printer was inclined to risk production on these terms, and
Proudhon resorted to Belgian publication, in the hope that a
foreign edition might be imported. But as soon as he tried to
bring copies into France, the very police bureau which had
registered no objection to internal publication decided to impose a
ban on importation.
Even more serious than the actual banning o f The Philosophy of
Progress was the consequent refusal o f any French publishers to
handle new works by Proudhon and the decision o f Garniers, his
publishers, not even to continue selling those o f his books which
were in print. ‘I am being attacked by means of unemployment and
famine,’ he exclaimed in desperation when he heard the last news.
But his situation was at least partly mitigated by the fact that,
while Garniers would not accept anything that bore his name,
they were loyal enough to help him clandestinely, and shortly
after their refusal to publish The Philosophy of Progress they com
missioned him to prepare what he called ‘a hack pamphlet’ on
the contemporary financial world, for which they agreed to
advance 1,500 francs. ‘I polished it off,’ he said at the time, ‘as a
cobbler makes a pair o f boots.’
The result was the most curious of his works. It was called
The Stock Exchange Speculator's Manual and consisted of a mass of
statistical information, collected with the assistance o f George
Duchene, on all the leading companies whose shares were offered
for sale at the Bourse, garnished with an introduction, notes and
‘final considerations’ from Proudhon’s own hand. Any genuine
speculator who went to the Manual for a hot tip would be dis
appointed, for not only did the authors condemn speculation
itself, but Proudhon also indulged in a lengthy analysis o f the
growth o f the feudal structure in industry which was driving
apart the bourgeois and the working class and acting inevitably
to the detriment o f the latter. He further asserted that in any
society founded on inequality o f conditions the government was
reduced to a ‘system o f assurance for the class which exploits and
possesses against that which is exploited and owns nothing.’ He
blamed monopolistic industrial developments for the economic
crisis that was developing in France. He pointed to associations
of workers, based on mutualism, as ‘a new principle, a new model,
which must replace the present joint stock companies in which
one does not know who is the more exploited, the worker or the
THE PALADIN OF JUSTICE