public opinion.

One of these faces was called _national workshops_. The other,
_forty-five centimes_. Millions of francs went daily from the Rue Rivoli
to the national workshops. This was the fair side of the medal.

And this is the reverse. If millions are taken out of a cash-box, they
must first have been put into it. This is why the organisers of the
right to public labour apply to the tax-payers.

Now, the peasants said, "I must pay forty-five centimes; then I must
deprive myself of some clothing. I cannot manure my field; I cannot
repair my house."

And the country workmen said, "As our townsman deprives himself of some
clothing, there will be less work for the tailor; as he does not improve
his field, there will be less work for the drainer; as he does not
repair his house, there will be less work for the carpenter and mason."

It was then proved that two kinds of meal cannot come out of one sack,
and that the work furnished by the Government was done at the expense of
labour, paid for by the tax-payer. This was the death of the right to
labour, which showed itself as much a chimera as an injustice. And yet,
the right to profit, which is only an exaggeration of the right to
labour, is still alive and flourishing.

Ought not the protectionist to blush at the part he would make society
play?

He says to it, "You must give me work, and, more than that, lucrative
work. I have foolishly fixed upon a trade by which I lose ten per cent.
If you impose a tax of twenty francs upon my countrymen, and give it to
me, I shall be a gainer instead of a loser. Now, profit is my right; you
owe it me." Now, any society which would listen to this sophist, burden
itself with taxes to satisfy him, and not perceive that the loss to
which any trade is exposed is no less a loss when others are forced to
make up for it,--such a society, I say, would deserve the burden
inflicted upon it.

Thus we learn by the numerous subjects which I have treated, that, to
be ignorant of political economy is to allow ourselves to be dazzled by
the immediate effect of a phenomenon; to be acquainted with it is to
embrace in thought and in forethought the whole compass of effects.

I might subject a host of other questions to the same test; but I shrink
from the monotony of a constantly uniform demonstration, and I conclude
by applying to political economy what Chateaubriand says of history:--

"There are," he says, "two consequences in history;