Reply: Bread is dear when there is little of it, a thing which can make but poor, or, if you please, rich people who are starving.
—If they insist on it, saying: When food is dear, wages rise—
Reply by showing that in April, 1847, five-sixths of the workingmen were beggars.
—If they say to you: The profits of the workingmen must rise with the dearness of food—
Reply: This is equivalent to saying that in an unprovisioned vessel everybody has the same number of biscuits whether he has any or not.
—If they say to you: A good price must be secured for those who sell grain—
Reply: Certainly; but good wages must be secured to those who buy it.
—If they say to you: The land owners, who make the law, have raised the price of food without troubling themselves about wages, because they know that when food becomes dear, wages naturally rise—
Reply: On this principle, when workingmen come to make the law, do not blame them if they fix a high rate of wages without troubling themselves to protect grain, for they know that if wages are raised, articles of food will naturally rise in price.
—If they say to you: What, then, is to be done?