What the Chambers have done in
regard to service-books was inevitable, and should have been
expected. It is as impossible for a society founded on the
proprietary principle not to end in class distinctions as for a
democracy to avoid despotism, for a religion to be reasonable,
for fanaticism to show tolerance. This is the law of
contradiction: how long will it take us to understand it?
Thus the police function, instituted for the defence of the
proletariat, is directed entirely against the proletariat. The
proletaire is driven from the forests, from the rivers, from the
mountains; even the cross- roads are forbidden him; soon he will
know no road save that which leads to prison.
The advance in agriculture has made the advantage of artificial
meadows and the necessity of abolishing common land generally
felt. Everywhere communal lands are being cleared, let,
enclosed; new advances, new wealth. But the poor day-laborer,
whose only patrimony is the communal land and who supports a cow
and several sheep in summer by letting them feed along the roads,
through the underbrush, and over the stripped fields, will lose
his sole and last resource.
Pages:
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598