OYSTER CULTURE IN AMERICA. 769 



creating any industry. It sufficed to relinquish oyster cul- 

 ture to the culturists, who, although intelligent and well 

 informed, are, in the majority of cases, neither savants nor 

 academicians, to insure success, where only failure had been 

 predicted." 



" This is because the State lacks that powerful lever 

 called individual interest. An occupation is not possible 

 unless an assured profit may be realized from it. The 

 merchant alone can be certain of this, from a study of the 

 markets and the demands of the consumers. The poorest 

 merchant in France is the State. The State has quite 

 another part to play. Charged with the protection of all, 

 it cannot descend from this elevated sphere of general use- 

 fulness into the arena where opposing interests are con- 

 tending an arena which it always leaves defeated and 

 often injured. To abandon its reserve, and endeavour by 

 taxation to create a national industry, is an act of socialism, 

 generous, perhaps, but from which others will derive the 

 benefits." 



" Napoleon III., in his youth, had a passion tor studying 

 these questions, and sometimes lent an attentive earto these 

 grand socialistic theories : this was why Coste obtained so 

 much support from the Emperor. Led away by his own 

 ardour, he did not notice that he was gliding down a fatal 

 slope, and that he would fall at last, in spite of all his 

 efforts. If, instead of going to the Tuileries, he had 

 addressed himself to an association of capitalists, or to the 

 trade, who could have participated in his confidences, then 

 oyster culture, disengaged from the shackles of the State, 

 would, from the beginning, have taken a higher stand and 

 progressed with surer steps." 



"We do not wish to underrate the importance of the 

 part played by the State, for we are going to appeal to its 



