Part 36 (2/2)

Tobacco, certainly; it progresses, thanks to Heaven, and the distinguished habits which august exaant youth

But the postal service! We will say nothing of that, but make it the subject of a special report

Then what is left to your fe, except e, pitiful resources, which are more and more restricted by that barbarous science, mechanics

But as soon as your ordinance has appeared, as soon as the right hands are cut off or tied up, everything will change face Twenty, thirty times more embroiderers, washers and ironers, seamstresses and shi+rt-makers, would not do to our way of reasoning

It is true that this supposition ht be denied by cold-blooded theorists, for dresses and shi+rts would be dearer But they say the saets froet on our hillsides This arguainst _left-handedness_ than against _protection_; for this very dearness is the result and the sign of the excess of efforts and of labors, which is precisely the basis on which, in one case, as in the other, we clai classes

Yes, webusiness What movement! What activity! What life! Each dress will busy a hundred fingers instead of ten No longer will there be an idle young girl, and we need not, Sire, point out to your perspicacity the reat revolution Not only will there be more women employed, but each one of them will earn more, for they cannot meet the deer be awomen who make the dresses, but the beautiful ladies ear them

You see, Sire, that our proposition is not only conforovernment, but it is also essentially moral and democratic

To appreciate its effect, let us suppose it realized; let us transport ourselves in thought into the future; let us iine the system in action for twenty years Idleness is banished from the country; ease and concord, contentether with labor; there is no morevery clumsy at its work, there is a superabundance of labor, and the pay is satisfactory Everything is based on this, and, as a consequence, the workshops are filled Is it not true, Sire, that if Utopians were to suddenly deht hand, they would spread alarhout the country? Is it not true that this pretended reforood, since it cannot be overthroithout causing great distress

However, we have a sad presentireat is the perversity of anized to secure the liberty of right hands

It seeht-handers speak as follows in the Salle Montesquieu:

”People, you believe yourselves richer because they have taken from you one hand; you see but the increase of labor which results to you from it But look also at the dearness it causes, and the forced decrease in the consumption of all articles This es, reat reservoir are directed into other channels; the quantity is not increased, and the definite result is, for the nation, as a whole, a loss of comfort equal to the excess of the production of several ht hands, over several ue, and, at the expense of soht of working with both hands”

Happily, Sire, there will be organized an _association for the defense of left-handed labor_, and the _Sinistrists_ will have no trouble in reducing to nothing all these generalities and realities, suppositions and abstractions, reveries and Utopias They need only to exhume the _Moniteur Industriel_ of 1846, and they will find, ready-ainst _free trade_, which destroy so adht hand_, that all that is required is to substitute one word for another

”The Parisian _Free Trade_ League never doubted but that it would have the assistance of the workinger be led by the nose They have their eyes open, and they know political economy better than our diplomaed professors _Free trade_, they replied, will take fron property; _with labor, with much labor, the price of articles of merchandise is never beyond reach_ But without labor, even if bread should cost but a penny a pound, the workinger Now, your doctrines, instead of increasing the amount of labor in France, diminish it; that is to say, you reduce us to misery”

(Number of October 13, 1846)

”It is true, that when there are too many es decrease when these articles sink in value, the result is, that, instead of being able to buy the Thus, when they are cheapest, the workingman is most unhappy” (Gauthier de Rumilly, _Moniteur Industriel_ of November 17)

It would not be ill for the Sinistrists to le some threats with their beautiful theories This is a sample:

”What! to desire to substitute the labor of the right hand for that of the left, and thus to cause a forced reduction, if not an annihilation of wages, the sole resource of almost the entire nation!

”And this at the moment when poor harvests already iman, disquiet him as to his future, and make him more accessible to bad counsels and ready to abandon the wise course of conduct he had hitherto adhered to!”

We are confident, Sire, that thanks to such wise reasonings, if a struggle takes place, the left hand will come out of it victorious

Perhaps, also, an association will be forht and the left hand are not both wrong, and if there is not a third hand between the described the _Dexterists_ as seduced by the _apparent liberality of a principle, the correctness of which has not yet been verified by experience_, and the _Sinistrists_ as encaained, it will say:

”And yet they deny that there is a third course to pursue in theclasses have to defend thee nothing in the present situation, because they find their advantage in it, and against those who dream of an economic revolution of which they have calculated neither the extent nor the significance” (_National_ of October 16)

We do not desire, however, to hide from your Majesty the fact that our plan has a vulnerable side They may say to us: In twenty years all left hands will be as skilled as right ones are now, and you can no longer count on _left-handedness_ to increase the national labor