They have not yet come to realize that the success of their whole democratic experiment depends upon their ability to reach a good understanding with their fellow-countrymen, and, that just in so far as their democracy fails to be nationally constructive, it is ignoring the most essential condition of its own vitality and perpetuity.
The French democracy is confronted by an economic, as well as a political, problem of peculiar difficulty.

The effects of the Revolution were no less important upon the distribution of wealth in France than upon the distribution of political power.

The people came into the ownership of the land; and in the course of time the area of this distribution has been increased rather than diminished.

Furthermore, the laws under which property in France is inherited have promoted a similarly wide distribution of personal estate.

France is a rich country; and its riches are much more evenly divided than is the case in Great Britain, Germany, or the United States.