Part 39 (1/2)

You cannot prevent Mr Nadeau froislators: ”You cannot refuse to do for the suffering classes that which you have done for the privileged classes”

You cannot even prevent the leader of your orchestra, Mr Miislators: ”I de his motion in this manner:

”Is this the first exaislation offers?

Would you establish the syste, open at its expense courses of scientific lectures, subsidize the fine arts, pension the theatre, give to the classes already favored by fortune the benefits of superior education, the most varied amuseive all this to those who know nothing of privations, and compel those who have no share in these benefits to bear their part of the burden, while refusing the, even the necessaries of life?

”Gentlemen, our French society, our customs, our laws, are so made that the intervention of the State, howeverseems to be stable or durable if the hand of the State is not manifest in it It is the State that makes the Sevres porcelain, and the Gobelin tapestry It is the State that periodically gives expositions of the works of our artists, and of the products of our manufacturers; it is the State which recompenses those who raise its cattle and breed its fish All this costs a great deal It is a tax to which every one is obliged to contribute

Everybody, do you understand? And what direct benefit do the people derive from it? Of what direct benefit to the people are your porcelains and tapestries, and your expositions? This general principle of resisting what you call a state of enthusiash you yesterday voted a bounty for linens; we can understand it on the condition of consulting the present crisis, and especially on the condition of your proving your impartiality If it is true that, by the means I have indicated, the State thus far seems to have more directly benefited the well-to-do classes than those who are poorer, it is necessary that this appearance should be re thethe exhibitions? assuredly not; _but by giving the poor a direct share in this distribution of benefits_”

In this long catalogue of favors granted to some at the expense of all, one will remark the extreme prudence hich Mr Mih they are the al spoliation All the orators who supported or opposed him have taken upon themselves the sa the poor a direct participation in this distribution of benefits_, to save this great iniquity by which they profit, but of which they do not whisper

They deceive the realized a partial spoliation by the establishment of customs duties, other classes, by the establishment of other institutions, will not attempt to realize universal spoliation?

I know very well you always have a sophisrants us are not given to the _manufacturer_, but to _manufactures_ The profits which it enables us to receive at the expense of the consumers are merely a trust placed in our hands They enrich us, it is true, but our wealth places us in a position to expend more, to extend our establish classes”

Such is your language, and what I most lament is the circumstance that your miserable sophisms have so perverted public opinion that they are appealed to in support of all for classes also say ”Let us by act of the Legislature help ourselves to the goods of others We shall be in easier circumstances as the result of it; we shall buy more wheat, more meat, more cloth, and more iron; and that which we receive from the public taxes will return in a beneficent shower to the capitalists and landed proprietors”

But, as I have already said, I will not to-day discuss the econoal spoliation Whenever the protectionists desire, they will find me ready to examine the _sophisms of the ricochets_, which, indeed, may be invoked in support of all species of robbery and fraud

We will confine ourselves to the political and ally deprived of liberty

I have said: The tiht to be

If you make the law for all citizens a palladiuanization of the individual law of self-defense, you will establish, upon the foundation of justice, a government rational, simple, economical, comprehended by all, loved by all, useful to all, supported by all, entrusted with a responsibility perfectly defined and carefully restricted, and endoith ith If, on the other hand, in the interests of individuals or of classes, you make the law an instrument of robbery, every one ish to e

There will be a riotous crowd at the doors of the legislative halls, there will be a bitter conflict within; minds will be in anarchy, morals will be shi+pwrecked; there will be violence in party organs, heated elections, accusations, recriuishable hates, the public forces placed at the service of rapacity instead of repressing it, the ability to distinguish the true from the false effaced from all minds, as the notion of justice and injustice will be obliterated fro and bending under the burden of its responsibilities, political convulsions, revolutions without end, ruins over which all forms of socialism and communism attempt to establish themselves; these are the evils which must necessarily flow froentlemen, are the evils for which you have prepared the way by e; that is to say, to abolish the right of property Do not declaiainst communism; you create it And now you ask us Economists to make you a theory which will justify you! _Morbleu!_ make it yourselves

PART IV

CAPITAL AND INTEREST

My object in this treatise is to examine into the real nature of the Interest of Capital, for the purpose of proving that it is lawful, and explaining why it should be perpetual This ular, and yet, I confess, I a too plain than too obscure I am afraid I may weary the reader by a series of er, when the facts, hich we have to deal, are known to every one by personal, familiar, and daily experience

But, then, you will say, ”What is the use of this treatise? Why explain what everybody knows?”

But, although this probleht so very siht suppose I shall endeavor to prove this by an example Mondor lends an instrument of labor to-day, which will be entirely destroyed in a week, yet the capital will not produce the less interest to Mondor or his heirs, through all eternity Reader, can you honestly say that you understand the reason of this?

It would be a waste of tis of econoht upon the reasons of the existence of interest For this they are not to be blamed; for at the time they wrote, its lawfulness was not called in question Noever, times are altered; the case is different Men, who consider theanized an active crusade against capital and interest; it is the productiveness of capital which they are attacking; not certain abuses in the administration of it, but the principle itself

A journal has been established to serve as a vehicle for this crusade

It is conducted by M Proudhon, and has, it is said, an immense circulation The first number of this periodical contains the electoral manifesto of the _people_ Here we read, ”The productiveness of capital, which is condemned by Christianity under the name of usury, is the true cause of misery, the true principle of destitution, the eternal obstacle to the establishment of the Republic”

Another journal, _La Ruche Populaire_, after having said soht to be free; that is, it ought to be organized in such a manner, _that money lenders and patrons, or masters, should not be paid_ for this liberty of labor, this right of labor, which is raised to so high a price by the trafficers of ht that I notice here, is that expressed by the words in italics, which iht to interest The remainder of the article explains it