Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/471

Rh goes on for three years more. There isn't money enough in the city to keep up this surplus. The money can not get out of the treasury unless some one steals it out and puts it into circulation; and, if I understand you, gentlemen, this is just what you propose to do."

This speech was the sensation of the day. It was spoken with a blunt earnestness such as well-meaning but ignorant men are often found to possess. Its sophistries were not at first apparent, for the very reason that the speaker himself did not know them to be sophistries.

It was printed next morning in the Issoire "Etoile," and it made many converts among those who were unable to expose its errors. The landlord of the Hôtel de la Poste indorsed it, because the patronage of that excellent hostelry had greatly declined since the cessation of the barter with Clermont. Some of the manufacturers favored it, for they were looking for wider outlets for their trade, as the market of Issoire was soon glutted, and the octroi increased the cost of manufacture even more than it raised the price of the finished goods. The politicians said that it might be true enough, but plain talk like that would ruin any man's chances in a popular election. Jacques should have remembered that he was a candidate. The parson, who seldom meddled with politics, declared that the address was timely and patriotic, and that the real friend of the laboring-man was the man who gave him justice instead of patronage. He further said that, in his opinion, the mayor and Council were wrong in their theories of wealth. Their fundamental error was this, that they were trying to make the people of this city grow rich off each other. He even marched in a procession which went through the streets, carrying banners inscribed: "Vive Jacques, the Master-Workman!" "A bas l'Octroi!" "Away with Useless Taxes!"

But the reaction soon came, as it always comes in the politics of France, and it was due to the Clermont papers. They published Jacques's speech in full, with words of great approbation.

In the Clermont "Libéral" were the head-lines: "Long live Mayor Jacques!" "Down with the Demagogues!" "Issoire coming to her Senses!" "The Workingmen repudiate the Octroi!" "Good Prospects for the Clermont Trade!"

It was on the very eve of the election that the Clermont papers were received in Issoire. It was enough. What sophistry had seduced, patriotism reclaimed. The mayor said that, if Jacques was elected, the octroi would be removed at once, every man in Issoire would be ruined, and the city, bound hand and foot, would be delivered over to Clermont. Ten wagon-loads of goods would be sent in the place of one, and not all the money in the whole city would suffice to pay for them. Then he read from the