rease of the idler--tends, on account of the power of labor, the
multiplication of products and exchanges, to continually diminish, and,
by constant reduction, to disappear. So that, in the society proposed
by M. Blanqui, equality would not be realized at first, but would exist
potentially; since property, though outwardly seeming to be industrial
feudality, being no longer a principle of exclusion and encroachment,
but only a privilege of division, would not be slow, thanks to the
intellectual and political emancipation of the proletariat, in passing
into absolute equality,--as absolute at least as any thing can be on
this earth.

I omit, for the sake of brevity, the numerous considerations which
the professor adduces in support of what he calls, too modestly in my
opinion, his Utopia. They would serve only to prove beyond all question
that, of all the charlatans of radicalism who fatigue the public ear,
no one approaches, for depth and clearness of thought, the audacious M.
Blanqui.

3. NATIONAL WORKSHOPS SHOULD BE IN OPERATION ONLY DURING PERIODS OF
STAGNATION IN ORDINARY INDUSTRIES; AT SUCH TIMES THEY SHOULD BE OPENED
AS VAST OUTLETS TO THE FLOOD OF THE LABORING POPULATION.

But, sir, the stoppage of private industry is the result of
over-production, and insufficient markets. If, then, production
continues in the national workshops, how will the crisis be terminated?
Undoubtedly, by the general depreciation of merchandise, and, in the
last analysis, by the conversion of private workshops into national
workshops. On the other hand, the government will need capital with
which to pay its workmen; now, how will this capital be obtained? By
taxation. And upon what will the tax be levied? Upon property. Then you
will have proprietary industry sustaining against itself, and at its own
expense, another industry with which it cannot compete. What, think you,
will become, in this fatal circle, of the possibility of profit,--in a
word, of property?

Thank Heaven! equality of conditions is taught in the public schools;
let us fear revolutions no longer. The most implacable enemy of property
could not, if he wished to destroy it, go to work in a wiser and more
effective way. Courage, then, ministers, deputies, economists! make
haste to seize this glorious initiative; let the watchwords of equality,
uttered from the heights of science and power, be repeated in the midst
of the people; let them thrill the breasts of the prol