iate means. Only it would not be worth while in that
case to begin a movement for such a purpose throughout all Germany, to
stir up a general agitation in the whole working class of the nation.
You must not bring mountains into labor in order that a ridiculous
mouse appear. This so extremely limited and subordinate purpose can
better be left to local unions and local organizations, which can
always handle it far better.

Or is this your object: To improve the normal condition of the whole
working class and elevate it above its present level? In truth this is
and must be your purpose, but this sharp line of distinction is
necessary, which I have drawn between these two objects, which must
not be confused with each other, in order to show you, better than I
could through a long exposition, how utterly powerless these
institutions are to attain this second object, and therefore how
utterly outside the scope of the present workingmen's movement.

Permit me to adduce the testimony of a single authority--the admission
of a strict conservative, a strict royalist, Professor Huber--a man
who has likewise devoted his studies to the social question and the
development of the workingmen's movement.

I like to call on the testimony of this man (in the course of this
letter I shall do it now and then again) because he is politically
entirely opposed to me, and in regard to economic questions differs
radically from me, and must accordingly be the best person to remove,
through his testimony, the suspicion that the slight advantage which I
attach to those institutions is only the consequence of previously
formed political tendencies; furthermore because Professor Huber,
who stands as far from liberalism as from my political views, has for
this very reason the necessary impartiality to make in the field of
political economy admissions which are in accordance with the truth;
whereas all adherents of the liberal school of political economy are
forced to deceive the workingmen, or, in order to deceive them better,
first to deceive themselves, in order to bring the facts into harmony
with their tendencies.

"Without underestimating," says Professor Huber, "the relative
usefulness of savings banks, accident and sickness insurance, etc., as
far as it really goes, these good things may nevertheless carry great
negative disadvantages with them, in that they stand in the way of
improvement."

And surely never would these negative disadvant