I read in a report upon the railways of Belgium that, the Belgian
administration having allowed its engineers a premium of two and
one- half cents for every bushel of coke saved out of an average
consumption of two hundred and ten pounds for a given distance
traversed, this premium bore such fruits that the consumption
fell from two hundred and ten pounds to one hundred and six.
This fact sums up the whole socialistic philosophy: to gradually
train the workingman to justice, encourage him to labor, lift him
to the sublimity of devotion, by increase of wages,
profit-sharing, distinctions, and rewards. Certainly I do not
mean to blame this method, which is as old as the world: whatever
way you take to tame serpents and tigers and render them useful,
I applaud it. But do not say that your beasts are doves; for
then, as sole reply, I shall point you to their claws and teeth.
Before the Belgian engineers became interested in the economy of
fuel, they burned double the quantity. Therefore on their part
there was carelessness, negligence, prodigality, waste, perhaps
theft, although they were bound to the administration by a
contract which obliged them to practise all the contrasted
virtues.
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