national workshops with his companions. From March 9th to March 12th he enrolled 9,000 men, on the 31st he numbered 30,000, and on April 30th 100,000. On June 16th the committee of labour received a return of 103,000 men enrolled; the figure was raised to 119,000, the leaders were accused of exaggerating the effectives for the purpose of taking advantage of the difference.

An

Eleven men composed a "squad;" five squads a brigade; four brigades a lieutenancy; and four lieutenancies a company. Each principal overseer commanded three companies, and was himself subordinate to the fourteen divisional chiefs. army was thus organised, which was not only unsuited to labour, but incapable of receiving it. Not only were the workmen bad navvies, but there were no works ready for them. Those who were enrolled were at times employed, and at times unattached, and drew 2 francs a day and I franc 50 accordingly. The staff was constantly swelled by an influx from the provinces.

The workmen who might have had employment with individuals, put forward impossible claims, and the national workshops were nurseries for strikes. Their inmates led a life of idleness, and after March 26th the members of the squads had their wages raised and received assistance in the form of food and medicines. A number of them enrolled themselves in more than one brigade and drew double and treble wages, while some of the brigade leaders made lists of their effectives and appropriated the wages of fictitious employées.

Emile Thomas prided himself upon instituting a club in the Parc Monceau, composed of the delegates of the brigades from the national workshops as a counterpoise to the committee of the Luxembourg. In effect he organised an army of insurrection, which proposed to dictate to the National Assembly, which thereupon urged the dissolution

of the club, and Trélat, the minister of public works, caused Thomas to be arrested at night and transported to Bordeaux.

It has been said that the insurrection of June was due to the dissolution of the national workshops; nevertheless the National Assembly had on June 19th voted a credit of three millions in their favour, but the vote was preceded by an unfavourable report by M. de Falloux proposing various modifications in the organisation of labour. An enquiry gave great dissatisfaction to the brigade leaders by exposing the defalcations. On June 22nd a decree enjoined all the young men between the ages of seventeen and twenty-five to enlist in the army. In the morning a number of workmen went to the Committee of the Luxembourg to threaten them and to demand the organisation of workshops for every calling. The insurrection broke out on June 23rd, and on the same day the National Assembly decreed the suppression of the national workshops.

CHAPTER V

THE RIGHT TO WORK

Scheme of the committee of the constitution-Before the days of June-Amendment of Mathieu (of la Drôme) -Lamartine's argument-Ledru-Rollin's-Observation of Pelletier (of Lyons)-Rejection.

THE organisation of the national workshops and the discussions and promises of the Luxembourg had demonstrated the imprudence committed by the Provisional Government in affirming, in their proclamation of February 25th, the right to work, and of promising to give effect to it. Nevertheless the draft constitution published on June 20th, contained an article (7) in the following terms:

"The right to work is the right possessed by every man to live by working.

"It is the duty of Society, by the means of production and of the general resources of which it disposes, and which will eventually be organised, to supply work to able-bodied men who are unable otherwise to procure it."

Not one of the members of the committee which drafted this article had remarked upon its character. Nevertheless the right to work completely disappears in the second draft constitution which was read on August 29th, article viii. containing merely the following provision: "It is the duty of the Republic to provide the means of subsistence to necessitous citizens, to wit by providing them with work within the limits of its resources.

But Mathieu (of la Drôme), attempted to reintroduce the right to work by modifying the article in the following manner:-"The Republic recognises the right of all citizens to instruction, work, and assistance." To those who objected on the ground of the net cost of this right he replied, If work is a right, it matters little what may be the burden which it imposes upon society."

On

the same day, September 8th, less than three months after the events of June, Lamartine supported it by arguments such as the following:In truth it appears that you might delete those three magnificent words which you propose to inscribe on the title page of your constitution, 'liberty, equality, and fraternity,' and substitute for them the convenient words 'buy and sell.'" (Prolonged applause).

Ledru-Rollin used an argument which shows the heartless coolness with which men of his stamp thought to guide opinion:-"When you register the right to work, you are under no obligation to have it organised on the very next day." But he enclosed his argument in this formula: "The right to work work is the Republic in its practical application." Politicians like Billault also supported the right to work by saying: "This country is passionately attached to words; you must reckon with this predisposition." Pelletier, a labour deputy from Lyons, said, "if you do not know what to do in order to consecrate the right to work and to make the people happy, the people will say, 'retire and make room for others."" Mathieu's amendment, as re-amended by Glais Bizoin, was rejected by 596 votes to 187. No one in France nowadays talks of the right to work; it has gone to join the other socialistic antiquities.

1 "Le Droit au Travail," Recueil des discours par J. Garnier.

CHAPTER VI

PROUDHON'S THEORIES

Scholastic methods-"Property is theft"-"The proprietary right of the worker to his produce"-"The worker cannot purchase his produce"-Production of utility and diminution of value-Solution of the problem-Freedom of credit-The party of labour and the party of capital-"The government of man by man and the exploitation of man by man' Anarchy Opposition of the ancient guild to the State The federal pact Family resemblance between the Utopians and Socialists of 1848. PROUDHON was born at Besançon, his father being a brewer's cooper. He became a working compositor, and as such he read the "Fathers of the Church," and was initiated into Hegel's dialectics, by M. Chas. Grun, "a German professor of philosophy, who understood nothing of what he taught," according to Karl Marx. Becoming acquainted later in life with the science of economics, he brought to it the methods of scholasticism, and attempted by running his head against words to cause the lightning to burst forth. He was incapable of giving clear expression to his thoughts, and sought to astonish the Philistines by his answer to the question propounded in the title of his work, published in 1840, “What is property? Property is theft." This had not even the merit of originality. Brissot de Warville in his "Recherches philosophiques sur le droit de propriété et le vol" (1780), had said "private property is a theft as against nature. Its owner is a thief." On this point Proudhon's doctrine is summarised in these two propositions: (1) The right to possess is the same for all; (2) Man can only work with the help of the instruments of labour. It follows that, all men having the right to work, they have an equal right to the instruments of work. Therefore