FERDINAND LASSALLE. 
73 
still existed* The partisans of co-operation also recognized 
that, in order to succeed, their system must develop itself with 
out State aid “ The subsidies of the State,” said Citizen 
Nicaise, “ were disastrous to the associations which accepted 
them. Their failure has demonstrated that the system of sub 
sidies is bad, and that only the energy and perseverance of the 
associates, depending upon themselves alone, can solve the 
problem. Money one has not earned slips easily through the 
fingers ; one takes it less into account than that which, saved 
out of necessary expenses, represents privations endured in 
order to make up the contribution to the society.” Careless 
ness in the preservation of borrowed money is not the only 
cause of the shipwreck of all subsidized societies ; there is 
another and a still more serious one. In order to manage 
capital well and make the best use of it, there is wanted, in the 
first place, the same qualities of order and economy as for its 
creation, and others in addition more rare and more difficult 
to practise. He who has been unable to amass capital out of 
his savings will be still less able to keep it and turn it to 
account. It is precisely by exerting themselves to collect 
the capital that the associates will acquire the commercial 
experience indispensable to their success. 
It is not by lending money to those whom it wants to help 
that the State can instil into them the ability to use it advan 
tageously, in the midst of the numberless difficulties of the 
industrial struggle. Thus, then, facts interpreted by their 
* These facts, especially as they were stated by working men, are so 
instructive, that it is worth while reproducing them in detail. In 1848 the 
Constituent Assembly voted, in July, that is after the revolution of June, a 
^Dsidy of three millions of francs in order to encourage the formation of 
working men’s associations. Six hundred applications, half coming from 
aris alone, were made to the commission entrusted with the distribution 
'^^'ch only fifty-six were accepted. In Paris, thirty associa- 
in n ‘'^®"‘y-seven of which were composed of working men, comprising 
of fh f.H ^ociates, received 890,500 francs. Within six months: three 
re«i^ associations failed ; and of the 434 associates, seventy-four 
In I I ’ fifteen were excluded, and there were eleven changes of managers. 
twJ“^’ u ^^hteen associations had ceased to exist. One year later, 
be^n vanished. In 1865 four were still extant, and had 
that successful. In 1875 there was but a single one left, 
sen, 9 file-cutters, which, as Citizen Finance remarked, was unrepre- 
»cnied at the congress.