noticed that the workers count to-day in the world by the same right as the different productive groups which demand to be protected; they must be treated with solicitude just as the vine-growers or the sugar manufacturers.[1] There is nothing settled about Protectionism; the custom duties are fixed so as to satisfy the desires of very influential people who wish to increase their incomes; social politics proceed in the same manner. The Protectionist Government professes to have knowledge which permits it to judge what should be granted to each group so as to defend the producers without injuring the consumers; similarly, in social politics it declares, that it will take into consideration the interests of the employers and those of the workers.
Few people, outside the faculties of law, are so simple as to believe that the State can carry out such a programme: in actual fact, the Parliamentarians decide on a compromise that partially satisfies the interests of those who are most influential in elections without provoking too lively protests from those who are sacrificed. There is no other rule than the true or presumed interest of the electors; every day the customs commission recasts its tariffs, and it declares that it will not stop recasting them until it succeeds in securing prices which it considers remunerative to the people for whom it has undertaken the part of providence: it keeps a watchful eye on the operations of importers; every lowering of price attracts its attention and provokes inquiries with the object of discovering whether it would not be possible to raise values again artificially. Social politics are carried on in exactly the
- ↑ It has often been pointed out that the workers' organisation in England is a simple union of interests, for the purposes of immediate material advantages. Some writers are very pleased with this situation because, quite rightly, they see in it an obstacle to Socialistic propaganda. To embarrass the Socialists, even at the price of economic progress and of the safety of the culture of the future, that is the great aim of certain great idealists dear to the philanthropic middle classes.
