Workmen! your situation is peculiar! They make merchandise of you, as I shall show you immediately.... But no; I withdraw that expression. Let us steer clear of strong language, which may be misapplied; for spoliation, wrapt up in the sophistry which conceals it, may be in full operation unknown to the spoliator, and with the blind assent of his victim. Still, you are deprived of the just remuneration of your labour, and no one is concerned to do you _justice_. If all that was wanted to console you were ardent appeals to philanthropy, to impotent charity, to degrading almsgiving; or if the grand words, organization, communism, _phalanstère,_* were enough for you, truly they would not be spared. But _justice_, simple justice, no one thinks of offering you. And yet, would it not be _just_ that when, after a long day's toil, you have received your modest wages, you should have it in your power to exchange them for the greatest amount of satisfactions and enjoyments which you could possibly obtain for them from any one in any part of the world? * Allusion to a socialist work of the day.--Translator. Some day I may have occasion also to talk to you of association and organization, and we shall then see what you have to expect from those chimeras which now mislead you. In the meantime, let us inquire whether _injustice_ is not done you by fixing legislatively the people from whom you are to purchase the things you have need of--bread, meat, linens, or cloth; and in dictating, if I may say so, the artificial scale of prices which you are to adopt in your dealings. Is it true that protection, which admittedly makes you pay dearer for everything, and entails a loss upon you in this respect, raises proportionally your wages? On what does the rate of wages depend? One of your own class has put it forcibly, thus: When two workmen run after one master, wages fall; they rise when two masters run after one workman. For the sake of brevity, allow me to make use of this formula, more scientific, although, perhaps, not quite so clear. The rate of wages depends on the proportion which the supply of labour bears to the demand for it. Now, on what does the _supply_ of labour depend? On the number of men waiting for employment; and on this first element protection can have no effect. On what does the _demand_ for labour depend? On the disposable capital of the nation. But does the law which says, We shall no longer receive such or such a product from abroad, we shall make it at home, augment the capital? Not in the least degree. It may force capital from one employment to another, but it does not increase it by a single farthing. It does not then increase the demand for labour.