while it abstained from
exercising the right of property, falls into misery as soon as the
exercise of this right becomes a necessity. Property requires of the
husbandman the double power of enlarging his land, and fertilizing it by
a simple command. While a man is simply possessor of the land, he finds
in it means of subsistence; as soon as he pretends to proprietorship,
it suffices him no longer. Being able to produce only that which
he consumes, the fruit of his labor is his recompense for his
trouble--nothing is left for the instrument.

Required to pay what he cannot produce,--such is the condition of the
tenant after the proprietor has retired from social production in order
to speculate upon the labor of others by new methods.

Let us now return to our first hypothesis.

The nine hundred laborers, sure that their future production will equal
that of the past, are quite surprised, after paying their farm-rent, to
find themselves poorer by one-tenth than they were the previous year.
In fact, this tenth--which was formerly produced and paid by the
proprietor-laborer who then took part in the production, and paid part
of the--public expenses--now has not been produced, and has been paid.
It must then have been taken from the producer's consumption. To
choke this inexplicable deficit, the laborer borrows, confident of
his intention and ability to return,--a confidence which is shaken the
following year by a new loan, PLUS the interest on the first. From whom
does he borrow? From the proprietor. The proprietor lends his surplus to
the laborer; and this surplus, which he ought to return, becomes--being
lent at interest--a new source of profit to him. Then debts increase
indefinitely; the proprietor makes advances to the producer who never
returns them; and the latter, constantly robbed and constantly borrowing
from the robbers, ends in bankruptcy, defrauded of all that he had.

Suppose that the proprietor--who needs his tenant to furnish him with
an income--then releases him from his debts. He will thus do a very
benevolent deed, which will procure for him a recommendation in the
curate's prayers; while the poor tenant, overwhelmed by this unstinted
charity, and taught by his catechism to pray for his benefactors, will
promise to redouble his energy, and suffer new hardships that he may
discharge his debt to so kind a master.

This time he takes precautionary measures; he raises the price of
grains. The manufactur