598 INDUSTRIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



pointed fete, mothers, at a specified moment, were to regard 

 their children with tender eyes! Inevitably a national char 

 acter in which the sentiment of self -ownership offers little 

 resistance to ownership by others, puts little check on the 

 growth of public instrumentalities; be they for external 

 conflicts or internal administrations. And the result, as 

 given by M. Yves Guyot, is that whereas the total public 

 expenditure just before the Franco-German war was about 

 2,224,000,000 francs, it is now about 4,176,000,000 francs. 

 Basing his estimate on the calculation of M. Yacher con 

 cerning the annual exchangeable produce of France, M. 

 Guyot concludes that the civil and military expenditures 

 absorb 30 per cent, of it. In feudal days the serf did corvees 

 for his lord, working on his estate during so many days in 

 the year; and now, during over 90 days in the year, a mod 

 ern Frenchman does corvees for his government. To that 

 extent he is a serf of the community; for it matters not 

 whether he gives so much work or whether he gives an 

 equivalent in money. 



Hence we see why in France, as in Germany, a scheme of 

 social re-organization under which each citizen, while main 

 tained by the community, is to labour for the community, 

 has obtained so wide an adhesion as to create a formidable 

 political body why among the French, St. Simon, Fourier, 

 Proudhon, Cabet, Louis Blanc, Pierre Leroux, now by word 

 and now by deed, have sought to bring about some form 

 of communistic working and living. For the Frenchman, 

 habituated to subordination both as soldier and as civilian, 

 has an adapted nature. Inheriting military traditions in 

 which he glories, and subject at school to a discipline of 

 military strictness, he, without repugnance, accepts the idea 

 of industrial regimentation; and does not resent the sug 

 gestion that for the sake of being taken care of he should 

 put himself under a universal directive organization. In 

 deed he has in large measure done this already. Though 

 his political institutions appear to give him freedom, yet he 



