"From whatever point the modern system is regarded, it seems impossible not to recognize that the Politico-economical rule of free competition is the negation, as its name indicates, of all ties and communion of interests between the members of society. Free competition is a free field open to every individual, provided or not with the elements necessary and indispensable to its manifestations; free competition, in a word, is liberty, but liberty without other rule than the material and moral force, of which each one may be able to dispose in the presence of the thousand causes which produce a difference in the position of individuals."[13]
"But, we say that a system which thus arms, morally, the poor against each other, is a barbarous system, and contrary to civilization: it is barbarous, inasmuch as it developes all the bad tendencies of the human heart: it is contrary to civilization, because, instead of facilitating harmonious relations among men, it inclines them to mutual repulsion and hostility."[14]
This is a sufficient sample of M. Robert du Var's testimony. The greater part of his work is to the same effect: and there is a singular accordance between his censures of Political Economy,[15] and those uttered by Mr. Fitzhugh. They merit especial attention.
We will cite another Socialist, M. Vidal:
"The ox, the horse, the hog eat according to their hunger: their desires are even anticipated: they have their subsistence assured. It is the same thing in the case of the slave. For the ox, the horse, the hog, the slave, belong to a master, and their loss is the loss of the owner: res perit domino, says the Digest. But with the hired laborer it is different! He belongs to himself.
His death is the loss of his family whom he maintained, and who will no longer find the means of living. What matter to an employer is the death of a hired laborer? Are there not every where millions of arms always ready to offer themselves at reduced wages?"[16]
Let us turn to evidence of a different character. Here is Sir Robert Peel's testimony to the condition of Ireland before 1844, previous to the potato-rot and the famine:
"It may be assured that the fourth class of houses, (according to the census,) are generally unfit for human habitation; and yet it would appear that in the best circumstanced county, in this respect, the county of Down, 24.7 per cent., or one-fourth of the population, live in houses of this class: while in Kerry, the population is 66.7 per cent., or about two-thirds of the whole; and, taking the average of the whole population of Ireland, as given by the census commissioner, we find that in the rural districts about 43 per cent. of the families, and in the civic districts, about 36 per cent. inhabit houses of the fourth class. * * *
"The lowest, or fourth class, remember, comprises all mud cabins, having but one room."[17]