Then the son of the workman begins his life in the world.
Oh, how changed is everything to him now! Knowledge and industry are much, it is true, but there are still two applicants for every post, for every social function, and it is always the weaker, the less skilful, or rather perhaps the less fortunate, who goes to the wall.
The State has no other situation to offer him, and there is a regular glut of brain-workers already in commerce and in manufacture. Still it is necessary to eat to live.
It is easy to say “go back to the workshop or the plough,” but it is against human nature to do so; the cultivated brain, the matured intelligence, need the intellectual food to which they have become accustomed. The hands are too soft and delicate now for manual labour, nor are the muscles strong enough for it.
One more embittered, discontented, unfortunate man has been produced, that is all, and who knows but that to-morrow he may astonish the world by some attempted crime or act of folly, the result of his despair, perhaps even of actual hunger?
Am I making excuses for an anarchist? By no means. I have but proved the necessity of French colonial expansion in colonies of exploration.
If we wish to turn our distant possessions to account, the criminal of yesterday, the dangerous member of society, might go there, and in directing industrial or commercial enterprises find legitimate employment and a fair return for all his intelligent efforts and for the work and study of his youth.
There is plenty of labour to be obtained out there, for it is only the natives, of whatever tribe or colour, whose temperament is hostile to manual work.
More than that, these very natives who are now in a degraded state of barbarism, if taught by intelligent Europeans, would soon rise above their present condition to more of an equality with their instructors. Not only would the young man of whom I have been speaking live a happy life; not only would he win riches for himself and add to the wealth of his native country, but he would also aid in bringing about what, in my opinion, is the noblest of all possible ambitions, the amelioration of the lot of his fellow-creatures, for to make them better and happier is to share in the work of God Himself.
So logical is this reasoning, that my only wonder is why those who have the good of humanity at heart have not thought of it before myself.