the treasure, that these men having become more enlightened than the first-mentioned party, came to the conclusion, from the same selfish instinct, that it would evidently be more beneficial to one and all to share the treasure between the whole, and pass a law to secure to each one his share so allotted to him, and which each man agreed to be bound by,-viz., to have his natural liberty restrained, so far and no farther than he saw was absolutely necessary for his own personal benefit and security, each one still wholly considering himself, and none other than himself, the benefit to the whole, as well as to each, being merely the result of this selfish law of nature, in a more enlightened and civilized form. This principle then, I contend, is the foundation on which all just and upright laws are built; because what benefits the single individual benefits the whole, and, consequently, what benefits the whole benefits the single individual. This is a state of civilization, supposing mankind to form but one class of society.

I will now consider civilization as divided into different classes,— viz., Civil-Class Liberty. I must again bring forward, for illustration, this second party of men, who are now one and all enjoying the benefits of their more enlightened exercise of their natural liberty; and now suppose a few of the more thoughtful of them to become more enlightened than the rest, that these few formed themselves into a class-we see (say they) the absolute necessity, one and all, of our own class abiding by these necessary laws, but we do not see the necessity of our sacrificing our natural liberty farther towards the rest, than is necessary for the preservation of our own class. They then meet in private consultation to consider how they can possess a portion of the share of those not belonging to their own class, without endangering the security to the shares which they are now already in possession of. The consultation takes place, but the place is to remain a profound secret; it is found, however, necessary to pick out another small portion of the mass and form them into a class also, and to bind them together in the same way that they themselves have now become bound to their own class; we will call these few, then, the more enlightened class. Well, then, the more enlightened class commence to earry out this design, and each one has a strictly private conversation, with one only at a time, of the unenlightened class, and says to him, a party of us have found out a way to become possessed of a greater portion of the treasure than our share. The plan is strictly secret, but we will show you how you can directly benefit yourself, if you will bind yourself not only to strict secrecy, but to assist us to crush any other of your number (whom, like yourself, we may have picked out to assist us in carrying out our designs), who should attempt to divulge the secret and become traitor to our case, and thereby not only bring us to ruin, but himself and you too. The required number of picked men from the less enlightened class then enter into the required bonds, and are called the commission agents to the more enlightened class. The bond is then read over to each, and each agent then becomes acquainted with the part he has to take in carrying out the scheme, which is that he go back again to the circle of society from whence he came, and rob each of them each night, when they are asleep, of a small quantity only of their portion of the treasure, so

that they may not miss it, less they should become aware that the original natural liberty was being exercised against them, and immediately claiming the right to do the same thing (which already has been shown would bring the whole, one and all, to ruin); and if any one of them should awake throw dust into his eyes, that he may not see you. And if he attempt to arouse the rest, and declare his belief that something is wrong somewhere, one agent to immediately propose a number to be summoned to decide the question, taking care that the number summoned are all agents, who (according to their vow) will crush the bad man who attempted to make a disturbance, and cause a riot amongst his peaceable and contented companions. That at each quarter of the year each agent is to bring all he collects in this way into a heap, out of which each agent is to receive such a portion (as before explained) is an inducement of sufficient strength as to ensure the compliance to the rule, and the rest is to be shared amongst the enlightened originators of the scheme. After a time these agents procure (in the same manner as they themselves have been procured) agents to act for them, who, in like manner, obtain agents also on the same plan, till class after class has been formed, until they come down to the poor unenlightened mass, whose lot it is to toil and sleep. What then, why toil and sleep again. This, then, I contend, is the principle on which Civil ClassLiberty is built. W. H. PEAKOME.

THE DOCTRINES AGAINST USURY, AND IN FAVOUR OF CO-OPERATION;

OR, THE LITTLE BOOKS OF POITIERS STREET.

(TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH.)

To which are prefixed and appended an Introductory Essay and Concluding

Observations,

BY JOHN ROBERT TAYLOR.

THE LITTLE BOOKS OF POITIERS STREET.

PART THE FIRST.

M. DE MONTALEMBERT AND M. ALFRED NETTEMENT.

AT present, amongst all the authors or writers in many languages of La Rue de Poitiers (Poitiers Street), in Paris, who have conscientiously infused something more of confusion into their general confusion of language, one set or party has rendered itself particularly remarkable by the intemperance of its views on doctrine (propagande).

What

We scarcely know how to call or distinguish this party; for by its attitudes (allures) and its fluctuations (endoiemens) it escapes from all analysis and from all classification. Whence comes it? wishes it? At what time, for what design, by what underground way, has it arisen? The God of the moles* only can tell.

*This species of animal, though apparently of modern growth, must certainly have been that of which King David complains, when he says, "Eyes have they, and see not; ears, and hear not; noses, and smell not." (Psalm cxv.) Not that they do not positively see with their eyes, such as they are, but that they do so like owls the dark, or perhaps moles, who, delighting always to be underground, the sense of seeing, as some naturalists have conjectured, has been made painful to them, in order to warn them of their danger when they see any glimmering of light, to which they have naturally a mortal antipathy. -Vide Plumer Ward's Work.

Is it a political party? No; for it is indifferently Buonapartist, Orleanist, Legitimatist, and Republican, and it never allows a lease or permits long continuance to any one Government. Is it a religious party? No; for in every Christian country the clergy are the only party that is authentically religious; and the clergy defend not their doctrines by proxy.

Is it, then, a party which is by turns political and religious, which, according to occasion, uses politics to serve religion, and religion to serve politics? We can neither contradict anything nor affirm anything upon this subject; for if we try to analyse the composition of this party, we find that there is within it, in a very unintelligible condition of looseness or licentiousness, some Jacobinism, some Saint Simonism, some Fourierism, some Carbonarism, some Orleanism, and some Ultra-Montanism.

One has been a disciple of Lamennais, and has preached the insurrectionary doctrines of the journal entitled "L'Avenir" (the Future.) One has been circumcised in the Religion of Robespierre, and has written forty volumes to the glorification of the Mountain (La Montagne.) One has communised like Saint Simon, and has beaten the bush in all the bye-paths in search of the bride to constitute the mysterious Andragyne of humanity. One has pursued, about the flower borders of the Phalanxtery, the Butterfly of Fourier. One has celebrated ready money, the political or crafty qualities of M. Duchatel. One has imported Carbonarism into France, and has sworn amid firebrands, upon a dagger, an oath of hatred to royalty. One has for a long time invoked, in the twilight of the thickets of the Bocage, the shades of the heroes of La Vendée. And with the same salutation or sign, Socialists, Carbonari, Legitimists, Quasi Legitimists, and Montagnards, have greeted one another upon the course of Dumas. They have reciprocally thrown away-this one his St. Simonian coat, that one his theory of the four movements, that other his dagger, and this last his carmagnole. They have joined hands, and have abjured their errors. They might signify or be called the Madelonettes of all the doctrines.

But, because they have been recently converted ("Be distrustful of new converts," said St. Paul, who knew the insecurity or danger of sudden conversions), they have seized upon that verse of the Gospel which says "the last shall be first." They have wished, through the spirit of acknowledgment, tumultuously to engross the direction of Catholicism; they have snatched away (God save us) the crooks or sheephooks of the pastors; they have constituted amongst themselves a second, or false clergy in surtouts, who too often take the word, or "have to say" instead of the true clergy. They have written, preached, established journals, and founded libraries; they have got up romances of the time of King Dagobert, printed in beautiful Gothic letters, in which we see "How it came to pass that the dear saint learned from Master Conrad to subdue her own will." They have digested or edited "The History of God," from authentic

* Vide Elizabeth, chap. 3, "An Act against such as shall sell wares without ready money."-J. R. T.

documents; and in order that the symmetry of their work may be complete, "The History of the Devil," from materials with which the devil himself has charitably furnished them for his biography.

Both romance in history, and heresy in orthodoxy, have taken up their abode in Poitiers-street. Once arrived in this last pale or sheepfold, they have fabricated a dozen different charges, more or less anonymous, against Socialism. M. de Montalembert has endeavoured on this occasion, in order to initiate the Church into opposition or resistance, to embark her in a crusade even with M. Fould-Catholicism with Judaism-in order to extirpate all heresies respecting money. M. de Montalembert is a twofold enemy of Communism, at one time on the ground of ideas of the Gospel, at another time on the ground of Conservatism. He parades from festivals to festivals this formal conjunction (formule) of religion with property, as if it could gather together or combine the same disposition of interests and of ideas. One of his scholars or pupils even affirms, in a small pamphlet, entitled "Gare aux Clochers (A Warning to the Churches), that Christianity is the seal or guardian of property.

All the school of M. de Montalembert attribute to Christianity, in this manner, determinate doctrines in political economy which are perfectly conformable with the doctrines of opposition or resistance. Well, then, shall we state what it is that this religious party have done in thus confounding profane ideas with sacred ideas? They have fathered a lie upon religion.

Assuredly, it has been impossible for the Church to come down, even to our time, from the further extremity of so many centuries, without having now and then met or encountered this question of individual property on her way. But when she has had, while going on everywhere, from the very first occasion to treat this formidable problem, she, who was come to proclaim equality and the contempt of riches, to react against or subdue worldly pleasures and the hardness of hearts, she (the Church) who has come to resuscitate Lazarus, and to enshrine or deify (diviniser) charity or love, she at once bowed down to or leant upon Communism. Community of goods, in fact, must appear to be, from the primitive qualities, or the very essence of the Gospel, the most direct process for the practical application, or exemplification, of charity or love.

Yes-from the very first day-even at the foot of Calvary, and in the shadow of the Christ who remounted into heaven-the Church instituted community, or community of goods, amongst the faithful believers-as it were thus to realise externally, under the most striking form, her principle of equality. The Scripture says, "All things were common to them.' (Omnia erant illis in communis.*) Whosoever was baptised brought his patrimony, or all his individual or private property to the Apostles, who distributed it to every one according to the wants of each. This law of self-dispossession or self-deprivation of all things, for the benefit of all, was so rigorously observed that St.

*So in the authorised Roman Catholic Latin version. It is the same in the original Greek, which is quoted in full, in a note to page 59 of the second part, for the satisfaction of the Protestant reader, which see.

Peter struck Ananias with death for having wished to keep back or embezzle a part of his fortune from the community of goods.

But this regime or rule, it may be said, was only the sudden impulse or movement of a new-born faith, which snatched away or transported men beyond humanity; it was an heroic attempt; an experiment or trial; it was not a doctrine; and by giving up or abandoning every ulterior attempt, Christianity has thus shown that it also disowned the doctrine.

*

But such has not been the case. The Church, indeed, could have well renounced or abandoned, before the invincible repugnance of our nature, the application of her first theories concerning property or wealth. But she has not done so, or on that account, relinquished her theories. She consented, indeed, to make this sacrifice to human weakness; but she has unceasingly looked back with a melancholy longing or regret upon the excellent times of the Apostles. She has always missed or mourned for, or wanted, or desired, that conception of Communism, that truth in the background, which, during her first steps, she allowed to drop from her, or lost on her way. Yet, while enduring or acquiescing in the rule of property, which says "This is mine," and "that is thine," still prevailing in society through the personal appropriatiou of the land under the old Roman civil law, she has not the less protested, from a profound conviction against what she has called, or has pronounced to be, the injustice of individual property. And it has not been from inadvertency or heedlessness, or by chance, or only from the mouth of this or that Father of the Church, that she has fulminated this protest. It has been wittingly, knowingly, or with full consciousness; it has been with deliberate purpose or intention, that she has thundered it from the mouths of all the Fathers of the Church, with the same persistency and the same unchangeableness (crudite), and with the same energy of expressions; so that we are apprehensive of being ranked among the factious or disaffected, for merely reproducing her doctrines as follows:

"Whosoever holds possession of the land," says St. Augustine, "is unfaithful to the law of Christ."

"Living in community (la vie Commune) is obligatory upon all men," says Saint Clement. "It is iniquity which has made it be said by one, "This is mine," and by another "That belongs to me." "Thence has come discord or disagreement amongst mortals."

"Nature," says Saint Ambrose, "furnishes all wealth in common to all men. God has created everything in order that the enjoyment of everything should be common to all, and that the earth should become the common property of all men. Nature, then, has begotten the right of Communism; and it is usurpation which has made, or has given birth to, individual or private property."......" What injustice," sayest thou, "is there in my conduct, if, respecting the goods or pro

*It ought rather to be said that the Church acquiesced in continuing or permitting the rule of individual property to remain in the practice of society, than that she ever sacrificed to it her own principle or theories respecting it: all her declarations, and even many of her practices down to this day, including the communism of monastic and conventual life, which was never, and is not even now, abandoned by her, are proofs of this.-Note by Translator.