But the facts with which we shall supplement them are no less
authentic, and the inference to be drawn from these against
machines will be no less accurate,--to wit, that they are a
continual cause of pauperism. I appeal to the figures of M. Fix
himself.
Out of 320,000 workmen and 80,000 house-servants residing in
Paris, there are 230,000 of the former and 46,000 of the
latter--a total of 276,000--who do not deposit in the savings
banks. No one would dare pretend that these are 276,000
spendthrifts and ne'er-do-weels who expose themselves to misery
voluntarily. Now, as among the very ones who make the savings
there are to be found poor and inferior persons for whom the
savings bank is but a respite from debauchery and misery, we may
conclude that, out of all the individuals living by their labor,
nearly three-fourths either are imprudent, lazy, and depraved,
since they do not deposit in the savings banks, or are too poor
to lay up anything. There is no other alternative. But common
sense, to say nothing of charity, permits no wholesale accusation
of the laboring class: it is necessary, therefore, to throw the
blame back upon our economic system.
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