And now two classes are formed, distinct and far asunder--the capitalist, and he who works for wages. Comes the social reformer, and he would restore the equality between them. But how? We will fuse, says one, the two classes together: they shall carry on their manufacture in a joint partnership: all shall be partners--all shall be workmen. But even M. Prudhon will tell us that, if the profits of the great capitalist were divided equally amongst all the artisans he employs, each one would find his gains increased by a very little; and it is morally certain that profits equal to those he had obtained would never accrue from a partnership of many hundreds of workmen. The wealth of the country would, therefore, be put in jeopardy, and all the course of its industry and property deranged, for no end whatever. At all events, exclaims another, we will reduce the inequality which we cannot expunge, and put down the enormous and tyrannical capitalist: we will have a law limiting the fortune of each individual to so many hundreds or thousands; or, if we allow a man to earn and appropriate unlimited wealth, we will take care that it shall be dispersed at his death,--not even to his son shall he be permitted to bequeath more than a certain sum. But all schemes of this kind can tend only to equalise the fortunes of the first class--those who employ labour; they do not affect, in the least, the condition of the second class--the employed. These will not obtain better wages from smaller capitalists than from larger. A third--it is M. Prudhon himself--will have a new law of value established, and a new law of property. It is labour only that shall give title to property, and the exchangeable value of every article shall be regulated according to the labour it may be said to contain: propositions, however, which do not help us in the least degree, for capital is itself the produce of labour; its claims, therefore, are legitimate; and the very problem given is to arbitrate between the claims of capital and labour. _Rent and Property in Land._--This is the last topic we shall mention. The absolute necessity of property in land, in order that the soil should be cultivated, (that is, under any condition in which humanity has hitherto presented itself,) is a palpable truism. Yet property in land leads to the exaction of rent--leads to the same division which we have seen marked out by so many laws between two classes of society--those who may enjoy leisure, and those who must submit to labour; classes which are generally distinguished as the rich and poor, never, we may observe in passing, as the happy and unhappy, for leisure may be as great a curse as labour.