But even supposing that there is always work to do, who will have the responsibility of determining its urgency, of supervising its execution, and of determining the price? The supervisor, independently of his qualities as an important magistrate, will have the talents, the energy, the specialized knowledge of a competent industrialist; he will find in his sense of duty what personal interest itself is powerless to create: the courage to limit to sustained and productive ends the least energetic, most vicious segment of the population. Would it be wise to boast? It is reasonable to think this feasible? Solicited by the needs of the poor, the supervisor will impose false work, or as is nearly always done in England, will pay salaries without requiring work. Laws should be made for men, not for ideals that human nature can not attain, or that are present only in the rare few.
All laws that establish public charity on a permanent basis will create an idle and lazy class living at the expense of the industrious, hardworking class. If this is not its immediate consequence, it is its inevitable one. It reproduces all the vices of the monastic system without the high standards of morality and religion that often come with it. Such a law is a poisoned see, planted deep inside the legislation; circumstances like those in America can prevent it from growing rapidly, but they do not destroy it, and if the generation that passed it escapes its influence, it will devour the well-being of generations to come.
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