It is solemnly condemned by the Decalogue: _Thou shalt not steal._

When practiced by one individual on another, it is called robbery, and leads to the prison; when practiced among nations, it takes the name of conquest, and leads to glory.

Why this difference? It is worth while to search for the cause. It will reveal to us an irresistible power, public opinion, which, like the atmosphere, envelopes us so completely that we do not notice it.

Rousseau never said a truer thing than this: "A great deal of philosophy is needed to understand the facts which are very near to us."

The robber, for the reason that he acts alone, has public opinion against him. He terrifies all who are about him. Yet, if he has companions, he plumes himself before them on his exploits, and here we may begin to notice the power of public opinion, for the approbation of his band serves to obliterate all consciousness of his turpitude, and even to make him proud of it. The warrior lives in a different atmosphere. The public opinion which would rebuke him is among the vanquished. He does not feel its influence. But the opinion of those by whom he is surrounded approves his acts and sustains him. He and his comrades are vividly conscious of the common interest which unites them.

The country which has created enemies and dangers, needs to stimulate the courage of its children. To the most daring, to those who have enlarged the frontiers, and gathered the spoils of war, are given honors, reputation, glory. Poets sing their exploits. Fair women weave garlands for them. And such is the power of public opinion that it separates the idea of injustice from spoliation, and even rids the despoiler of the consciousness of his wrong-doing.

The public opinion which reacts against military spoliation, (as it exists among the conquered and not among the conquering people), has very little influence. But it is not entirely powerless. It gains in strength as nations come together and understand one another better.

Thus, it can be seen that the study of languages and the free communication of peoples tend to bring about the supremacy of an opinion opposed to this sort of spoliation.

Unfortunately, it often happens that the nations adjacent to a plundering people are themselves spoilers when opportunity offers, and hence are imbued with the same prejudices.

Then there is only one remedy--time. It is necessary that nations learn by harsh experience the enormous disadvantage of despoiling each other.

You say there is another restraint--moral influences. But moral influences have for their object the increase of virtuous actions. How can they restrain these acts of spoliation when these very acts are raised by public opinion to the level of the highest virtues? Is there a more potent moral influence than religion? Has there ever been a religion more favorable to peace or more universally received than Christianity? And yet what has been witnessed during eighteen centuries?

Men have gone out to battle, not merely in spite of religion, but in the very name of religion.

A conquering nation does not always wage offensive war. Its soldiers are obliged to protect the hearthstones, the property, the families, the independence and liberty of their native land. At such a time war a.s.sumes a character of sanct.i.ty and grandeur. The flag, blessed by the ministers of the G.o.d of Peace, represents all that is sacred on earth; the people rally to it as the living image of their country and their honor; the warlike virtues are exalted above all others. When the danger is over, the opinion remains, and by a natural reaction of that spirit of vengeance which confounds itself with patriotism, they love to bear the cherished flag from capital to capital. It seems that nature has thus prepared the punishment of the aggressor.

It is the fear of this punishment, and not the progress of philosophy, which keeps arms in the a.r.s.enals, for it cannot be denied that those people who are most advanced in civilization make war, and bother themselves very little with justice when they have no reprisals to fear.

Witness the Himalayas, the Atlas, and the Caucasus.

If religion has been impotent, if philosophy is powerless, how is war to cease?

Political economy demonstrates that even if the victors alone are considered, war is always begun in the interest of the few, and at the expense of the many. All that is needed, then, is that the ma.s.ses should clearly perceive this truth. The weight of public opinion, which is yet divided, would then be cast entirely on the side of peace.

Forcible spoliation also takes another form. Without waiting for a man to produce something in order to rob him, they take possession of the man himself, deprive him of his freedom, and force him to work. They do not say to him, "If you will do this for me, I will do that for you,"

but they say to him, "You take all the troubles; we all the enjoyments."

This is slavery.

Now it is important to inquire whether it is not in the nature of uncontrolled power always to abuse itself.

For my part I have no doubt of it, and should as soon expect to see the power that could arrest a stone in falling proceed from the stone itself, as to trust force within any defined limits.

I should like to be shown a country where slavery has been abolished by the voluntary action of the masters.

Slavery furnishes a second striking example of the impotence of philosophical and religious sentiments in a conflict with the energetic activity of self-interest.

This may seem sad to some modern schools which seek the reformation of society in self-denial. Let them begin by reforming the nature of man.

In the Antilles the masters, from father to son, have, since slavery was established, professed the Christian religion. Many times a day they repeat these words: "All men are brothers. Love thy neighbor as thyself; in this are the law and the prophets fulfilled." Yet they hold slaves, and nothing seems to them more legitimate or natural. Do modern reformers hope that their moral creed will ever be as universally accepted, as popular, as authoritative, or as often on all lips as the Gospel? If _that_ has not pa.s.sed from the lips to the heart, over or through the great barrier of self-interest, how can they hope that their system will work this miracle?

Well, then, is slavery invulnerable? No; self-interest, which founded it, will one day destroy it, provided the special interests which have created it do not stifle those general interests which tend to overthrow it.

Another truth demonstrated by political economy is, that free labor is progressive, and slave labor stationary. Hence the triumph of the first over the second is inevitable. What has become of the cultivation of indigo by the blacks?

Free labor, applied to the production of sugar, is constantly causing a reduction in the price. Slave property is becoming proportionately less valuable to the master. Slavery will soon die out in America unless the price of sugar is artificially raised by legislation. Accordingly we see to-day the masters, their creditors and representatives, making vigorous efforts to maintain these laws, which are the pillars of the edifice.

Unfortunately they still have the sympathy of people among whom slavery has disappeared, from which circ.u.mstance the sovereignty of public opinion may again be observed. If public opinion is sovereign in the domain of force, it is much more so in the domain of fraud. Fraud is its proper sphere. Stratagem is the abuse of intelligence. Imposture on the part of the despoiler implies credulity on the part of the despoiled, and the natural antidote of credulity is truth. It follows that to enlighten the mind is to deprive this species of spoliation of its support.

I will briefly pa.s.s in review a few of the different kinds of spoliation which are practiced on an exceedingly large scale. The first which presents itself is spoliation through the avenue of superst.i.tion. In what does it consist? In the exchange of food, clothing, luxury, distinction, influence, power--substantial services for fict.i.tious services. If I tell a man: "I will render you an immediate service," I am obliged to keep my word, or he would soon know what to depend upon, and my trickery would be unmasked.

But if I should tell him, "In exchange for your services I will do you immense service, not in this world but in another; after this life you may be eternally happy or miserable, and that happiness or misery depends upon me; I am a vicar between G.o.d and man, and can open to you the gates of heaven or of h.e.l.l;" if that man believes me he is at my mercy.

This method of imposture has been very extensively practiced since the beginning of the world, and it is well known to what omnipotence the Egyptian priests attained by such means.

It is easy to see how impostors proceed. It is enough to ask one's self what he would do in their place.

If I, entertaining views of this kind, had arrived in the midst of an ignorant population, and were to succeed by some extraordinary act or marvelous appearance in pa.s.sing myself off as a supernatural being, I would claim to be a messenger from G.o.d, having an absolute control over the future destinies of men.

Then I would forbid all examination of my claims. I would go still further, and, as reason would be my most dangerous enemy, I would interdict the use of reason--at least as applied to this dangerous subject. I would _taboo_, as the savages say, this question, and all those connected with it. To agitate them, discuss them, or even think of them, should be an unpardonable crime.

Certainly it would be the acme of art thus to put the barrier of the _taboo_ upon all intellectual avenues which might lead to the discovery of my imposture. What better guarantee of its perpetuity than to make even doubt sacrilege?

However, I would add accessory guarantees to this fundamental one. For instance, in order that knowledge might never be disseminated among the ma.s.ses, I would appropriate to myself and my accomplices the monopoly of the sciences. I would hide them under the veil of a dead language and hieroglyphic writing; and, in order that no danger might take me unawares, I would be careful to invent some ceremony which day by day would give me access to the privacy of all consciences.

It would not be amiss for me to supply some of the real wants of my people, especially if by doing so I could add to my influence and authority. For instance, men need education and moral teaching, and I would be the source of both. Thus I would guide as I pleased the minds and hearts of my people. I would join morality to my authority by an indissoluble chain, and I would proclaim that one could not exist without the other, so that if any audacious individual attempted to meddle with a _tabooed_ question, society, which cannot exist without morality, would feel the very earth tremble under its feet, and would turn its wrath upon the rash innovator.

When things have come to this pa.s.s, it is plain that these people are more mine than if they were my slaves. The slave curses his chain, but my people will bless theirs, and I shall succeed in stamping, not on their foreheads, but in the very centre of their consciences, the seal of slavery.

Public opinion alone can overturn such a structure of iniquity; but where can it begin, if each stone is _tabooed_? It is the work of time and the printing press.

G.o.d forbid that I should seek to disturb those consoling beliefs which link this life of sorrows to a life of felicity. But, that the irresistible longing which attracts us toward religion has been abused, no one, not even the Head of Christianity, can deny. There is, it seems to me, one sign by which you can know whether the people are or are not dupes. Examine religion and the priest, and see whether the priest is the instrument of religion, or religion the instrument of the priest.

If the priest is the instrument of religion, if his only thought is to disseminate its morality and its benefits on the earth, he will be gentle, tolerant, humble, charitable, and full of zeal; his life will reflect that of his divine model; he will preach liberty and equality among men, and peace and fraternity among nations; he will repel the allurements of temporal power, and will not ally himself with that which, of all things in this world, has the most need of restraint; he will be the man of the people, the man of good advice and tender consolations, the man of public opinion, the man of the Evangelist.

If, on the contrary, religion is the instrument of the priest, he will treat it as one does an instrument which is changed, bent and twisted in all ways so as to get out of it the greatest possible advantage for one's self. He will multiply _tabooed_ questions; his morality will be as flexible as seasons, men, and circ.u.mstances. He will seek to impose on humanity by gesticulations and studied att.i.tudes; an hundred times a day he will mumble over words whose sense has evaporated and which have become empty conventionalities. He will traffic in holy things, but just enough not to shake faith in their sanct.i.ty, and he will take care that the more intelligent the people are, the less open shall the traffic be.

He will take part in the intrigues of the world, and he will always side with the powerful, on the simple condition that they side with him.

In a word, it will be easy to see in all his actions that he does not desire to advance religion by the clergy, but the clergy by religion, and as so many efforts indicate an object, and as this object, according to the hypothesis, can be only power and wealth, the decisive proof that the people are dupes is when the priest is rich and powerful.

It is very plain that a true religion can be abused as well as a false one. The higher its authority the greater the fear that it may be severely tested. But there is much difference in the results. Abuse always stirs up to revolt the sound, enlightened, intelligent portion of a people. This inevitably weakens faith, and the weakening of a true religion is far more lamentable than of a false one. This kind of spoliation, and popular enlightenment, are always in an inverse ratio to one another, for it is in the nature of abuses to go as far as possible.

Not that pure and devoted priests cannot be found in the midst of the most ignorant population, but how can the knave be prevented from donning the ca.s.sock and nursing the ambitious hope of wearing the mitre?

Despoilers obey the Malthusian law; they multiply with the means of existence, and the means of existence of knaves is the credulity of their dupes. Turn whichever way you please, you always find the need of an enlightened public opinion. There is no other cure-all.

Another species of spoliation is _commercial fraud_, a term which seems to me too limited because the tradesman who changes his weights and measures is not alone culpable, but also the physician who receives a fee for evil counsel, the lawyer who provokes litigation, etc. In the exchange of two services one may be of less value than the other, but when the service received is that which has been agreed upon, it is evident that spoliation of that nature will diminish with the increase of public intelligence.

The next in order is the abuse in the _public service_--an immense field of spoliation, so immense that we can give it but partial consideration.

If G.o.d had made man a solitary animal, every one would labor for himself. Individual wealth would be in proportion to the services each one rendered to himself. But since _man is a social animal, one service is exchanged for another_. A proposition which you can transpose if it suits you.

In society there are certain requirements so general, so universal in their nature, that provision has been made for them in the organizing of the public service. Among these is the necessity of security. Society agrees to compensate in services of a different nature those who render it the service of guarding the public safety. In this there is nothing contrary to the principles of political economy. _Do this for me, I will do that for you._ The principle of the transaction is the same, although the process is different, but the circ.u.mstance has great significance.

In private transactions each individual remains the judge both of the service which he renders and of that which he receives. He can always decline an exchange, or negotiate elsewhere. There is no necessity of an interchange of services, except by previous voluntary agreement. Such is not the case with the State, especially before the establishment of representative government. Whether or not we require its services, whether they are good or bad, we are obliged to accept such as are offered and to pay the price.

It is the tendency of all men to magnify their own services and to disparage services rendered them, and private matters would be poorly regulated if there was not some standard of value. This guarantee we have not, (or we hardly have it,) in public affairs. But still society, composed of men, however strongly the contrary may be insinuated, obeys the universal tendency. The government wishes to serve us a great deal, much more than we desire, and forces us to acknowledge as a real service that which sometimes is widely different, and this is done for the purpose of demanding contributions from us in return.