the law, just like a judge or police official,
but cannot command it or exercise authority over it. In the case of a
war the army owes obedience only to the representative assembly of the
nation, and to the leaders appointed by it.

"It is clear that in this, no judgment is passed upon the necessity of
these great manifestations of the social mind, and that if we wish to
abide by the judgment of the people, which alone is competent to
decide as to the importance and duration of its institutions, we can
do nothing better (as has just been said) than to constitute them in a
democratic manner.

"Societies have at all times experienced the need of protecting their
trade and industry against foreign imports; the power or function
which protects native labour in each country and guarantees it a
national market, is taxation in the shape of Customs. I will not here
say anything at all about the morality, or want of it, the usefulness
or the harm of Customs duties. I take it as I see it in society, and
confine myself to examining it from the point of view of the
constitution of powers. Taxation, by the very fact that it exists, is
a centralised function. Its origin like its action, excludes every
idea of division or dismemberment. But how does it happen that this
function, which belongs specially to the province of merchants and
those concerned with industry, and proceeds exclusively from the
authority of the Chambers of Commerce, yet belongs to the State? Who
can know better than industry itself wherein and to what extent it
requires protection, where the compensation for the taxation which has
to be raised must come from, and what products require bounties and
encouragement? And as for the Customs service itself, is it not
obvious that it is the business of those interested to reckon up the
expenses of it, while it is not at all suitable for the Government to
make of it a source of emolument for its favourites by procuring an
income for its extravagances by differential taxes?

"Besides the ministries of justice, religion, war, and international
trade, the Government appoints yet others; the ministry for
agriculture, public works, public instruction, and finally to pay for
all these, the ministry of finance. Our so-called division of powers
is only an accumulation of all kinds of powers, our centralisation is
an absorption. Do you not think that the agriculturists, who are
already all organised in their communities and com