chisement of the industrial classes, and the organization of labor through the coöperative principle, now stand, in France. And first we shall allude to a very interesting experiment made some years ago by a private individual, and which, although undertaken for purely private ends, and on a very small scale, has already acquired historical importance.

There is in Paris, now or lately occupying the house, 11, Rue Saint Georges, a master housepainter, named Leclaire. On an average, M. Leclaire employs two hundred workmen. For some time after commencing business, he proceeded on the same system with regard to his workmen which he saw others practising-" a system which consists," to use his own language, "in paying the workman as little as possible, and in dismissing him frequently for the smallest fault." Finding this system unsatisfactory, he altered it; adopted a more liberal scale of wages; and endeavored, by retaining good and tried workmen permanently ir his service, to produce some stability in the arrangements of his establishment. The result was

Upon the whole, the result of the labors of SaintSimon and Fourier may be summed up in this, that their systems deposited in the mind of the French nation two great ideas, which were not there before the first, that European society was approaching a crisis the peculiarity of which as compared with former ones would consist in this, that it would be an industrial revolution-in other words, a revolution by which not only would industrial interests come to predominate in politics, but the industrial mind itself would be admitted to the mastery in the administration; the second, that the instrument in this change, or at least its accompaniment, would be an organization of the laboring classes into compact bodies on the princi- encouraging; but still, from causes which were ple of cooperation and common responsibility. The inevitable-among which he specifies the listless-first of these ideas is more peculiarly Saint-Si-ness of even the best workmen, and the waste of monian; it is the summary expression of Saint-Simon's two fundamental principles, "L'Amélioration," &c., and "A Chacun," &c. The other is more peculiarly Fourierist, involving as it does all that is general, and possibly all that is valuable, in Fourier's bewildering system of phalanxes. In neither idea, simply expressed and divested of the rubbish attached to it, is there anything absolutely repugnant to good sense, or irreconcilable with Christian belief. Indeed, by some influential men in our own country both ideas have already been accepted-so far, at least, as to form subjects of incessant meditation. In Mr. Cobden, for instance, we see the first idea, or at least a fraction of it, developed almost to the pitch of bigotry; hence his laughter at the Duke's Letter, and his denunciations of the ships in the Tagus.

material occasioned by their carelessness-his profits by no means answered his expectations; while his position as a master was one of continual anxiety and discomfort. He resolved, therefore,. on a total change of system. A reading and in-telligent man-he had heard of the speculations regarding the applicability of the coöperative principleto business; a firm and enterprising man—he was willing to try the experiment at his own risk. Accordingly, having made certain necessary preparations, he announced to his workmen, in the beginuing of the year 1842, that during that yearhe was to conduct his establishment on the prin ciple in question; in other words, he was to assume them all, for that year, into partnership with himself, and form of his establishment a little industrial association, of which he should be chief.

The details of his scheme were as follows:All the employés of the establishment-M. Leclaire himself included-were to be allowed regula wages as in other establishments, each according to his rank and position-M. Leclaire a salary for the year of 6000 francs, (£240,) which was about the sum to which he considered himself entitled by his services; his journeymen the ordinary wages of about four francs a day (a pound a week) in summer, and three francs a day (fifteen shillings a week) in winter; the foremen and clerks proportionably more; the apprentices proportionably less. These fixed allowances were to be totally independent of the success of the experiment; as re

Both ideas, however, must rest for credence upon their own proofs and merits. Whether it be true that society is approaching a crisis in which the industrial classes shall assume a higher position than they have yet held, and if so, by what means the transition is to be the most easily and peacefully effected are questions, to answer which one must diligently observe the current of the times. Whether, again, the coöperative principle be safe, practicable, or advantageous in the management of business; and if so, what form or modification of it is the best—are questions to yield an answer to which experiment must assist reflection. Meanwhile, it is to France that we must look for our arguments and illustrations. There first have the ques-garded his men, M. Leclaire guaranteed their paytions been formally asked; and there first have they been put to the rough issue of events. It is our part to watch and profit by what we see. Let us attempt accordingly to present here in a condensed and collected form such facts as may tend to show on what precise footing the questions of the enfran

ment. But if the experiment should succeed, then, after the sum-total thus expended in wages had been deducted, and after all the other expenses of the establishment had been paid-such as rent, taxes. material, as well as the interest of the capital invested, there would still remain some surplus

vantage in the system not possessed by that of piece-work. Morally, also, the effects of the experiment were admirable; and, upon the whole, so decided was the success, that M. Leclaire continued the system on trial during the following year, and, so far as we are aware, has kept it up ever since.

of clear profit. Now this surplus, whatever it would take him to task for theirs; hence an adwas, M. Leclaire undertook to distribute faithfully among all the members of the establishment, each sharing in the ratio of his fixed allowance-that is, receiving exactly that proportion of the profits that he received of the total wages-expenses. Thus, supposing the business of the year to yield in all £4200; supposing the total wages-expenses to be £2000, and the outlay in rent, taxes, material, interest, bad debts, &c., to be £2000 more; then there would remain £200 of surplus profits, to be divided among all concerned. Of this sum each would receive that proportion which he received of the wages-expenses; consequently, M. Leclaire's own share (£2000 : £200 :: £240: £24) would be £24. In the same way the share of a journeyman, whose total amount of wages during the year had been £40, would be £4; of a clerk or foreman, whose wages had been £60, the share would be £6; of an apprentice, whose wages had been £4, the share would be 8s. Even those workmen who should have been but a few weeks in the establishment were to receive in the same equitable proportion; the value of every man's services, and consequently his title to a share in the profits, being always measured by the amount he had earned in wages.

While private individuals were thus putting in practice in their own affairs, ideas derived from the mass of Utopian opinions that had been set forth by Saint-Simon and Fourier, it was impossible but that some of these opinions should begin also to find acceptance with those public men whose position as leaders of what was called the liberal party rendered them open to all new ideas of a political tenor. Precisely as the whig and radical parties in this country have derived many of their working propositions from Bentham, without accepting his views in the mass, so the republican party, which has now attained to power in France, has derived much of its vital sap from the speculations of Saint-Simon and Fourier. Even so early as 1833, there was a section of the republican party which had expressly embraced many of the ideas, of the Saint-Simonians; as if the suppression of the Saint-Simonian sect in 1832 had These arrangements having been agreed to, and not really destroyed its vitality, but only occasioned some other stipulations having been made, the chief its metempsychosis into the world of politics. At of which was that M. Leclaire was still to retain the head of this body of extreme republicans was the usual rights which belong to a master-was, M. Cavaignac-the brother of the M. Cavaignac for instance, to have the sole charge of the pur- whom the present provisional government appointchase of materials, the undertaking of commissions, ed governor-general of Algeria. Forming them&c., the experiment was fairly and faithfully tried. selves into an association, and entering into correThe result was most satisfactory. "Not one of spondence with the discontented among the laboring his journeymen," we are told, "that had worked classes, they became objects of fear and suspicion as much as 300 days obtained less than 1500 francs to the government of Louis Philippe. One of (£60) and some considerably more." According their overt acts was the publication of a manifesto, to a table now before us, the average wages per day in which, indicating rather than declaring their of a journeyman house-painter in Paris is 34 francs; opinions, they reprinted a Declaration of the Rights for 300 days at this rate the return would be 1050 of Man, which had been written by Robespierre, francs (£42;) therefore it would appear that a and proposed by him to the national convention, steady journeyman in M. Leclaire's establishment but rejected by that body as subversive of admitted earned that year about 450 francs, or £18, more than principles. In this document of Robespierre, perhis brethren in other establishments. On the suppo-haps the most remarkable clause was a definition sition, which also seems the correct one, that M. of property which it contained. "Property," said Leclaire paid his workmen, in respect of their fixed Robespierre," is that portion of goods which is wages, at the usual rate, this sum of £18 would secured to a man by the laws." To this definirepresent exactly what the workmen gained by the tion of property, all the more startling from its change of system. For M. Leclaire, himself, the clearness and Demosthenic precision, the Associates gain was of course proportionate. To the £240 expressed their adhesion. It tallied exactly with which he had allowed himself as his personal sal- a certain portion of their creed as Saint-Simonians ary, he would add about £100 as his proportion—that, namely, which proposed the abolition of of the profits; besides which, it is to be remem- the rights of inheritance. According to Robesbered, he drew the interest of his invested capital. Even as a private speculation, therefore, the experiment was successful-a success which is to be accounted for by the superior zeal and carefulness produced among the workmen by the sense of common interest and responsibility, or, as the French express it, solidarité. Every boy, for instance, who emptied a pot of paint into the kennel, injured himself and his comrades; and although he might not care for his own loss, his comrades

pierre's definition, property varied as the law; that is, as the general sense of the community investigating its own wants; and if the law chose to decree, for instance, that no man should be entitled to bequeath upwards of £10,000, or even that no man should be entitled to dispose of his possessions at all after his death, then society would conform to those conditions, and new ideas of property would arise. In these views, audacious and destructive as they are, one sees only an immense

extension of the principle of the Roman Agrarian | Saint-Simonians and of Fourier, undertakes to law.

cast these into a form which shall take effect in the world in spite of Adam Smith.

The promulgation of such views by Cavaignac and his associates produced a schism-if a friendly "Wherever," says M. Louis Blanc, "the cerprivate controversy can be called such--between tainty of being able to live by labor does not result them and the more moderate and practical repub- from the very essence of the established social inlicans, of whom Armand Carrel was the chief and stitutions, there iniquity reigns." This is his representative. Carrel, who, although specula- fundamental maxim as a revolutionist; the end tively he believed much that the Associates had at which he aims as a reformer is expressed in set forth in their manifesto, was yet led by his in- language partly Saint-Simonian and partly Fourstincts as a man of action, to select the immediate ierist, as follows:-"The moral and material and practicable in preference to the remote and amelioration of the condition of all, by means of Utopian, had a difficult part to act. On the one the free concurrence of all, and their fraternal ashand, he had to avoid an open breach with men sociation." More specially, that which he attacks whom he respected; on the other, he had to clear in the existing constitution of society, is the syshimself in the eyes of the public. He effected tem of competition, or, as he sometimes names it, both with great skill; and, after the attempt of of individualism—that “ atrocious mercantile spirFieschi, in 1835, had brought down on the repub-it," as he considers it, by which, remorselessly lican party the crushing hand of the government, and selfishly using his own means and opportuniin the shape of individual prosecutions for treason, and the famous September laws against the press, he was able to retain his position as editor of the National, while Cavaignac and his associates were either silenced in prison, or driven into exile.*

66

It was now thought that republicanism was at an end in France. Even Carrel, still clinging with a sort of chivalrous sorrow to his republican opinions, believed the cause to be hopeless; for to him, says his biographer, M. Nisard, a cause deferred was a cause lost." In this belief he continued till his death, in a duel, by the pistol-shot of M. Girardin. He died without hope-his party ruined, France abject, and Louis Philippe still on the throne.

ties, every man in business tries to grow richer than his neighbor. For the mass of the people, he says, this system of competition is a system of extermination; for the middle classes it is an incessant cause of bankruptcy and ruin; in England, which is its hotbed and peculiar seat, it has produced disaster and apoplexy; if it is persisted in, war between England and France is inevitable ;therefore, at once and forever, for the good of man and the peace of Europe, let it be done away. The means by which this great end is to be achieved he thus expounds :

Let government be considered as the supreme regulator of production, and as such invested with making use of the weapon of competition, in order the necessary powers. Its task will then consist in to destroy competition.

penditure, the number of such workshops shall at first be limited; in virtue of their very nature they

Carrel, however, was mistaken. Republicanism was to revive in France; and this not in that moderate form in which he had advocated it, but Let government raise a loan of which the product rather in the extreme and Utopian form from which shall be employed in the creation of social workshops, he had dissented. Precisely at the period when in the most important branches of the national inits prospects were gloomiest, it received an adher-dustry. This creation requiring a considerable exent in a young man of literary talent-M. Louis Blanc. Born in Spain, of a Corsican mother, and will possess an expansive power. Government bedescribed as being of extremely small stature, and ing considered as the sole founder of the social very juvenile appearance, he threw himself, with workshops, will have the right to draw up the rules precocious ardor, into the element of revolutionary and regulations, which shall, accordingly, possess politics. The result was his " History of the the force of law. Into the social workshops shall Ten Years," a work which had made him toler- be admitted, as far as the capital collected for the ably well known in this country, even before the purchase of materials and tools will go, all workmen who shall offer certificates of good conduct. thirty hours of February had elevated him to so Notwithstanding that the false and anti-social educaconspicuous a place as that which he now occupies tion given to the present generation renders it difficult in the eyes of the French nation and of Europe. to find any other motive of emulation than an increase It is only now, however, that another work of his of pay, the salaries will be equal; as a totally new -a little volume on "The Organization of Labor "education will necessarily change ideas and manFor the first year government will regulate begins to attract attention among us insular ners. the hierarchy of functions. After the first year it folks. In this volume, published originally in 1839, shall no longer be so. The workmen having had he expounds a scheme of his own for Industrial time to appreciate one another, and all being equally Reform, in which, hasty and crude as it is, one interested in the success of the association, the hiesees the amiable enthusiasm of a youth who, hav-rarchy shall be arranged on the principle of election. ing mastered the prevailing generalities of the

*As some of the facts here given are even yet not generally known, it is right to state that we are indebted for them to the author of the article on Armand Carrel in chanced at the time to be at Paris, and so circumstanced as to become intimately acquainted with the affair.

No. XI. of the London and Westminster Review-who

Every year there shall be rendered an account of the net profit, of which a partition shall be made into three parts;-the first to be divided in equal portions among the members of the association; the second to be employed, 1st, in the maintenance of the old, the sick, and the infirm; 2dly, in the mitigation of such distresses as may fall on other

ideas, the distance is infinitely less than was that between the condition of society that subsisted on the eve of 1789, and that which subsisted on the

morrow."

trades; all trades owing such help to each other; and the third, to furnish tools to such new members as choose to join the association. Into each association formed for trades carried on by large numbers together, may be admitted also persons belonging to trades which by their very nature must be In all respects, the revolution of February last scattered and confined to separate spots; so that, was an industrial revolution-a revolution in the in this way, each social workshop may consist of name of the industrial classes, and in behalf of different professions, grouped around one great their interests as understood or misunderstood by trade, as so many parts of one whole, obeying the themselves. This is its peculiarity. This also same laws, and partaking of the same advantages. is what it professes and asserts itself to be. Not Every member of the social workshop should have

workmen.

the right to dispose of his income at his own pleas-only has it conferred on every living Frenchman a ure, but the evident economy and incontestable ex-vote, and on every Frenchman above twenty-five cellence of the system of life in common, would a right to be elected into the legislature; but it not fail to produce out of the association of labors, has proclaimed its determination that a large prothe voluntary association also of wants and pleas- portion of the future legislators of France shall be ures. Capitalists could be invited to join the asso-workmen. "Elect workmen largely," said the ciation, and would draw the interest of the capital National," the education of the college is not fathey had embarked in it, which interest would be guaranteed to them on the budget; but they should vorable, nor that of the workshop unfavorable, for not partake of the profits except in the quality of the produce of the eminent function of a deputy to the national assmbly. To use a figure, the admitted ideas obtained by the common course of education are a paper money which has no longer any value on the political bourse. Old political knowledge consists of mere prejudices acquired under former régimes." They err greatly who consider these official declarations of the wishes of the provisional government as originating in mere vulgar contempt for knowledge. To this the fact that while demanding the return of workmen as deputies they have also largely encouraged the election of artists and men of philosophic reputation, above all social philosophers, is a sufficient contradiction. Daring as the language of the provisional government with regard to the elections has been, and mischievous as may be its effects, it is deliberate and proceeds on a deep principle. The new régime, they say, is to be an industrial one; it is necessary, above all, then, that the industrial classes be allowed to reveal themselves and all that is in them, even though for months the revelation should consist in mere clamor and vociferation. The transition must be made, they say, some time or other; as well have it now.

The social workshop once set a-going on these principles, one may see what would be the result. In every important branch of trade, that of machinemaking for example, or that of silk-manufacture, or cotton manufacture, or that of printing, there would be a social workshop competing with the private trade. Would the struggle be long? No, because the social workshop would have over every private workshop the advantage that results from the superior economy of the system of life in common, and from a mode of organization in which the laborers without exception are interested in producing fast and well. Would the struggle be subversive? No, because the government would always have it in its power to deaden its effects by hindering the produce of its own workshops from reaching too low a level.

Now, although these views were the private speculations of M. Louis Blanc, and were even contravened by some of the most liberal politicians and economists of France-as, for instance, by M. Lamartine, and most powerfully of all, by the former Saint-Simonian, M. Michel Chevalier, yet, upon the whole, it may be said, that from the year 1840, such views of an indefinite industrial Again, with regard to that modified communism reform to be achieved through the coöperative which builds itself on the coöperative principle, principle have, in one shape or other, tinged all the revolution has in a manner adopted it. Scarcely the thinking, and all the writing, of the high were the three days of February over, when two French republicans. It was the knowledge of this important companies, viz., the proprietors of the fact, doubtless, and the knowledge also how deeply Presse newspaper, and the directors of the Northern communist ideas had taken root among the indus- Railway, announced their intention to conduct the trial classes, in all the large towns of France, that businesses over which they respectively presided enabled Louis Blanc, when re-publishing his "Or- on the Leclaire system. Various other private ganization du Travail," a few months ago, to companies, we believe, have followed their exammake a most striking prediction. "We are called ple; in one case-that of an establishment at Utopians," he said, "by practical men, because, Havre, the operatives are said to have demanded in the midst of a régime so corrupt as the present, the privilege of partnership. Nor has government we indulge in such dreams of industrial reform. been idle. Under the auspices of the sanguine But what would have been said of a man who, Louis Blanc, four great social workshops have during the last years of Louis XV., had enumer- been set on foot in Paris, to which barracks are ated the changes that were actually to take place to be attached when the scheme is complete for within a few years? Well, the partisans of the the accommodation of the operatives and their new social order are this day precisely in the po- families. And, lastly, in order as it were to sow sition of such a man. And, assuredly, between the whole soil of France with so many commuthe existing regime, and the application of our nist centres, from which the change may spread

From the Examiner, 6 May.

A GERMAN EMPIRE.

But

GERMANY seems too late in its attempts at union and centralization. There was a period when all European countries tended this way; and when sovereigns did but fulfil the mission of their age when they destroyed local independence, and forced the heterogenous elements of a great empire into something like harmony and compactness. the epoch for this great operation seems to have completely passed by. Disseverance and dissolution, or, at least, decentralization, forms the order and tendency of the time. There seems to reign a centrifugal force in every province; and instead of each wishing to be master over others, each seems desirous to be master at home.

over society, the intention is to empower govern- its vehement and susceptible inhabitants are prement to undertake, or as it were buy up, by the paring, almost of design, for their country, any device of a sinking-fund, bankrupt concerns, which idea good and practical, with proofs and corroborait shall stock with workmen associated on the co- tions attached to it, shall emerge, let us give it operative principle. By the competition of these at once due welcome, nor quarrel with it because state workshops with the private ones, Louis Blanc of the quarter whence it comes. And surely expects that the system will extend itself. Mean- even already, there is one lesson clearly enough while, fortunately, the other side is not unrepre- written out in the light of this great outbreak. sented. M. Michel Chevalier, in particular, has Let us try now all the more earnestly, through again come forward as an opponent of the schemes the neglected multitudes of the lower class among of M. Louis Blanc, and a defender of the interests ourselves, to spread the spirit of an intelligent and which he attacks. The services of such a man, healthful Christianity; for had such a spirit peran ardent devotee as he is of social amelioration, vaded, to any extent, the population of Paris, it and yet competent as he is by his long and inti- had been saved all the horrors of the past and of mate acquaintance with political economy, to ex- the future. The hope of the neglected children pose what is Utopian in these speculations of the of toil had found better and more satisfying obcommunists, cannot fail to be valuable. On the jects to rest upon, and their sense of injury had other hand, however, M. Louis Blanc himself, and made other and more legitimate manifestations. his associates in the more violent section of the provisional government, MM. Ledru Rollin, Albert, and Flocon, occupy an almost conservative position, as compared with certain popular leaders not in the government. At the head of the communists, specially so called, who carry the ideas of life in common and equality of conditions, to their utmost lengths, are two men of great influence with the working classes, MM. Cabet and Blanqui; and even as we write, these leaders are attempting to overthrow the provisional government, and force on the revolution a stage further. To what crashes these experiments may lead no one can tell. Dreamy enthusiasm is destined, we fear, to be cruelly disappointed. Capital will hasten away out of a country where the natural laws by which it seems to expand itself are violated. In the vain endeavor to share equally out among the producers the profits of their labor, the stimulus to Perhaps all this arises from the chief impulse in production will everywhere be lessened-in some past times coming from kings, and statesmen, and quarters will altogether be destroyed. In ridding privileged classes, all fraught with ambition, and himself of the tyranny of his employer, the poor more eager to grasp than to keep. Whereas now laborer will rid himself also of the means of his the people form the great wheels of opinion and employment. Nor can any state step in to supply policy. And the masses want the heroic and indithe place of that grand body of capitalists by vidualized virtue of ambition, whilst they feel very whom the industry of the country has been hith-strongly the more domestic one of local indepenerto sustained. It does so at extremest peril. We dence. should care comparatively little if all that these experiments were to end in was a simple disappointment; if, after having tried and failed, industry cheerfully returned to its old channels; but what if the failure shall come amid the cries of a famishing population-what if crime should follow Schleswig. There is Austria, which declares quick in the wake of want-and what if the vexed most decidedly that, since Rhenish Germany will chagrin of the needy shall cry for vengeance on not obey Austrian rule, Austria will not stoop to the heads of their rulers who may not make good Rhenish Germany. Frankfort rises between them; what they have promised—and what if their rulers and a kind of improvised constituent assembly in shall try to turn off from themselves the vengeance its old Roemer has fabricated a very pretty and by opening up for it the vent of war? What if comprehensive constitution, which puts a Frankfort disorganization at home, and bloodshed abroad, emperor over the head of all German princes, and shall be the fruit of their Utopian and unchristian which distributes privileges and ponderates powers attempts to reorganize? We wait to see the is- in a style that looks imposing upon paper. sues-in fear, we acknowledge, more than in But German democracy, so irresistible in its first hope; but, meanwhile, let us look on, and be awakening and impulses, has cooled considerably. ready to appropriate the lessons which Paris shall Its extreme republicans have taken the field in the be teaching us. If, out of the social chaos which Black Forest, and been severely beaten.

At all events, there are half-a-dozen centres in Germany each struggling to remain so. There is Prussia, whose king hoisted the imperial colors the other day, and who has played the emperor by marching to enforce German-imperial rights over

Its com