But when the workmen on the one hand contemplate the enormous sums required for railways and factories, and on the other hand consider the emptiness of their own pockets, they may naturally ask where they are to obtain the capital needed for the great industry? The State alone can furnish it; and the State ought to furnish it, because it is, and always has been, the duty of the State to promote and facilitate the great progressive movements of civilisation. _Productive association with State credit_ was the plan of Lassalle.[4] The State had already in numerous instances guaranteed its credit for industrial undertakings by which the rich classes had benefited—canals, postal services, banks, agricultural improvements, and especially with regard to railways. No outcry of socialism or communism had been raised against this form of State help? Then why raise it when the greatest problem of modern civilisation was involved—the improvement of the lot of the working classes? Lassalle’s estimate was, that the loan of a hundred million thalers (£15,000,000) would be more than sufficient to bring the principle of association into full movement throughout the kingdom of Prussia. Obviously the money required for the promotion of productive associations did not require to be actually paid by the Government; only the State guarantee for the loan was necessary. The State would see that proper rules for the associations should be made and observed by them. It would reserve to itself the rights of a creditor or sleeping partner. It would generally take care that the funds be put to their legitimate use. But its control would not pass beyond those reasonable limits: the associations would be free; they would be the voluntary act of the working men themselves. Above all, the State, thus supporting and controlling the associations, would be a democratic State, elected by universal suffrage, the organ of the workers, who form an overwhelming majority of every community. But if we are to conceive the matter in the crudest way and consider the money as actually paid, wherein would the enormity of such a transaction consist? The State had spent hundreds of millions in war, to appease the wounded vanity of royal mistresses, to satisfy the lust of conquest of princes, to open up markets for the middle classes; yet when the deliverance of humanity is concerned the money cannot be procured!