Governments ought to temper their “blind zeal” instead of urging on production.[422] Addressing himself to the savants, he begs them to desist from invention and recall the sayings of the economists, _laissez-faire_, _laissez-passer_, by giving to the generations which their inventions render superfluous at least time to pass away. For the old _régime_, with its corporations and wardens, he had the sincerest regard, while condemning them as being harmful to the best interests of production. Still he wondered whether some lesson could not be gleaned from them which might help us in fixing limits to the abuses of competition.[423] Sismondi never seems to have realised that any restriction placed upon production with a view to alleviate suffering might hinder the progress and well-being of the very classes that interested him most. The conviction that the production of Europe was enough to satisfy all demands supported these erroneous views.[424] Sismondi never suspected the relative poverty of industrial society, a fact that struck J. B. Say very forcibly. Moreover, he felt that on this point the policy of Governments was not so easily modified, a feeling that undermined his previous confidence. Since the causes of the evils at present existing in society are (1) the absence of property, (2) the uncertainty of the earnings of the working classes, all Government action ought to be concentrated on these points. The first object to be aimed at, wherever possible, was the union of labour and property, and Sismondi eulogises the movement towards a new patriarchal state—that is, towards a revival of peasant proprietorship. The _Nouveaux Principes_ contains a celebrated description of the idyllic happiness of such a state. In industry he wished for a return of the independent artisan. “I am anxious that the industries of the town as well as country pursuits should be carried on by a great number of independent workers instead of being controlled by a single chief who rules over hundreds and even thousands of workers. I hope to see manufactures in the hands of a great number of capitalists of average means, and not under the thumb of one single individual who constitutes himself master over millions. I long to see the chance—nay, even the certainty—of being associated with the master extended to every industrious workman, so that when he gets married he may feel that he has a stake in the industry instead of dragging on through the declining years of life, as he too often does, without any prospect of advancement.”[425] This for an end.