ession of the
profits of industry, and leaves production and commerce just as they are
now.

This, then, is our view of the whole question. Cheat the peasant no
longer with scraps of paper--be the sums inscribed upon them ever so
large; but offer him in exchange for his produce the very _things_ of
which he, the tiller of the soil, stands in need. Then the fruits of the
land will be poured into the towns. If this is not done there will be
famine in our cities, and reaction and despair will follow in its train.

VII

All the great towns, we have said, buy their grain, their flour, and
their meat, not only from the provinces, but also from abroad. Foreign
countries send Paris not only spices, fish, and various dainties, but
also immense quantities of corn and meat.

But when the Revolution comes these cities will have to depend on
foreign countries as little as possible. If Russian wheat, Italian or
Indian rice, and Spanish or Hungarian wines abound in the markets of
western Europe, it is not that the countries which export them have a
superabundance, or that such a produce grows there of itself, like the
dandelion in the meadows. In Russia for instance, the peasant works
sixteen hours a day, and half starves from three to six months every
year, in order to export the grain with which he pays the landlord and
the State. To-day the police appears in the Russian village as soon as
the harvest is gathered in, and sells the peasant's last horse and last
cow for arrears of taxes and rent due to the landlord, unless the victim
immolates himself of his own accord by selling the grain to the
exporters. Usually, rather than part with his livestock at a
disadvantage, he keeps only a nine-months' supply of grain, and sells
the rest. Then, in order to sustain life until the next harvest, he
mixes birch-bark and tares with his flour for three months, if it has
been a good year, and for six months if it has been bad, while in London
they are eating biscuits made of his wheat.

But as soon as the Revolution comes, the Russian peasant will keep bread
enough for himself and his children; the Italian and Hungarian peasants
will do the same; the Hindoo, let us hope, will profit by these good
examples; and the farmers of America will hardly be able to cover all
the deficit in grain which Europe will experience. So it will not do to
count on their contributions of wheat and maize satisfying all the
wants.

Since all our middle-class