When men, in place of labouring for themselves individually, combine with others, that is to say, when they club together to execute any work, or to produce a result by an united exertion, I do not call that _Communism_, because I see nothing in this of its peculiar characteristic, _equalizing conditions by violent means_. The state _takes_, it is true, by taxes, but it _renders_ service for them in return. It is a particular but legitimate form of that foundation of all society, _exchange_. I go still further. In intrusting a special service to be done by the state, it may be made beneficial, or otherwise, according to its nature and the mode in which it is effected. Beneficial, if by this means the service is made with superior perfection and economy, and the reverse on the opposite hypothesis: but in either case I do not perceive the principle of Communism. The proceeding in the first was attended with success; in the second, with failure, that is all; and if Communism is a mistake, it does not follow that every mistake is Communism. Political economists are in general very distrustful on the question of the intervention of government. They see in it inconveniences of all sorts, a discouragement of individual liberty, energy, foresight, and experience, which are the surest foundations of society. It often happens, then, that they have to resist this intervention. But it is not at all on the same ground and from the same motive which makes them repudiate Protection. Our opponents cannot, therefore, fairly turn any argument against us in consequence of our predilections, expressed, perhaps, without sufficient caution for the freedom of private enterprise, nor say, 'It is not surprising that these people reject the system of Protection, for they reject the intervention of the state in everything.' First, it is not true that we reject it in everything: we admit that it is the province of the state to maintain order and security, to enforce regard for person and property, to repress fraud and violence. As to the services which partake, so to speak, of an industrial character, we have no other rule than this: that the state may take charge of these, if the result is a saving of labour to the mass of the people. But pray, in the calculation, take into account all the innumerable inconveniences of labour monopolized by the state.