The causes of the violation of the schedules are easy to fathom:
they are to be found in machinery, in the incessant processes and
combinations of industry. A schedule is agreed upon at a given
moment: but suddenly there comes a new invention which gives its
author the power to lower the price of merchandise. What will
the other employers do? They will cease to manufacture and will
discharge their workmen, or else they will propose to them a
reduction. It is the only course open to them, pending a
discovery by them in turn of some process by means of which,
without lowering the rate of wages, they will be able to produce
more cheaply than their competitors: which will be equivalent
again to a suppression of workmen.
M. Leon Faucher seems inclined to favor a system of indemnity.
He says:
We readily conceive that, in some interest or other, the State,
representing the general desire, should command the sacrifice of
an industry.
It is always supposed to command it, from the moment that it
grants to each the liberty to produce, and protects and defends
this liberty against all encroachment.
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