[658] See the addresses in his La Révolution de Février au Luxembourg (Paris, 1849).
[659] Moniteur, April 27, May 2, 3, and 6, 1848. The dismissal of the commission meant an interruption of the Exposé général, but Vidal in his work Vivre en travaillant! Projets, Voires, et Moyens de Réformes sociales (1848) continued the exposition. It contains a plan for agricultural credit, a State land purchase scheme in order to get rid of rent, a proposal for buying up railways and mines and for erecting cheap dwellings. It affords an interesting example of State Socialism in 1848 which seems to have struck many people then as being very amusing.
[660] Cf. supra, [p. 297, note 3].
[661] Cf. supra, [“The Associative Socialists.”]
[662] “I need hardly say that this measure of fiscal reform [namely, the abolition of private property] must be carried out without any violence or robbery. There must be no spoliation, but ample compensation must be given.” (Résumé de la Question sociale, p. 27.)
[663] Solution du Problème social (Œuvres, vol. vi, p. 32).
[664] Œuvres, vol. xviii, pp. 6-7. See also the letter dated February 25, 1848 (Correspondance, vol. ii, p. 280): “France will certainly accomplish it, whether it remains a republic or not. It might even be carried out by the present decadent Government, at a trifling cost.” This thought did not prevent his taking a hand in the Revolution.
[665] In a pamphlet entitled Organisation du Crédit et de la Circulation, and dated March 31, 1848, he expounds the principle of the scheme and indicates some of its general features. The scheme is dealt with in a number of articles contributed to Le Représentant du Peuple for April, afterwards published in book form by Darimon, under the title of Résumé de la Question sociale. The plan differs slightly from the statutes of the People’s Bank as they appear in vol. vi of the Œuvres, but the guiding principle is much the same. A further exposition was given in Le Peuple in February and March 1849, just when the Bank was being founded. There is still another account contained in the volume entitled Intérêt et Principal: Discussion entre M. Proudhon and M. Bastiat sur l’Intérêt du Capitaux (Paris, 1880). This controversy was carried on in the columns of La Voix du Peuple from October 1849 to October 1850. Proudhon frequently refers to the same idea in his other works, notably in Justice dans la Révolution, vol. i, pp. 289 et seq., and in Idée générale, pp. 197 et seq.
[666] See Solution du Problème social, pp. 178, 179.
[667] Intérêt et Principal, p. 112.