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Page 7
On his side, Mathurin, who was something of a scholar, made this
calculation:--"Since, by virtue of the first clause, the sack of corn
will return to me at the end of a year," he said to himself, "I shall be
able to lend it again; it will return to me at the end of the second
year; I may lend it again, and so on, to all eternity. However, I cannot
deny that it will have been eaten long ago. It is singular that I should
be perpetually the owner of a sack of corn, although the one I have lent
has been consumed for ever. But this is explained thus:--It will be
consumed in the service of Jerome. It will put it into the power of
Jerome to produce a superior value; and, consequently, Jerome will be
able to restore me a sack of corn, or the value of it, without having
suffered the slightest injury: but quite the contrary. And as regards
myself, this value ought to be my property, as long as I do not consume
it myself. If I had used it to clear my land, I should have received it
again in the form of a fine harvest. Instead of that, I lend it, and
shall recover it in the form of repayment.
"From the second clause, I gain another piece of information. At the end
of the year I shall be in possession of five litres of corn over the one
hundred that I have just lent. If, then, I were to continue to work by
the day, and to save part of my wages, as I have been doing, in the
course of time I should be able to lend two sacks of corn; then three;
then four; and when I should have gained a sufficient number to enable
me to live on these additions of five litres over and above each, I
shall be at liberty to take a little repose in my old age. But how is
this? In this case, shall I not be living at the expense of others? No,
certainly, for it has been proved that in lending I perform a service; I
complete the labour of my borrowers, and only deduct a trifling part of
the excess of production, due to my lendings and savings. It is a
marvellous thing that a man may thus realise a leisure which injures no
one, and for which he cannot be envied without injustice."
The House.
Mondor had a house. In building it, he had extorted nothing from any one
whatever. He owed it to his own personal labour, or, which is the same
thing, to labour justly rewarded. His first care was to make a bargain
with an architect, in virtue of which, by means of a hundred crowns a
year, the latter engaged to keep the house in constant good repair.
Mondor was already congratulating himself on the happy days which he
hoped to spend in this retreat, declared sacred by our Constitution. But
Valerius wished to make it his residence.
"How can you think of such a thing?" said Mondor to Valerius. "It is I
who have built it; it has cost me ten years of painful labour, and now
you would enjoy it!" They agreed to refer the matter to judges. They
chose no profound economists,--there were none such in the country. But
they found some just and sensible men; it all comes to the same thing;
political economy, justice, good sense, are all the same thing. Now here
is the decision made by the judges:--If Valerius wishes to occupy
Mondor's house for a year, he is bound to submit to three conditions.
The first is to quit at the end of the year, and to restore the house in
good repair, saving the inevitable decay resulting from mere duration.
The second, to refund to Mondor the 300 francs which the latter pays
annually to the architect to repair the injuries of time; for these
injuries taking place whilst the house is in the service of Valerius, it
is perfectly just that he should bear the consequences. The third, that
he should render to Mondor a service equivalent to that which he
receives. As to this equivalence of services, it must be freely
discussed between Mondor and Valerius.
The Plane.
A very long time ago there lived, in a poor village, a joiner, who was a
philosopher, as all my heroes are in their way. James worked from
morning till night with his two strong arms, but his brain was not idle
for all that. He was fond of reviewing his actions, their causes, and
their effects. He sometimes said to himself, "With my hatchet, my saw,
and my hammer, I can make only coarse furniture, and can only get the
pay for such. If I only had a _plane_, I should please my customers
more, and they would pay me more. It is quite just; I can only expect
services proportioned to those which I render myself. Yes! I am
resolved, I will make myself a _plane_."
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