.

And after all, just see how much of the appearance of truth this
self-denial, which your journals attribute to the monopolists, has.

I believe that we can call that the _natural rate of wages_ which would
establish itself _naturally_ if there were freedom of trade. Then, when
they tell you that restriction is for your benefit, it is as if they
told you that it added a _surplus_ to your _natural_ wages. Now, an
_extra natural_ surplus of wages must be taken from somewhere; it does
not fall from the moon; it must be taken from those who pay it.

You are then brought to this conclusion, that, according to your
pretended friends, the protective system has been created and brought
into the world in order that capitalists might be sacrificed to
laborers!

Tell me, is that probable?

Where is your place in the Chamber of Peers? When did you sit at the
Palais Bourbon? Who has consulted you? Whence came this idea of
establishing the protective system?

I hear your answer: _We_ did not establish it. We are neither Peers nor
Deputies, nor Counselors of State. The capitalists have done it.

By heavens, they were in a delectable mood that day. What! the
capitalists made this law; _they_ established the prohibitive system, so
that you laborers should make profits at their expense!

But here is something stranger still.

How is it that your pretended friends who speak to you now of the
goodness, generosity and self-denial of capitalists, constantly express
regret that you do not enjoy your political rights? From their point of
view, what could you do with them? The capitalists have the monopoly of
legislation, it is true. Thanks to this monopoly, they have granted
themselves the monopoly of iron, cloth, coal, wood and meat, which is
also true. But now your pretended friends say that the capitalists, in
acting thus, have stripped themselves, without being obliged to do it,
to enrich you without your being entitled to it. Surely, if you were
electors and deputies, you could not manage your affairs better; you
would not even manage them as well.

If the industrial organization which rules us is made in your interest,
it is a perfidy to demand political rights for you; for these democrats
of a new species can never get out of this dilemma; the law, made by the
present law-makers, gives you _more_, or gives you _less_, than your
natural wages. If it gives you _less_, they deceive you in inviting you
to support it. If it giv