men."

Accordingly, orders are given that the drains in the Champ-de-Mars be
made and unmade. The great Napoleon, it is said, thought he was doing a
very philanthropic work by causing ditches to be made and then filled
up. He said, therefore, "What signifies the result? All we want is to
see wealth spread among the labouring classes."

But let us go to the root of the matter. We are deceived by money. To
demand the co-operation of all the citizens in a common work, in the
form of money, is in reality to demand a concurrence in kind; for every
one procures, by his own labour, the sum to which he is taxed. Now, if
all the citizens were to be called together, and made to execute, in
conjunction, a work useful to all, this would be easily understood;
their reward would be found in the results of the work itself.

But after having called them together, if you force them to make roads
which no one will pass through, palaces which no one will inhabit, and
this under the pretext of finding them work, it would be absurd, and
they would have a right to argue, "With this labour we have nothing to
do; we prefer working on our own account."

A proceeding which consists in making the citizens co-operate in giving
money but not labour, does not, in any way, alter the general results.
The only thing is, that the loss would react upon all parties. By the
former, those whom the State employs, escape their part of the loss, by
adding it to that which their fellow-citizens have already suffered.

There is an article in our constitution which says:--"Society favours
and encourages the development of labour--by the establishment of public
works, by the State, the departments, and the parishes, as a means of
employing persons who are in want of work."

As a temporary measure, on any emergency, during a hard winter, this
interference with the tax-payers may have its use. It acts in the same
way as securities. It adds nothing either to labour or to wages, but it
takes labour and wages from ordinary times to give them, at a loss it is
true, to times of difficulty.

As a permanent, general, systematic measure, it is nothing else than a
ruinous mystification, an impossibility, which shows a little excited
labour _which is seen_, and hides a great deal of prevented labour
_which is not seen_.

VI.--The Intermediates.

Society is the total of the forced or voluntary services which men
perform for each other; that is to say, of _publi