In fact, Government is not maimed, and cannot be so.  It has two hands—­one to receive and the other to give; in other words, it has a rough hand and a smooth one.  The activity of the second is necessarily subordinate to the activity of the first.  Strictly, Government may take and not restore.  This is evident, and may be explained by the porous and absorbing nature of its hands, which always retain a part, and sometimes the whole, of what they touch.  But the thing that never was seen, and never will be seen or conceived, is, that Government can restore more to the public than it has taken from it.  It is therefore ridiculous for us to appear before it in the humble attitude of beggars.  It is radically impossible for it to confer a particular benefit upon any one of the individualities which constitute the community, without inflicting a greater injury upon the community as a whole.

Our requisitions, therefore, place it in a dilemma.

If it refuses to grant the requests made to it, it is accused of weakness, ill-will, and incapacity.  If it endeavours to grant them, it is obliged to load the people with fresh taxes—­to do more harm than good, and to bring upon itself from another quarter the general displeasure.

Thus, the public has two hopes, and Government makes two promises—­many benefits and no taxes.  Hopes and promises, which, being contradictory, can never be realised.

Now, is not this the cause of all our revolutions?  For, between the Government, which lavishes promises which it is impossible to perform, and the public, which has conceived hopes which can never be realised, two classes of men interpose—­the ambitious and the Utopians.  It is circumstances which give these their cue.  It is enough if these vassals of popularity cry out to the people—­“The authorities are deceiving you; if we were in their place, we would load you with benefits and exempt you from taxes.”

And the people believe, and the people hope, and the people make a revolution!

No sooner are their friends at the head of affairs, than they are called upon to redeem their pledge.  “Give us work, bread, assistance, credit, instruction, colonies,” say the people; “and withal deliver us, as you promised, from the talons of the exchequer.”

The new Government is no less embarrassed than the former one, for it soon finds that it is much more easy to promise than to perform.  It tries to gain time, for this is necessary for maturing its vast projects.  At first, it makes a few timid attempts:  on one hand it institutes a little elementary instruction; on the other, it makes a little reduction in the liquor tax (1850).  But the contradiction is for ever starting up before it; if it would be philanthropic, it must attend to its exchequer; if it neglects its exchequer, it must abstain from being philanthropic.