178 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



can very easily assure himself of this fact. Let him visit the State 

 collieries at Saarbruck, or inspect the Belgian railways, and interrogate 

 all the officials and workmen employed ; he will find that, from the 

 highest to the lowest, they are quite as free, quite as contented with 

 their lot, as those engaged in any private industry. There is even far 

 more guarantee against arbitrary measures, so that their real freedom 

 is greater than elsewhere. The proof of this is the fact that posts in 

 any industries belonging to the State are always sought for by the 

 best workmen. If the degree of man's slavery varies according to the 

 ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is 

 allowed to retain, then it must be admitted that the majority of work- 

 men and small farmers are certainly slaves now, for they have very 

 little or no property, and, as their condition almost entirely depends 

 on the hard law of competition, they can only retain for themselves 

 the mere necessaries of life ! Are the Italian contadini, whose sad lot 

 I depicted in my " Lettres d'ltalie," free ? They are reduced to live 

 entirely on bad maize, which subjects them to that terrible scourge, 

 the pellagra. What sad truth is contained in their reply to the Minis- 

 ter who advised them not to emigrate ! 



"What do you mean by the nation? Do you refer to the most miserable of 

 the inhabitants of the land? If so, we are indeed the nation. Look at our pale 

 and emaciated faces, our bodies worn out with over-fatigue and insufficient food. 

 We sow and reap corn, but never taste white bread ; we cultivate the vine, but 

 a drop of wine never touches our lips. We raise cattle, but never eat meat ; we 

 are covered with rags, we live in wretched hovels ; in winter we suffer from the 

 cold, and both winter and summer from the pangs of hunger. Can a land which 

 does not provide its inhabitants, who are willing to work, with sufficient to live 

 upon, be considered by them as a fatherland? " 



The Flemish agricultural labourer, who earns less than a shilling a 

 day, and the small farmer, whose rack-rent absorbs the entire net 

 profits ; the Highland crofters, who have been deprived of the com- 

 munal land, the sacred inheritance of primitive times, where they could 

 at least raise a few head of cattle ; the Egyptian fellahs, whose very 

 life-blood is drained by European creditors in a word, all the wretched 

 beings all over the world where the soil is owned by non-workers, and 

 who labour for insufficient remuneration ; can they, any of them, be 

 called free? It is just possible that, if the State were to become the 

 universal industry director (which, in my opinion, is an impossible hj- 

 pothesis), their condition would not be improved ; but at all events it 

 could not be worse than it is now. 



I do not believe that " liberty must be surrendered in proportion 

 as the material welfare is cared for." On the contrary, a certain 

 degree of well-being is a necessary condition of liberty. It is a 

 mockery to call a man free who, by labour, cannot secure to himself 

 the necessaries of existence, or to whom labour is impossible because 

 he possesses nothing of his own, and no one will employ him ! 



