70 



do not come forth by themselves from the 

 bowels of the earth. A bag of crowns shut 

 up in a strong box does not produce crowns 

 as a cow does calves. 



The production of wealth results only from 

 a transformation of matter wrought by human 

 labour. And it is only because the peasant 

 cultivates the land, that the miner extracts 

 minerals, that the workman sets machines in 

 motion, that the chemist makes experiments 

 in his laboratory, that the engineer invents 

 machines, that the capitalist or the landlord, 

 although the wealth inherited from his father 

 has cost him no work and no effort if he is an 

 absentee, can each year enjoy riches that 

 others have produced for him in exchange for 

 a miserable home, insufficient food, very often 

 poisoned by vapours of rivers or marshes, by 

 the gases of mines, and by the dust of factories 

 in a word for a wage which is always 

 insufficient to secure them an existence worthy 

 of a human being. 



Even under a regime of fully developed 

 small farming* which has been called a form 

 of practical socialism the question always 

 arises by what miracle the landlord, who does 

 not work, sees corn, oil, and wine arrive in his 

 house in sufficient quantities to enable him to 

 live comfortably, whilst the farmer is forced 



* [The system here indicated is the metayer which John 

 Stuart Mill defined as that under which "the labourer or 

 peasant makes his engagement directly with the land- 

 owner, and pays, not a fixed rent, either in money or in 

 kind, but a certain proportion of the produce, or rather 

 of what remains of the produce after deducting what is 

 considered necessary to keep up the stock." cf. Mill's 

 Political Economy, bk. ii., chap. viii. ED.] 



