THE COMTLSTS AND THE COMMUNISTS.
[TO THE EDITOR Or THE "SPROTATOR.1
have read with great interest Mr. Bridges' defence of the Paris Commune, and I am much obliged to you for inviting him to publish in your columns the solution of the problem how to modify for the better "the spontaneous distribution of the products of labour," which he believes the leaders of the movement are fighting for. But there is another passage in his letter which I would gladly see explained and developed more fully. Mr. Bridges says that what we call education confers no monopoly either of sound sympathies or of breadth of view in political questions, and that "workmen may be pardoned for the belief that, in the treatment of the moat essential subjects of modern politics, the education and the life of the rich are, so far as they go, positive disqualifications for office." This depreciation of study, education, knowledge, and culture, which was, I believe, first introduced by Saint Just in 1792, and which has been of late imitated by some of our demagogues of the Comtist school in this country, has always appeared to me one of the most objection- able modes of flattering the working-man. It would be exceed- ingly interesting if Mr. Bridges would explain in what manner he understands that the complicated administrative, financial, legal, social, or commercial problems of our day can be more effectively and finally dealt with by impulse and sympathy than
by acquaintance with the facts.—I am, Sir, &c., M. P.
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