H7 



the individualist party of the class that 

 monopolises the land and the other means of 

 production. 



The difference of economic monopoly may, 

 it is true, determine a certain diversity of 

 political colour, and I have always maintained 

 that the great land proprietors represent the 

 conservative tendencies of political immobil- 

 ism, whilst the capitalist holders of personal 

 property, or manufacturers, often represent 

 the progressive party, carried by its very 

 nature to little innovations of form ; whilst, 

 finally, those who only possess intellectual 

 capital the liberal and other professions 

 can go as far as political radicalism. 



On the vital question that is to say, on 

 the economic question of property conserva- 

 tives, progressives, and radicals are all indi- 

 vidualists. On this point they are all flesh 

 and marrow of the same social class, and in 

 spite of certain sentimental sympathies are 

 the opponents of the working class and of 



in personal property which is struck by the increase of a 

 20 per cent, deduction. 



This increase was voted by the agrarians and fought 

 against by the progressive party, and rejected even by the 

 extreme Left. The latter voted against it for a political 

 reason so as not to vote for a government proposition 

 but really consciously or unconsciously for an economic 

 reason. It was a struggle between landlords and 

 capitalists on a question of the distribution of riches. 



It would seem as if the socialist deputies ought to have 

 voted for the increase of the tax on income, but know- 

 ing that this question does not interest the working class 

 on whom the taxes ultimately fall, in consequence of the 

 laws of the incidence of taxation, they took no part in 

 the vote. 



That is a* striking example of the direct or indirect 

 effect, conscious or unconscious, of the unerring buoy- 

 ancy of the struggle of the classes. 



