FERDINAND LASSALLE. 59 
measure which, at first sight, would seem such a good thing 
for the rural day-labourers. 
If “ economic laws ” acted, as is affirmed, with the same 
inexorable rigour as cosmic laws, then the reasoning of Mill 
and Lassalle would be unassailable ; but man is a free agent, 
obeying various motives, and his conduct varies according to 
his beliefs and hopes, and according to the ruling ideas and 
the institutions in vogue around him. A greater amount of 
comfort among working men will bring about a decrease in 
wages only if they avail themselves of it to increase exception 
ally the number of their children. Now this result is so far 
from being necessary that the greater proportion of observed 
facts would seem to warrant the opposite conclusion. Want 
and misery carry off many children, but, indirectly, they also 
cause a large number of births. Easy circumstances, on the 
contrary, by inducing foresight, retard marriages, and render 
them less prolific. Is not the proof of it to be found in 
Ireland, where, forty years ago, the population swarmed in the 
midst of the most abject destitution, and in the very word 
prolétaire itself, which signifies at once miserable and pro 
creator of children ? It is not observed that those working 
men whose condition has been improved by the philanthropy 
of their masters have larger families than others. In Flanders, 
where, in consequence of the density of the population, wages 
in the country districts have fallen to an average of seven 
shillings a week, many labourers draw a supplement of food 
from a few perches of land which they rent at a price which 
is often excessive. Now, whatever Mill may say to the con 
trary, those who obtain these strips of land are subject to less 
privations than those who have none, and it is not observed 
that they have any more children. When employers build 
houses for their operatives, and let them at a moderate rent, 
they cannot profit thereby to reduce wages, for the number 
of hands is not, in consequence, increased. Better still, let 
•arge hotels * be built, where labourers can find food and 
* As examples, we may cite the Familistère of Guise, established by 
M. Godin-Lcmaire, and the Hôtel Louise, organized by M. Jules d’Andri- 
*nont, director of the colliery of Hasard, near Liège. This latter institution.