72

THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

associations  must  recommence  their  race  for  capital,  or  must
accept  the  money  of  capitalists.”
Citizen  Nicaise,  and  another  working  man,  Citizen  Masquin,
who  belonged  to  the  “  Co-operative  Society  of  Printers,”
showed  that  the  principal  cause  of  the  frequent  mishaps
encountered  by  these  associations  was  the  bad  choice  of
managers.  “  The  prime  cause  of  their  ill  success,”  said  the
former,  “is  the  inexperience  of  the  associates  and  their  inaptitude ­
  for  business.  Their  great  anxiety  has  always  been  to
produce,  without  even  knowing  how  the  products  were  to  be
sold  off.  Hence  the  endless  mistakes  in  the  choice  of
managers.  Generally  the  best  workmen  were  chosen,  which
deprived  the  factory  of  useful  hands,  and  confided  to  them  a
business  for  which  they  had  none  of  the  required  qualities.
“  The  society  is  formed  and  the  factory  opened,”  said  Citizen
Masquin,  “  then  the  difficulties  begin.  A  capable  man  is
wanted  as  manager,  but  the  capable  men  have  already  got
situations,  and  it  is  in  vain  you  offer  them  the  same  salaries  ;
they  hesitate  because  they  dread  the  responsibility,  and  are
afraid  that  the  business  may  not  succeed.  In  many  societies
the  first  comer  has  been  chosen,  and  they  have  smashed.”
In  this  same  congress  the  working  men  recognized  and
proclaimed  a  fact  of  experience,  which  is  the  death-blow  to
Lassalle’s  great  plan  for  social  renovation,  namely,  that  loans
from  the  State  are  the  ruin  of  working  men’s  associations.  If
it  really  only  needed  the  few  millions  of  pounds  demanded  by
the  German  Socialist  to  transform  all  the  working  men  into
capitalists  enjoying  the  integral  product  of  their  labour,  where
is  the  parliament  that  would  not  vote  them  gladly?  Forty
millions  of  pounds,  nay,  twice  that  sum,  even  without  interest,
would  be  little  to  accomplish  this  happy  and  peaceful  revolution, ­
  which  would  avoid  the  risk  of  bloody  and  far  more  costly
revolutions  in  the  future  ;  but  it  is  an  established  fact—money
advanced  by  the  State  brings  misfortune.
In  this  same  working  men’s  congress  of  1876,  the  citizen
Finance,  a  positivist  and  opponent  of  even  the  principle  of  cooperation, ­
  showed,  statistics  in  hand,  that,  of  all  the  associations ­
  which  were  subsidized  by  the  State  in  1848,  only  one