see, Sire, that our proposition is not only conformable to the
economic traditions of the government, but it is also essentially moral
and democratic.

To appreciate its effect, let us suppose it realized; let us transport
ourselves in thought into the future; let us imagine the system in
action for twenty years. Idleness is banished from the country; ease
and concord, contentment and morality, have entered all families
together with labor; there is no more misery and no more prostitution.
The left hand being very clumsy at its work, there is a superabundance
of labor, and the pay is satisfactory. Everything is based on this, and,
as a consequence, the workshops are filled. Is it not true, Sire, that
if Utopians were to suddenly demand the freedom of the right hand, they
would spread alarm throughout the country? Is it not true that this
pretended reform would overthrow all existences? Then our system is
good, since it cannot be overthrown without causing great distress.

However, we have a sad presentiment that some day (so great is the
perversity of man) an association will be organized to secure the
liberty of right hands.

It seems to us that we already hear these free-right-handers speak as
follows in the Salle Montesquieu:

"People, you believe yourselves richer because they have taken from you
one hand; you see but the increase of labor which results to you from
it. But look also at the dearness it causes, and the forced decrease in
the consumption of all articles. This measure has not made capital,
which is the source of wages, more abundant. The waters which flow from
this great reservoir are directed into other channels; the quantity is
not increased, and the definite result is, for the nation, as a whole, a
loss of comfort equal to the excess of the production of several
millions of right hands, over several millions of left hands. Then let
us form a league, and, at the expense of some inevitable disturbances,
let us conquer the right of working with both hands."

Happily, Sire, there will be organized an _association for the defense
of left-handed labor_, and the _Sinistrists_ will have no trouble in
reducing to nothing all these generalities and realities, suppositions
and abstractions, reveries and Utopias. They need only to exhume the
_Moniteur Industriel_ of 1846, and they will find, ready-made, arguments
against _free trade_, which destroy so admirably this _liberty of the
right hand_, that all th