The reader will understand that it is not as bearing on military affairs that I cite this experiment. I refer to it as calculated to illustrate a radical difference between public and private service, between official regulations and liberty. Would it be better for the State to take from us our means of support, and undertake to feed us, or to leave us both our means of support and the care of feeding ourselves? The same question may be asked with reference to all our wants.
[98] See the author’s pamphlet, entitled Baccalauréat et Socialisme.—Editor.
[99] The author, in a previous work, had sought the solution of the same question. The subject of his inquiry was the legitimate province of law. All the developments in the pamphlet, entitled La Loi, are applicable to the subject he is now discussing. We refer the reader to that brochure.—Editor.
[100] Here ends the MS. We refer the reader to the author’s pamphlet entitled Spoliation et Loi, in the second part of which he has exposed the sophisms which were given utterance to at this meeting of the Conseil général.
On the subjects of the six chapters intended to follow this, under the titles of Taxation, Machinery, Free Trade, Intermediaries, Raw Materials, and Luxury, we refer the reader, 1st, to the Discours sur l’Impôt des Boissons, inserted in the second edition of the pamphlet, Incompatibilités Parlementaires; 2dly, to the pamphlet entitled Ce qu’on voit et Ce qu’on ne voit pas; 3dly, to the Sophismes Économiques.
XVIII. DISTURBING CAUSES
[101] The author was unable to continue this examination of errors—which are for those who are misled by them a nearly immediate cause of suffering—nor to describe another class of errors, which make their appearance in the shape of violence and fraud, and the first effects of which bear heavily on others. His notes contain nothing on the subject of disturbing causes but the preceding fragment and that which follows. We would also refer the reader to the first chapter of the second series of Sophisms, entitled Spoliation.—Editor.
XIX. WAR
[102] See concluding part of chapter xi. ante.
[103] We forget this, when we propose the question, Is slave labour dearer or cheaper than free labour?