第76章

France was ripe for the transition; it was Turgot who had the glory of effecting the first passage.

Why then, if competition had not been a principle of social economy, a decree of destiny, a necessity of the human soul, why, instead of abolishing corporations, masterships, and wardenships, did they not think rather of repairing them all? Why, instead of a revolution, did they not content themselves with a reform? Why this negation, if a modification was sufficient?

Especially as this middle party was entirely in the line of conservative ideas, which the bourgeoisie shared.Let communism, let quasi-socialistic democracy, which, in regard to the principle of competition, represent -- though they do not suspect it -- the system of the golden mean, the counter-revolutionary idea, explain to me this unanimity of the nation, if they can!

Moreover the event confirmed the theory.Beginning with the Turgot ministry, an increase of activity and well-being manifested itself in the nation.

The test seemed so decisive that it obtained the approval of all legislatures.

Liberty of industry and commerce figure in our constitutions on a level with political liberty.To this liberty, in short, France owes the growth of her wealth during the last sixty years.

After this capital fact, which establishes so triumphantly the necessity of competition, I ask permission to cite three or four others, which, being less general in their nature, will throw into bolder relief the influence of the principle which I defend.

Why is our agriculture so prodigiously backward? How is it that routine and barbarism still hover, in so many localities, over the most important branch of national labor? Among the numerous causes that could be cited, I see, in the front rank, the absence of competition.The peasants fight over strips of ground; they compete with each other before the notary;

in the fields, no.And speak to them of emulation, of the public good, and with what amazement you fill them! Let the king, they say (to them the king is synonymous with the State, with the public good, with society), let the king attend to his business, and we will attend to ours! Such is their philosophy and their patriotism.Ah! if the king could excite competition with them! Unfortunately it is impossible.While in manufactures competition follows from liberty and property, in agriculture liberty and property are a direct obstacle to competition.The peasant, rewarded, not according to his labor and intelligence, but according to the quality of the land and the caprice of God, aims, in cultivating, to pay the lowest possible wages and to make the least possible advance outlays.Sure of always finding a market for his goods, he is much more solicitous about reducing his expenses than about improving the soil and the quality of its products.He sows, and Providence does the rest.The only sort of competition known to the agricultural class is that of rents; and it cannot be denied that in France, and for instance in Beauce, it has led to useful results.But as the principle of this competition takes effect only at second hand, so to speak, as it does not emanate directly from the liberty and property of the cultivators, it disappears with the cause that produces it, so that, to insure the decline of agricultural industry in many localities, or at least to arrest its progress, perhaps it would suffice to make the farmers proprietors.

Another branch of collective labor, which of late years has given rise to sharp debates, is that of public works."To manage the building of a road, M.Dunoyer very well says, "perhaps a pioneer and a postilion would be better than an engineer fresh from the School of Roads and Bridges."

There is no one who has not had occasion to verify the correctness of this remark.

On one of our finest rivers, celebrated by the importance of its navigation, a bridge was being built.From the beginning of the work the rivermen had seen that the arches would be much too low to allow the circulation of boats at times when the river was high: they pointed this out to the engineer in charge of the work.Bridges, answered the latter with superb dignity, are made for those who pass over, not for those who pass under.The remark has become a proverb in that vicinity.But, as it is impossible for stupidity to prevail forever, the government has felt the necessity of revising the work of its agent, and as I write the arches of the bridge are being raised.

Does any one believe that, if the merchants interested in the course of the navigable way had been charged with the enterprise at their own risk and peril, they would have had to do their work twice? One could fill a book with masterpieces of the same sort achieved by young men learned in roads and bridges, who, scarcely out of school and given life positions, are no longer stimulated by competition.

In proof of the industrial capacity of the State, and consequently of the possibility of abolishing competition altogether, they cite the administration of the tobacco industry.There, they say, is no adulteration, no litigation, no bankruptcy, no misery.The condition of the workmen, adequately paid, instructed, sermonized, moralized, and assured of a retiring pension accumulated by their savings, is incomparably superior to that of the immense majority of workmen engaged in free industry.

All this may be true: for my part, I am ignorant on the subject.I know nothing of what goes on in the administration of the tobacco factories;

I have procured no information either from the directors or the workmen, and I have no need of any.How much does the tobacco sold by the administration cost? How much is it worth? You can answer the first of these questions: