Laborers were told that this law could be overthrown only by the abolition of the wages system. How Lassalle really thought this was to be accomplished is not so evident. He proposed to the laborers that government should aid them by the use of its credit to the extent of 100,000,000 of thalers, to establish co-operative associations for production; and a great deal of breath has been wasted to show the inadequacy of his proposed measures. Lassalle could not himself have supposed that so insignificant a matter as the granting of a small loan would solve the labor question. He recognized, however, that it was necessary to have some definite party programme to insure success in agitation, and could think of no better plan at the time than to work for universal suffrage and a government subsidy. He wrote to his friend Rodbertus to the effect that he was willing to drop the latter plank in his platform, if something better could be suggested.[182] It would be going too far to say that he was positively insincere, for he might have thought that if government had voted the proposed credit of one hundred millions, it would have opened the way for other reforms. He might have regarded this modest proposal merely as an entering wedge. Lassalle took this project of productive co-operative associations founded on government loans from Louis Blanc, with whose work he was well acquainted; indeed, as he began his agitation, he wrote to the French socialist, and requested some kind of an open letter of recognition which should give him credit with the laborers.[183] We may get some clew to thoughts possibly lingering in the background, which Lassalle might have intended to express later by recalling the proposals of the Frenchman. Louis Blanc, as will be remembered, wished government to use its power of taxation to assist the social workshops with large advances of money, for which no interest was to be charged. No one was to be forced to join these _ateliers sociaux_. According to this scheme private manufacturers are allowed to continue their business as long as they choose. However, as no interest is paid for the government loans to the co-operative undertakings, the public establishments will be in a position to undersell private employers of labor and thus compel them to fall in line. The only possible termination is the socialistic state. As Lassalle was thoroughly informed concerning Blanc’s ideas, it is quite possible that in the course of time he may have intended to go equally far. The way he presented the matter to the laborers was somewhat as follows: There exists at present a conflict between labor and capital, which must be abolished. This contradiction between the elements of production can only be terminated by their union in co-operative associations, in which no capitalist comes between the working-man and the fruits of his toil, to levy toll thereon. But at the present time only large establishments