ment of all these things? Would it be in the profits of the
merchants? Would your officials go to Odessa for nothing? Would they
travel and work on the principle of fraternity? Must they not live? Must
not they be paid for their time? And do you believe that these expenses
would not exceed a thousand times the two or three per cent. which the
merchant gains, at the rate at which he is ready to treat?

And then consider the difficulty of levying so many taxes, and of
dividing so much food. Think of the injustice, of the abuses inseparable
from such an enterprise. Think of the responsibility which would weigh
upon the Government.

The Socialists who have invented these follies, and who, in the days of
distress, have introduced them into the minds of the masses, take to
themselves literally the title of _advanced men_; and it is not without
some danger that custom, that tyrant of tongues, authorizes the term,
and the sentiment which it involves. _Advanced!_ This supposes that
these gentlemen can see further than the common people; that their only
fault is that they are too much in advance of their age; and if the time
is not yet come for suppressing certain free services, pretended
parasites, the fault is to be attributed to the public which is in the
rear of Socialism. I say, from my soul and my conscience, the reverse is
the truth; and I know not to what barbarous age we should have to go
back, if we would find the level of Socialist knowledge on this subject.
These modern sectarians incessantly oppose association to actual
society. They overlook the fact that society, under a free regulation,
is a true association, far superior to any of those which proceed from
their fertile imaginations.

Let me illustrate this by an example. Before a mutual services, and to
helping each other in a common object, and that all may be considered,
with respect to others, _intermediates_. If, for instance, in the course
of the operation, the conveyance becomes important enough to occupy one
person, the spinning another, the weaving another, why should the first
be considered a _parasite_ more than the other two? The conveyance must
be made, must it not? Does not he who performs it devote to it his time
and trouble? and by so doing does he not spare that of his colleagues?
Do these do more or other than this for him? Are they not equally
dependent for remuneration, that is, for the division of the produce,
upon the law of reduced price?