“What do you mean by the nation? Do you refer to the most miserable of the inhabitants of the land? If so, we are indeed the nation. Look at our pale and emaciated faces, our bodies worn our with over-fatigue and insufficient food. We sow and reap corn, but never taste white bread; we cultivate the vine, but a drop of wine never touches our lips. We raise cattle, but never eat meat; we are covered with rags, we live in wretched hovels; in winter we suffer from the cold, and both winter and summer from the pangs of hunger. Can a land which does not provide its inhabitants, who are willing to work, with sufficient to live upon, be considered by them as a fatherland?” The Flemish agricultural laborer, who earns less than a shilling a-day, and the small farmer, whose rack-rent absorbs the entire net profits; the Highland crofters, who have been deprived of the communal land, the sacred inheritance of primitive times, where they could at least raise a few head of cattle; the Egyptian fellahs, whose very life-blood is drained by European creditors—in a word, all the wretched beings all over the world where the soil is owned by non-workers, and who labor for insufficient remuneration; can they, any of them, be called free? It is just possible that, if the State were to become the universal industry director (which, in my opinion, is an impossible hypothesis), their condition would not be improved; but at all events it could not be worse than it is now. I do not believe that “liberty must be surrendered in proportion as the material welfare is cared for.” On the contrary, a certain degree of well-being is a necessary condition of liberty. It is a mockery to call a man free who, by labor, cannot secure to himself the necessaries of existence, or to whom labor is impossible because he possesses nothing of his own, and no one will employ him! Compare the life of the soldier with that of the hired workman either in a mine or a factory. The first is the type of the serf in “The Coming Slavery,” and the second the type of the independent man in an industrial organization under the free contract _régime_. Which of the two possesses the most real liberty? The soldier, when his daily duties are accomplished, may read, walk, or enjoy himself in accordance with his tastes; the workman, when he returns home worn out with fatigue after eleven or twelve hours’ hard labor, too often finds no other recreation than the gin-palace. The laborer at his task must always, and all day long, obey the foreman or overseer, whether he be employed by a private individual, by the State, or by a co-operative society.