32 
THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
encroaching little by little upon the lands of the small farmeis, 
drove the surplus population into the towns, free indeed, but 
deprived of the means of labour, and, consequently, forced to 
place themselves at the service of those who had the means 
of labour at their disposal. The suppression of individual 
handicrafts and the invention of machinery have favoured the 
development of the large industrial system, in which a few 
capitalists, becoming more and more powerful, employ an ever- 
increasing army of proletarians. Every augmentation of capital 
calls for a proportionate increase in the number of workmen. 
“ The accumulation of wealth at one pole of society advances 
step by step with an accumulation, at the other pole, of the 
poverty, servitude, and moral degradation of the class which, 
out of its produce, brings capital into existence.” 
As we read Marx’s book and feel ourselves shut up within 
the iron bars of his logic, we are, as it were, a prey to a night 
mare, because, having admitted his premises, which are borrowed 
from the most undoubted authorities, we know not how to 
escape from his conclusions, and because, at the same time, 
his wide and solid learning enables him to quote in support 
of his theses striking extracts from a crowd of authors and 
numerous telling facts, drawn from Parliamentary inquiries and 
from the industrial and agricultural history of England. And 
yet, when we go to the bottom of the matter and look around 
us, we perceive that we have been enveloped in a skilful tissue 
of errors and subtleties, intermingled with a few truths. Never 
theless, it is not easy to release ourselves, and if we admit the 
theory of value circulated by Smith, Ricardo, Bastiat, and Carey, 
we cannot do so without contradicting ourselves. 
M. Maurice Block has tried to refute the chief basis of 
Marx’s system, which consists in the assertion that the labourer 
produces his subsistence by the work of only a part of the day, 
while the other part is monopolized by the employer, who keeps 
the fruits of it for himself without compensation. The fact 
alleged by Marx is, however, incontestable. It is perfectly true 
that the employer does not give and cannot give to the employé 
the full value of the product, for if he did, where could he 
obtain the means of paying the interest on his capital, the rent