But after having called them together, if you force them to make roads
which no one will pass through, palaces which no one will inhabit, and
this under the pretext of finding them work, it would be absurd, and
they would have a right to argue, "With this labour we have nothing to
do; we prefer working on our own account."

A proceeding which consists in making the citizens co-operate in giving
money but not labour, does not, in any way, alter the general results.
The only thing is, that the loss would react upon all parties. By the
former, those whom the State employs, escape their part of the loss, by
adding it to that which their fellow-citizens have already suffered.

There is an article in our constitution which says:--"Society favours
and encourages the development of labour--by the establishment of public
works, by the State, the departments, and the parishes, as a means of
employing persons who are in want of work."

As a temporary measure, on any emergency, during a hard winter, this
interference with the tax-payers may have its use. It acts in the same
way as securities. It adds nothing either to labour or to wages, but it
takes labour and wages from ordinary times to give them, at a loss it is
true, to times of difficulty.

As a permanent, general, systematic measure, it is nothing else than a
ruinous mystification, an impossibility, which shows a little excited
labour _which is seen_, and hides a great deal of prevented labour
_which is not seen_.