ich is seen_.

But, a hundred millions taken from the pockets of the tax-payers, cease
to maintain these tax-payers and the purveyors, as far as a hundred
millions reach. This is _that which is not seen_. Now make your
calculations. Cast up, and tell me what profit there is for the masses?

I will tell you where the _loss_ lies; and to simplify it, instead of
speaking of a hundred thousand men and a million of money, it shall be
of one man and a thousand francs.

We will suppose that we are in the village of A. The recruiting
sergeants go their round, and take off a man. The tax-gatherers go their
round, and take off a thousand francs. The man and the sum of money are
taken to Metz, and the latter is destined to support the former for a
year without doing anything. If you consider Metz only, you are quite
right; the measure is a very advantageous one: but if you look towards
the village of A., you will judge very differently; for, unless you are
very blind indeed, you will see that that village has lost a worker, and
the thousand francs which would remunerate his labour, as well as the
activity which, by the expenditure of those thousand francs, it would
spread around it.

At first sight, there would seem to be some compensation. What took
place at the village, now takes place at Metz, that is all. But the
loss is to be estimated in this way:--At the village, a man dug and
worked; he was a worker. At Metz, he turns to the right about and to the
left about; he is a soldier. The money and the circulation are the same
in both cases; but in the one there were three hundred days of
productive labour, in the other there are three hundred days of
unproductive labour, supposing, of course, that a part of the army is
not indispensable to the public safety.

Now, suppose the disbanding to take place. You tell me there will be a
surplus of a hundred thousand workers, that competition will be
stimulated, and it will reduce the rate of wages. This is what you see.

But what you do not see is this. You do not see that to dismiss a
hundred thousand soldiers is not to do away with a million of money, but
to return it to the tax-payers. You do not see that to throw a hundred
thousand workers on the market, is to throw into it, at the same moment,
the hundred millions of money needed to pay for their labour: that,
consequently, the same act which increases the supply of hands,
increases also the demand; from which it follows, that