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Writing: The National Gain

The National Gain, § 20

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§ 20

What is the cause of all this? The wilfulness of our workers, some may opine, as they are not strictly supervised. Vagrants, it is said, are living in indolence everywhere in our rural regions. Journeymen and apprentices are not what they used to be. Farmhands and maids will not lift a hand unless the master himself accompanies them.

I do not know whether there are more overseers anywhere than among us, but who is to exercise supervision when they themselves sleep until 10 o’clock in the morning? I have heard a number of proposals to the effect that if a tenant farmer will not work hard on his holding, he should be flogged, or at least evicted from the holding. It has indeed already happened that some have been punished because they could not immediately abandon an ancient livelihood, without which they would at first have been at least half-starving.

Such people will infallibly recognize our form of liberty. Flogging and liberty

combined: what a strange notion!

Let us not blame our nation and its particular character for its inertia; let us not lay the blame on corrupted manners. That would indeed be the easiest thing to do, but it is of little use to the country. The source of this evil is to be found elsewhere.

The more opportunities there are in a society for some to live on the toil of others and the less others are allowed to enjoy the fruits of their labour, the more will industriousness be destroyed; the former become overweening and the latter desperate, while both become neglectful.

That basic proposition is so well founded and so thoroughly confirmed by knowledge of human nature and daily experience that I challenge anyone to rationally disprove it.

Industriousness and diligence require a cheerful disposition and constant competition if they are not soon to slacken off. They never exist under oppression, but when they are encouraged by liberty, a rapid turnover of products and individual profit, that natural sluggishness will be overcome which can never be permanently removed by violent means.

 

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