cannot always be writing, I am doing some Differential Calculus dx/dy. I have no patience to read anything else. Any other reading always drives me back to my writing-desk. This evening a special session of the International. A good old fellow, an old Owenist, Weston (carpenter) has put forward the two following propositions, which he is continually defending in the Beehive: (1) That a general rise in the rate of wages would be of no use to the workers; (2) That therefore, etc., the trade unions have a harmful effect. If these two propositions, in which he alone in our society believes, were accepted, we should be turned into a joke (so w ren wir Kladderadatsch) both on account of the trade unions here and of the infection of strikes which now prevails on the Continent. On this occasion--as non-members may be admitted to this meeting--he will be supported by a born Englishman, who has written a pamphlet to the same effect. I am of course espected to supply the refutation. I ought really therefore to have worked out my reply for this evening, but thought it more important to write on at my bookt and so shall have to depend upon improvisation. Of course I know beforehand what the two main points are :
Letters: Marx-Engels Correspondence 1865