FERDINAND LASSALLE. 
71 
back does not exist in large enterprises operating in hundreds 
of thousands, because the salaries of the directors form only 
a small fraction of the total transactions ; but co-operative 
societies, founded on the savings of working men, would almost 
always be very small undertakings. 
These objections, inherent to the co-operative system, were 
clearly pointed out even by its partisans at the debates of the 
working men’s congress, which met in Paris in October, 1876 ; 
at the same time a remarkable progress in the economic 
education of the French labouring classes was put beyond 
a doubt. Thus the congress at once admitted the payment 
of interest and even a dividend upon capital, thus abandoning 
the chimera, so long cherished, of gratuitous credit. Citizen 
Nicaise, reporter to the sixth commission, uttered some very 
sensible words on this head : “ Cabet’s maxim, from each 
according to his strength., to each according to his needs, does not 
suit us because it is unjust If I must work, I who am sober 
and industrious, for him whose laziness is as great as his 
appetite is enormous, I should be tempted, unless I were a 
saint, to conceal my power of working in order to satisfy that 
desire of better living which is inherent in human nature. 
Saint-Simon, in the midst of errors which do not here concern 
Us, enunciated a far superior principle : To each individual 
according to his capacity, 'to each capacity according to its works. 
We accept this rule.” The principle upon which Louis Blanc 
wished to found the co-operative factory is here distinctly 
repudiated, while the efficacy of individual interest as an in 
centive to action is placed in a clear light. That is the 
necessary foundation of all economic work, of all administra 
tion, and of all political organization. Everywhere human 
affairs will be well or ill carried on, in proportion as the 
responsibility of each is well or ill defined. “ We believe that 
we shall be more in unison with the general opinion of 
working men,” continued Citizen Nicaise, “in founding our 
associations upon the principle of paying interest and even 
dividends upon capital. If the savings of the working men do 
not find an advantageous investment in the associations, they 
will continue to take a direction more to their interest, and the