Although the death of an honorable man, like Carnot, may be regretted, it is not to be compared to the mass of human sufferings, misery and woe which fell upon these 467 working-class families, equally innocent as he.
It will be said, it is true, that the murder of Carnot was the voluntary act of a fanatic, while no one directly killed these 467 miners!—And certainly this is a difference.
But it must be remarked that if the death of these 467 miners is not directly the voluntary work of any one, it is indirectly a result of individual capitalism, which, to swell its revenues, reduces expenses to the lowest possible point, does not curtail the hours of labor, and does not take all the preventive measures indicated by science and sometimes even enjoined by law, which is in such cases not respected, for the justice of every country is as flexible to accommodate the interests of the ruling class as it is rigid when applied against the interests of the working-class.
If the mines were collectively owned, it is certain the owners would be less stingy about taking all the technical preventive precautions (electric lighting, for instance), which would diminish the number of these frightful catastrophes which infinitely increase the anonymous multitude of the martyrs of toil and which do not even trouble the digestion of the share-holders in mining companies.
That is what the individualist regime gives us; all this will be transformed by the socialist regime.
[73] Rienzi, l'Anarchisme; Deville, l'Anarchisme.
[74] A. Rossi, l'Agitazione in Sicilia, Milan, 1894. Colajanni, In Sicilia, Rome, 1894.
[75] The camorre were tyrannical secret societies that were formerly prevalent and powerful in Italy.—Translator.
[76] I must recognize that one of the recent historians of socialism, M. l'Abbé Winterer—more candid and honorable than more than one jesuitical journalist—distinguishes always, in each country, the socialist movement from the anarchist movement.
Winterer, le Socialisme contemporain, Paris, 1894, 2nd edition.