you have often asked yourselves--"Whence comes the wealth of
the rich? Is it from their labour?" It would be a mockery to say that it
was so. Let us suppose that M. Rothschild has worked all his life: well,
you also, every one of you working men have also laboured: then why
should the fortune of M. Rothschild be measured by hundreds of millions
while your possessions are so small? The reason is simple: you have
exerted yourselves to produce by your own labour, while M. Rothschild
has devoted himself to accumulating the product of the labour of
others--the whole matter lies in that.

But some one may say to me;--"How comes it that millions of men thus
allow the Rothschilds and the Mackays to appropriate the fruit of their
labour?" Alas, they cannot help themselves under the existing social
system! But let us picture to our minds a city all of whose inhabitants
find their lodging, clothing, food and occupation secured to them, on
condition of producing things useful to the community, and let us
suppose a Rothschild to enter this city bringing with him a cask full of
gold. If he spends his gold it will diminish rapidly; if he locks it up
it will not increase, because gold does not grow like seed, and after
the lapse of a twelvemonth he will not find L110 in his drawer if he
only put L100 into it. If he sets up a factory and proposes to the
inhabitants of the town that they should work in it for four shillings a
day while producing to the value of eight shillings a day they
reply--"Among us you'll find no one willing to work on those terms. Go
elsewhere and settle in some town where the unfortunate people have
neither clothing, bread, nor work assured to them, and where they will
consent to give up to you the lion's share of the result of their labour
in return for the barest necessaries of life. Go where men starve! there
you will make your fortune!"

The origin of the wealth of the rich is your misery. Let there be no
poor, then we shall have no millionaires.

The facts I have just stated were such as the Revolution of last century
did not comprehend or else could not act upon. That Revolution placed
face to face two opposing ranks, the one consisting of a hungry,
ill-clad army of former serfs, the other of men well provided with
means. It then said to these two arrays--"Fight out your battle." The
unfortunate were vanquished. They possessed no fortunes, but they had
something more precious than all the gold in the worl