n last year, while discussing the question of
colonial and native sugars? Did they leave these two industries to
themselves? The native manufacturer was ruined by the colonist. To
maintain the beet-root, the cane had to be taxed. To protect the
property of the one, it became necessary to violate the property of the
other. The most remarkable feature of this business was precisely that
to which the least attention was paid; namely, that, in one way or
another, property had to be violated. Did they impose on each industry
a proportional tax, so as to preserve a balance in the market? They
created a maximum PRICE for each variety of sugar; and, as this maximum
PRICE was not the same, they attacked property in two ways,--on the one
hand, interfering with the liberty of trade; on the other, disregarding
the equality of proprietors. Did they suppress the beet-root by granting
an indemnity to the manufacturer? They sacrificed the property of the
tax-payer. Finally, did they prefer to cultivate the two varieties of
sugar at the nation's expense, just as different varieties of tobacco
are cultivated? They abolished, so far as the sugar industry was
concerned, the right of property. This last course, being the most
social, would have been certainly the best; but, if property is the
necessary basis of civilization, how is this deep-seated antagonism to
be explained? [37]

Not satisfied with the power of dispossessing a citizen on the ground
of public utility, they want also to dispossess him on the ground of
PRIVATE UTILITY. For a long time, a revision of the law concerning
mortgages was clamored for; a process was demanded, in behalf of all
kinds of credit and in the interest of even the debtors themselves,
which would render the expropriation of real estate as prompt, as easy,
and as effective as that which follows a commercial protest. The Chamber
of Deputies, in the early part of this year, 1841, discussed this
project, and the law was passed almost unanimously. There is nothing
more just, nothing more reasonable, nothing more philosophical
apparently, than the motives which gave rise to this reform.

I. Formerly, the small proprietor whose obligation had arrived at
maturity, and who found himself unable to meet it, had to employ all
that he had left, after being released from his debt, in defraying the
legal costs. Henceforth, the promptness of expropriation will save him
from total ruin. 2. The difficulties in the way of