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The number of proprietors by whom these taxes are paid is estimated at six millions; so that, assuming four individuals to a family, there must be no less than twenty-four million inhabitants out of thirty-four who participate in the ownership of the soil. Then, according to the most favorable figures, there must be ten million proletaires in France, or nearly one-third of the population.
But Gallic simplicity does not understand artifice; and it would have been better to have said to France, in her immaculate tongue: The error of Malthus, the radical vice of political economy, consists, in general terms, in affirming as a definitive state a transitory condition, namely, the division of society into patricians and proletaires; and, particularly, in saying that in an organized, and consequently solidaire, society, there may be some who possess, labor, and consume, while others have neither possession, nor labor, nor bread.
Suppose now, that instead of ten capitalists, there should be a hundred, two hundred, five hundred, is it not evident that the condition of the whole population, and, above all, that of the "prolétaires," will be more and more improved?
"To the legislative power belongs the right to regulate property, to prescribe the conditions of acquiring, possessing, and transmitting it... It cannot be denied that inheritance, assessment, commerce, industry, labor, and wages require the most important modifications." You wish, proletaires, to REGULATE PROPERTY; that is, you wish to destroy it and reduce it to the right of possession.
Who would dare to make a god of the glorious child? "It is not strength which makes the man," said a Hercules of the market-place to the admiring crowd; "it is character." That man, who had only his muscles, held force in contempt. The lesson is a good one, proletaires; we should profit by it. It is heart, courage, will, virtue.
Thus there is a deficiency of labour to the "prolétaires," from the same cause which loads the objects they consume with an increase of price, in consequence of the rise of interest. High interest, low wages, means in other words that the same article preserves its price, but that the part of the capitalist has invaded, without profiting himself, that of the workmen.
But, sir, though pride be offended by my rudeness, it is not to pride that I apologize, but to the proletaires, to the simple-minded, whom I perhaps have scandalized. My angry dialectics may have produced a bad effect on some peaceable minds.
But they are also useful to those who have not yet been able to form them; and it is important to those who have them not, that others should have them. Yes, if the "prolétaires" knew their true interests, they would seek, with the greatest care, what circumstances are, and what are not favourable to saving, in order to favour the former and to discourage the latter.
They are "whole teams" beside the "one-horse" vapidities which fail to bear our burdens. The Norman cannot keep down the Saxon. The Saxon finds his Wat Tyler or Jack Cade. Now "Mose" brings his Bowery Boys into our parlor, or Cromwell Judd recruits his Ironsides from the hamlets of the Kennebec. We declare for the prolétaires. We vote the working-words ticket.
Is it not evident, that from that time the "prolétaires" have found greater difficulty in procuring those materials, instruments, and provisions, without which labour is impossible? Is it not that which has caused stoppages; and do not stoppages, in their turn, lower wages?
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