ty under the name of usury, is the true
cause of misery, the true principle of destitution, the eternal obstacle
to the establishment of the Republic."

Another journal, _La Ruche Populaire_, after having said some excellent
things on labor, adds, "But, above all, labor ought to be free; that is,
it ought to be organized in such a manner, _that money lenders and
patrons, or masters, should not be paid_ for this liberty of labor, this
right of labor, which is raised to so high a price by the trafficers of
men." The only thought that I notice here, is that expressed by the
words in italics, which imply a denial of the right to interest. The
remainder of the article explains it.

It is thus that the democratic Socialist, Thore, expresses himself:

"The revolution will always have to be recommenced, so long as we occupy
ourselves with consequences only, without having the logic or the
courage to attack the principle itself. This principle is capital, false
property, interest, and usury, which by the old _regime_, is made to
weigh upon labor.

"Ever since the aristocrats invented the incredible fiction, _that
capital possesses the power of reproducing itself_, the workers have
been at the mercy of the idle.

"At the end of a year, will you find an additional crown in a bag of one
hundred shillings? At the end of fourteen years, will your shillings
have doubled in your bag?

"Will a work of industry or of skill produce another, at the end of
fourteen years?

"Let us begin, then, by demolishing this fatal fiction."

I have quoted the above, merely for the sake of establishing the fact,
that many persons consider the productiveness of capital a false, a
fatal, and an iniquitous principle. But quotations are superfluous; it
is well known that the people attribute their sufferings to what they
call _the trafficing in man by man_. In fact, the phrase _tyranny of
capital_ has become proverbial.

I believe there is not a man in the world, who is aware of the whole
importance of this question:

"Is the interest of capital natural, just, and lawful, and as useful to
the payer as to the receiver?"

You answer, no; I answer, yes. Then we differ entirely; but it is of the
utmost importance to discover which of us is in the right; otherwise we
shall incur the danger of making a false solution of the question, a
matter of opinion. If the error is on my side, however, the evil would
not be so great. It must be inferred that I