esult
of the last law concerning judicial sales and mortgages. Under
the system of competition which is killing us, and whose necessary
expression is a plundering and tyrannical government, the farmer will
need always capital in order to repair his losses, and will be forced to
contract loans. Always depending upon the future for the payment of his
debts, he will be deceived in his hope, and surprised by maturity. For
what is there more prompt, more unexpected, more abbreviatory of space
and time, than the maturity of an obligation? I address this question
to all whom this pitiless Nemesis pursues, and even troubles in their
dreams. Now, under the new law, the expropriation of a debtor will be
effected a hundred times more rapidly; then, also, spoliation will be
a hundred times surer, and the free laborer will pass a hundred times
sooner from his present condition to that of a serf attached to the
soil. Formerly, the length of time required to effect the seizure
curbed the usurer's avidity, gave the borrower an opportunity to recover
himself, and gave rise to a transaction between him and his creditor
which might result finally in a complete release. Now, the debtor's
sentence is irrevocable: he has but a few days of grace.

And what advantages are promised by this law as an offset to this sword
of Damocles, suspended by a single hair over the head of the unfortunate
husbandman? The expenses of seizure will be much less, it is said; but
will the interest on the borrowed capital be less exorbitant? For, after
all, it is interest which impoverishes the peasant and leads to his
expropriation. That the law may be in harmony with its principle, that
it may be truly inspired by that spirit of justice for which it is
commended, it must--while facilitating expropriation--lower the legal
price of money. Otherwise, the reform concerning mortgages is but a trap
set for small proprietors,--a legislative trick.

Lower interest on money! But, as we have just seen, that is to limit
property. Here, sir, you shall make your own defence. More than once, in
your learned lectures, I have heard you deplore the precipitancy of the
Chambers, who, without previous study and without profound knowledge
of the subject, voted almost unanimously to maintain the statutes and
privileges of the Bank. Now these privileges, these statutes, this vote
of the Chambers, mean simply this,--that the market price of specie,
at five or six per cent., is not to