d will make work for the tailor. The
tailor will have new shoes oftener, and keep the shoemaker employed. So
it will be with all occupations.

They say that with freedom there will be fewer workmen in the mines and
the mills.

I do not believe it. But if this does happen, it is _necessarily_
because there will be more labor freely in the open air.

For if, as they say, these mines and spinning mills can be sustained
only by the aid of taxes imposed on _everybody_ for their benefit, these
taxes once abolished, _everybody_ will be more comfortably off, and it
is the comfort of all which feeds the labor of each one.

Excuse me if I linger at this demonstration. I have so great a desire to
see you on the side of liberty.

In France, capital invested in manufactures yields, I suppose, five per
cent. profit. But here is Mondor, who has one hundred thousand francs
invested in a manufactory, on which he loses five per cent. The
difference between the loss and gain is ten thousand francs. What do
they do? They assess upon you a little tax of ten thousand francs, which
is given to Mondor, and you do not notice it, for it is very skillfully
disguised. It is not the tax gatherer who comes to ask you your part of
the tax, but you pay it to Mondor, the manufacturer, every time you buy
your hatchets, your trowels, and your planes. Then they say to you: If
you do not pay this tax, Mondor can work no longer, and his employes,
John and James, will be without labor. If this tax was remitted, would
you not get work yourselves, and on your own account too?

And, then, be easy, when Mondor has no longer this soft method of
obtaining his profit by a tax, he will use his wits to turn his loss
into a gain, and John and James will not be dismissed. Then all will be
profit _for all_.

You will persist, perhaps, saying: "We understand that after the reform
there will be in general more work than before, but in the meanwhile
John and James will be on the street."

To which I answer:

First. When employment changes its place only to increase, the man who
has two arms and a heart is not long on the street.

Second. There is nothing to hinder the State from reserving some of its
funds to avoid stoppages of labor in the transition, which I do not
myself believe will occur.

Third. Finally, if to get out of a rut and get into a condition which is
better for all, and which is certainly more just, it is absolutely
necessary to brave a few pa