Marx devoted [a series of] three articles to the debates of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly, only two of which, the first and the third, were published.
In the first series of articles Marx proceeded with his criticism of the Prussian censorship which he had begun in his as yet unpublished article Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction.
The second series of articles, devoted to the conflict between the Prussian Government and the Catholic Church, was banned by the censors. The manuscript of this article has not survived, but the general outline of it is given by Marx in his letter to Ruge of July 9, The third series of articles [this one] is devoted to the debates of the Rhine Province Assembly on the law on wood thefts.
Marx touched on the theme of the material interests of the popular masses for the first time, coming out in their defence. Work on this and subsequent articles inspired Marx to study political economy. He wrote about this in the preface to his A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy : "In the year , as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung , I first found myself in the embarrassing position of having to discuss what is known as material interests.
Debates of the Rhine Province Assembly on the theft of wood and the division of landed property; the official polemic started by Herr von Schaper, then Oberprasident of the Rhine Province, against the Rheinische Zeitung about the condition of the Mosel peasantry, and finally the debates on free trade and protective tariffs caused me in the first instance to turn my attention to economic questions. Excerpts from the speeches by the deputies to the Assembly are cited from Sitzungs-Protokolle des sechsten Rheinischen Provinzial-Landtags , Koblenz, RZ editorial note: "We regret that we have not been able to publish the second article for our readers.
