Page:Labour - The Divine Command, 1890.djvu/90

86 the world were occupied in agriculture, the factories and work-shops must stop, and the universe would perish.—Nothing could be more false. The universe need not perish for that. There are eighty festivals in the year, on which we are free from all labor, and men will spend eighty more in idleness. Do you think because a man and his wife shall labor in a piece of ground during thirty days, at different periods of the year, that the universe will perish?

In all large cities, as in Moscow, where there is a great number of factories and workshops, there are about a million inhabitants. Where would you find land enough if all the world undertook agriculture? This is but another excuse to avoid labor.

I reply to this objection that the manufacturers and work-people came of their own choice to the cities. But might not the factories be built in the midst of the country, so that the workmen could by turns labor for bread and in the factories? That could easily be arranged, if you desire to help the lower classes. But you only care to be concerned for your equals.

Do you refuse to labor for bread because, if all the world should be so occupied, there would not be enough land? With more reasonableness, if you decided to labor, you would cultivate alone the whole earth!

For my part, I now cultivate a bit of ground; but if this revolution takes place, I must divide it with another. You, my friend, may work by