ion of foreign bread-stuffs; the circulation of commodities and
of provisions will be paralyzed. And then, the city or territory in
revolt will be compelled to provide for itself, and to reorganize its
production, so as to satisfy its own needs. If it fails to do so, it is
death. If it succeeds, it will revolutionize the economic life of the
country.

The quantity of imported provisions having decreased, consumption having
increased, one million Parisians working for exportation purposes having
been thrown out of work, a great number of things imported to-day from
distant or neighbouring countries not reaching their destination,
fancy-trade being temporarily at a standstill,--What will the
inhabitants have to eat six months after the Revolution?

We think that when the stores containing food-stuffs are empty, the
masses will seek to obtain their food from the land. They will see the
necessity of cultivating the soil, of combining agricultural production
with industrial production in the suburbs of Paris itself and its
environs. They will have to abandon the merely ornamental trades and
consider their most urgent need--bread.

A great number of the inhabitants of the cities will have to become
agriculturists. Not in the same manner as the present peasants who wear
themselves out, ploughing for a wage that barely provides them with
sufficient food for the year, but by following the principles of the
intensive agriculture, of the market gardeners, applied on a large scale
by means of the best machinery that man has invented or can invent. They
will till the land--not, however, like the country beast of burden: a
Paris jeweller would object to that. They will organize cultivation on
better principles; and not in the future, but at once, during the
revolutionary struggles, from fear of being worsted by the enemy.

Agriculture will have to be carried out on intelligent lines, by men and
women availing themselves of the experience of the present time,
organizing themselves in joyous gangs for pleasant work, like those who,
a hundred years ago, worked in the Champ de Mars for the Feast of the
Federation--a work of delight, when not carried to excess, when
scientifically organized, when man invents and improves his tools and is
conscious of being a useful member of the community.

Of course, they will not only cultivate wheat and oats--they will also
produce those things which they formerly used to order from foreign
parts.