your fear of a
reduction of wages is unfounded. You do not see that, before the
disbanding as well as after it, there are in the country a hundred
millions of money corresponding with the hundred thousand men. That the
whole difference consists in this: before the disbanding, the country
gave the hundred millions to the hundred thousand men for doing nothing;
and that after it, it pays them the same sum for working. You do not
see, in short, that when a tax-payer gives his money either to a soldier
in exchange for nothing, or to a worker in exchange for something, all
the ultimate consequences of the circulation of this money are the same
in the two cases; only, in the second case the tax-payer receives
something, in the former he receives nothing. The result is--a dead loss
to the nation.

The sophism which I am here combating will not stand the test of
progression, which is the touchstone of principles. If, when every
compensation is made, and all interests satisfied, there is a _national
profit_ in increasing the army, why not enrol under its banners the
entire male population of the country?

III.--Taxes.

Have you never chanced to hear it said: "There is no better investment
than taxes. Only see what a number of families it maintains, and
consider how it reacts upon industry: it is an inexhaustible stream, it
is life itself."

In order to combat this doctrine, I must refer to my preceding
refutation. Political economy knew well enough that its arguments were
not so amusing that it could be said of them, _repetitions please_. It
has, therefore, turned the proverb to its own use, well convinced that,
in its mouth, _repetitions teach_.

The advantages which officials advocate are _those which are seen_. The
benefit which accrues to the providers _is still that which is seen_.
This blinds all eyes.

But the disadvantages which the tax-payers have to get rid of are _those
which are not seen_. And the injury which results from it to the
providers is still that _which is not seen_, although this ought to be
self-evident.

When an official spends for his own profit an extra hundred sous, it
implies that a tax-payer spends for his profit a hundred sous less. But
the expense of the official _is seen_, because the act is performed,
while that of the tax-payer _is not seen_, because, alas! he is
prevented from performing it.

You compare the nation, perhaps to a parched tract of land, and the tax
to a fertili