Page:What is Property?.pdf/357

 with it would be to unsettle the very foundations of society. Sad condition of the proprietary régime,—one of inability to exercise charity without violating justice!

And, sir, this fatal consequence which necessity forces upon the State is no mere imagination. Even now the legislative power is asked, no longer simply to regulate the government of factories, but to create factories itself. Listen to the millions of voices shouting on all hands for the organisation of labor, the creation of national workshops! The whole laboring class is agitated: it has its journals, organs, and representatives. To guarantee labor to the workingman, to balance production with sale, to harmonize industrial proprietors, it advocates to-day—as a sovereign remedy—one sole head, one national wardenship, one huge manufacturing company. For, sir, all this is included in the idea of national workshops. On this subject I wish to quote, as proof, the views of an illustrious economist, a brilliant mind, a progressive intellect, an enthusiastic soul, a true patriot, and yet an official defender of the right of property.

The honorable professor of the Conservatory proposes then,—

1. To check the continual emigration of laborers from the country into the cities.