This argument, which the economists have rehearsed for more than a century, is as false as it is old, and it belonged to M.Chevalier, as an engineer, to rectify the economic tradition.The salary of a head clerk being ten francs per day, and the wages of a workingman four, if the income of each is increased five francs, the ratio of their fortunes, which was formerly as one hundred to forty, will be thereafter as one hundred to sixty.The increase of wages, necessarily taking place by addition and not by proportion, would be, therefore, an excellent method of equalization; and the economists would deserve to have thrown back at them by the socialists the reproach of ignorance which they have bestowed upon them at random.
But I say that such an increase is impossible, and that the supposition is absurd: for, as M.Chevalier has shown very clearly elsewhere, the figure which indicates the price of the day's labor is only an algebraic exponent without effect on the reality: and that which it is necessary first to endeavor to increase, while correcting the inequalities of distribution, is not the monetary expression, but the quantity of products.Till then every rise of wages can have no other effect than that produced by a rise of the price of wheat, wine, meat, sugar, soap, coal, etc., -- that is, the effect of a scarcity.For what is wages?
It is the cost price of wheat, wine, meat, coal; it is the integrant price of all things.Let us go farther yet: wages is the proportionality of the elements which compose wealth, and which are consumed every day reproductively by the mass of laborers.Now, to double wages, in the sense in which the people understand the words, is to give to each producer a share greater than his product, which is contradictory: and if the rise pertains only to a few industries, a general disturbance in exchange ensues, -- that is, a scarcity.God save me from predictions! but, in spite of my desire for the amelioration of the lot of the working class, I declare that it is impossible for strikes followed by an increase of wages to end otherwise than in a general rise in prices: that is as certain as that two and two make four.It is not by such methods that the workingmen will attain to wealth and -- what is a thousand times more precious than wealth -- liberty.The workingmen, supported by the favor of an indiscreet press, in demanding an increase of wages, have served monopoly much better than their own real interests: may they recognize, when their situation shall become more painful, the bitter fruit of their inexperience!
Convinced of the uselessness, or rather, of the fatal effects, of an increase of wages, and seeing clearly that the question is wholly organic and not at all commercial, M.Chevalier attacks the problem at the other end.He asks for the working class, first of all, instruction, and proposes extensive reforms in this direction.
Instruction! this is also M.Arago's word to the workingmen; it is the principle of all progress.Instruction!....It should be known once for all what may be expected from it in the solution of the problem before us; it should be known, I say, not whether it is desirable that all should receive it, -- this no one doubts, -- but whether it is possible.
To clearly comprehend the complete significance of M.Chevalier's views, a knowledge of his methods is indispensable.
M.Chevalier, long accustomed to discipline, first by his polytechnic studies, then by his St.Simonian connections, and finally by his position in the University, does not seem to admit that a pupil can have any other inclination than to obey the regulations, a sectarian any other thought than that of his chief, a public functionary any other opinion than that of the government.This may be a conception of order as respectable as any other, and I hear upon this subject no expressions of approval or censure.
Has M.Chevalier an idea to offer peculiar to himself? On the principle that all that is not forbidden by law is allowed, he hastens to the front to deliver his opinion, and then abandons it to give his adhesion, if there is occasion, to the opinion of authority.It was thus that M.Chevalier, before settling down in the bosom of the Constitution, joined M.Enfantin:
it was thus that he gave his views upon canals, railroads, finance, property, long before the administration had adopted any system in relation to the construction of railways, the changing of the rate of interest on bonds, patents, literary property, etc.
M.Chevalier, then, is not a blind admirer of the University system of instruction, -- far from it; and until the appearance of the new order of things, he does not hesitate to say what he thinks.His opinions are of the most radical.
M.Villemain had said in his report: "The object of the higher education is to prepare in advance a choice of men to occupy and serve in all the positions of the administration, the magistracy, the bar and the various liberal professions, including the higher ranks and learned specialties of the army and navy."
"The higher education," thereupon observes M.Chevalier,(5*) "is designed also to prepare men some of whom shall be farmers, others manufacturers, these merchants, and those private engineers.Now, in the official programme, all these classes are forgotten.The omission is of considerable importance;
for, indeed, industry in its various forms, agriculture, commerce, are neither accessories nor accidents in a State: they are its chief dependence....
If the University desires to justify its name, it must provide a course in these things; else an industrial university will be established in opposition to it....We shall have altar against altar, etc...."
And as it is characteristic of a luminous idea to throw light on all questions connected with it, professional instruction furnishes M.Chevalier with a very expeditious method of deciding, incidentally, the quarrel between the clergy and the University on liberty of education.
