I have had an excellent opportunity of finding out.
It was not one of those _Superior Councils of Industry_ (Committee on the Revision of the Tariff), where large manufacturers, who style themselves laborers, influential ship-builders who imagine themselves seamen, and wealthy bondholders who think themselves workmen, meet and legislate in behalf of that philanthropy with whose nature we are so well acquainted.
No, they were workmen "to the manor born," real, practical laborers, such as joiners, carpenters, masons, tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, grocers, etc., etc., who had established in my village a _Mutual Aid Society_.

Upon my own private authority I transformed it into an _Inferior Council of Labor_ (People's Committee for Revising the Tariff), and I obtained a report which is as good as any other, although unencumbered by figures, and not distended to the proportions of a quarto volume and printed at the expense of the State.
The subject of my inquiry was the real or supposed influence of the protective system upon these poor people.

The President, indeed, informed me that the institution of such an inquiry was somewhat in contravention of the principles of the society.

For, in France, the land of liberty, those who desire to form associations must renounce political discussions--that is to say, the discussion of their common interests.

However, after much hesitation, he made the question the order of the day.
The assembly was divided into as many sub-committees as there were different trades represented.