inducement has the
capitalist to invest his money in the State? When, then, you force the
fund-holder to submit to a diminution of interest, you make him bankrupt
to the extent of the diminution; and since, in consequence of the
conversion, an equally profitable investment becomes impossible, you
depreciate his property.

That such a measure may be justly executed, it must be generalized; that
is, the law which provides for it must decree also that interest on sums
lent on deposit or on mortgage throughout the realm, as well as house
and farm-rents, shall be reduced to three per cent. This simultaneous
reduction of all kinds of income would be not a whit more difficult to
accomplish than the proposed conversion; and, further, it would offer
the advantage of forestalling at one blow all objections to it, at the
same time that it would insure a just assessment of the land-tax. See!
If at the moment of conversion a piece of real estate yields an income
of one thousand francs, after the new law takes effect it will yield
only six hundred francs. Now, allowing the tax to be an aliquot
part--one-fourth for example--of the income derived from each piece of
property, it is clear on the one hand that the proprietor would not, in
order to lighten his share of the tax, underestimate the value of his
property; since, house and farm-rents being fixed by the value of the
capital, and the latter being measured by the tax, to depreciate his
real estate would be to reduce his revenue. On the other hand, it is
equally evident that the same proprietors could not overestimate the
value of their property, in order to increase their incomes beyond the
limits of the law, since the tenants and farmers, with their old leases
in their hands, would enter a protest.

Such, sir, must be the result sooner or later of the conversion which
has been so long demanded; otherwise, the financial operation of which
we are speaking would be a crying injustice, unless intended as a
stepping-stone. This last motive seems the most plausible one; for in
spite of the clamors of interested parties, and the flagrant violation
of certain rights, the public conscience is bound to fulfil its desire,
and is no more affected when charged with attacking property, than
when listening to the complaints of the bondholders. In this case,
instinctive justice belies legal justice.

Who has not heard of the inextricable confusion into which the Chamber
of Deputies was throw