Sophisms of the Protectionists
Chapter 2
SOPHISMS OF PROTECTION.
FIRST SERIES.
INTRODUCTION.
My object in this little volume has been to refute some of the arguments usually advanced against Free Trade.
I am not seeking a combat with the protectionists. I merely advance a principle which I am anxious to present clearly to the minds of sincere men, who hesitate because they doubt.
I am not of the number of those who maintain that protection is supported by interests. I believe that it is founded upon errors, or, if you will, upon _incomplete truths_. Too many fear free trade, for this apprehension to be other than sincere.
My aspirations are perhaps high; but I confess that it would give me pleasure to hope that this little work might become, as it were, a _manual_ for such men as may be called upon to decide between the two principles. When one has not made oneself perfectly familiar with the doctrines of free trade, the sophisms of protection perpetually return to the mind under one form or another; and, on each occasion, in order to counteract their effect, it is necessary to enter into a long and laborious analysis. Few, and least of all legislators, have leisure for this labor, which I would, on this account, wish to present clearly drawn up to their hand.
But it may be said, are then the benefits of free trade so hidden as to be perceptible only to economists by profession?
Yes; we confess it; our adversaries in the discussion have a signal advantage over us. They can, in a few words, present an incomplete truth; which, for us to show that it is incomplete, renders necessary long and uninteresting dissertations.
This results from the fact that protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass. The one strikes the eye at a first glance, while the other becomes perceptible only to close investigation. With regard to free trade, precisely the reverse is the case.
It is thus with almost all questions of political economy.
If you say, for instance: There is a machine which has turned out of employment thirty workmen;
Or again: There is a spendthrift who encourages every kind of industry;
Or: The conquest of Algiers has doubled the commerce of Marseilles;
Or, once more: The public taxes support one hundred thousand families;
You are understood at once; your propositions are clear, simple, and true in themselves. If you deduce from them the principle that
Machines are an evil;
That sumptuous extravagance, conquest, and heavy imposts are blessings;
Your theory will have the more success, because you will be able to base it upon indisputable facts.
But we, for our part, cannot stop at a cause and its immediate effect; for we know that this effect may in its turn become itself a cause. To judge of a measure, it is necessary that we should follow it from step to step, from result to result, until through the successive links of the chain of events we arrive at the final effect. We must, in short, _reason_.
But here we are assailed by clamorous exclamations: You are theorists, metaphysicians, ideologists, utopians, men of maxims! and immediately all the prejudices of the public are against us.
What then shall we do? We must invoke the patience and candor of the reader, giving to our deductions, if we are capable of it, sufficient clearness to throw forward at once, without disguise or palliation, the true and the false, in order, once for all, to determine whether the victory should be for Restriction or Free Trade.
I wish here to make a remark of some importance.
Some extracts from this volume have appeared in the "_Journal des Economistes_."
In an article otherwise quite complimentary published by the Viscount de Romanet (see _Moniteur Industriel_ of the 15th and 18th of May, 1845), he intimates that I ask for the _suppression of custom houses_. Mr. de Romanet is mistaken. I ask for the suppression of the _protective policy_. We do not dispute the right of _government_ to impose taxes, but would, if possible, dissuade _producers_ from taxing one another. It was said by Napoleon that duties should never be a fiscal instrument, but a means of protecting industry. We plead the contrary, and say, that duties should never be made an instrument of reciprocal rapine; but that they may be employed as a useful fiscal machine. I am so far from asking for the suppression of duties, that I look upon them as the anchor on which the future salvation of our finances will depend. I believe that they may bring immense receipts into the treasury, and, to give my entire and undisguised opinion, I am inclined, from the slow progress of healthy, economical doctrines, and from the magnitude of our budget, to hope more for the cause of commercial reform from the necessities of the Treasury than from the force of an enlightened public opinion.
I.
ABUNDANCE--SCARCITY.
Which is the best for man or for society, abundance or scarcity?
How, it may be exclaimed, can such a question be asked? Has it ever been pretended, is it possible to maintain, that scarcity can be the basis of a man's happiness?
Yes; this has been maintained, this is daily maintained; and I do not hesitate to say that the _scarcity theory_ is by far the most popular of the day. It furnishes the subject of discussions, in conversations, journals, books, courts of justice; and extraordinary as it may appear, it is certain that political economy will have fulfilled its task and its practical mission, when it shall have rendered common and irrefutable the simple proposition that "in abundance consist man's riches."
Do we not hear it said every day, "Foreign nations are inundating us with their productions"? Then we fear abundance.
Has not Mr. de Saint Cricq said, "Production is superabundant"? Then he fears abundance.
Do we not see workmen destroying and breaking machinery? They are frightened by the excess of production; in other words, they fear abundance.
Has not Mr. Bugeaud said, "Let bread be dear and the agriculturist will be rich"? Now bread can only be dear because it is scarce. Then Mr. Bugeaud lauded scarcity.
Has not Mr. d'Argout produced the fruitfulness of the sugar culture as an argument against it? Has he not said, "The beet cannot have a permanent and extended cultivation, because a few acres given up to it in each department, would furnish sufficient for the consumption of all France"? Then, in his opinion, good consists in sterility and scarcity, evil in fertility and abundance.
"_La Presse_," "_Le Commerce_," and the majority of our journals, are, every day, publishing articles whose aim is to prove to the chambers and to government that a wise policy should seek to raise prices by tariffs; and do we not daily see these powers obeying these injunctions of the press? Now, tariffs can only raise prices by diminishing the quantity of goods offered for sale. Then, here we see newspapers, the legislature, the ministry, all guided by the scarcity theory, and I was correct in my statement that this theory is by far the most popular.
How then has it happened, that in the eyes at once of laborers, editors and statesmen, abundance should appear alarming, and scarcity advantageous? It is my intention to endeavor to show the origin of this delusion.
A man becomes rich, in proportion to the profitableness of his labor; that is to say, _in proportion as he sells his productions at a high price_. The price of his productions is high in proportion to their scarcity. It is plain then, that, as far as regards him at least, scarcity enriches him. Applying successively this mode of reasoning to each class of laborers individually, the _scarcity theory_ is deduced from it. To put this theory into practice, and in order to favor each class of labor, an artificial scarcity is forced in every kind of production, by prohibition, restriction, suppression of machinery, and other analogous measures.
In the same manner it is observed that when an article is abundant it brings a small price. The gains of the producer are, of course, less. If this is the case with all produce, all producers are then poor. Abundance then ruins society. And as any strong conviction will always seek to force itself into practice, we see, in many countries, the laws aiming to prevent abundance.
This sophism, stated in a general form, would produce but a slight impression. But when applied to any particular order of facts, to any particular article of industry, to any one class of labor, it is extremely specious, because it is a syllogism which is not _false_, but _incomplete_. And what is true in a syllogism always necessarily presents itself to the mind, while the _incomplete_, which is a negative quality, an unknown value, is easily forgotten in the calculation.
Man produces in order to consume. He is at once producer and consumer. The argument given above, considers him only under the first point of view. Let us look at him in the second character and the conclusion will be different. We may say,
The consumer is rich in proportion as he _buys_ at a low price. He buys at a low price in proportion to the abundance of the article in demand; abundance then enriches him. This reasoning extended to all consumers must lead to the _theory of abundance_!
It is the imperfectly understood notion of exchange of produce which leads to these fallacies. If we consult our individual interest, we perceive immediately that it is double. As _sellers_ we are interested in high prices, consequently in scarcity. As _buyers_ our advantage is in cheapness, or what is the same thing, abundance. It is impossible then to found a proper system of reasoning upon either the one or the other of these separate interests before determining which of the two coincides and identifies itself with the general and permanent interests of mankind.
If man were a solitary animal, working exclusively for himself, consuming the fruit of his own personal labor; if, in a word, he did not exchange his produce, the theory of scarcity could never have introduced itself into the world. It would be too strikingly evident, that abundance, whencesoever derived, is advantageous to him, whether this abundance might be the result of his own labor, of ingenious tools, or of powerful machinery; whether due to the fertility of the soil, to the liberality of nature, or to an _inundation_ of foreign goods, such as the sea bringing from distant regions might cast upon his shores. Never would the solitary man have dreamed, in order to encourage his own labor, of destroying his instruments for facilitating his work, of neutralizing the fertility of the soil, or of casting back into the sea the produce of its bounty. He would understand that his labor was a _means_ not an _end_, and that it would be absurd to reject the object, in order to encourage the means. He would understand that if he has required two hours per day to supply his necessities, any thing which spares him an hour of this labor, leaving the result the same, gives him this hour to dispose of as he pleases in adding to his comforts. In a word, he would understand that every step in the _saving of labor_, is a step in the improvement of his condition. But traffic clouds our vision in the contemplation of this simple truth. In a state of society with the division of labor to which it leads, the production and consumption of an article no longer belong to the same individual. Each now looks upon his labor not as a means, but as an end. The exchange of produce creates with regard to each object two separate interests, that of the producer and that of the consumer; and these two interests are always directly opposed to each other.
It is essential to analyze and study the nature of each. Let us then suppose a producer of whatever kind; what is his immediate interest? It consists in two things: 1st, that the smallest possible number of individuals should devote themselves to the business which he follows; and 2dly, that the greatest possible number should seek the articles of his produce. In the more succinct terms of Political Economy, the supply should be small, the demand large; or yet in other words: limited competition, unlimited consumption.
What on the other side is the immediate interest of the consumer? That the supply should be large, the demand small.
As these two interests are immediately opposed to each other, it follows that if one coincides with the general interest of society the other must be adverse to it.
Which then, if either, should legislation favor as contributing most to the good of the community?
To determine this question, it suffices to inquire in which the secret desires of the majority of men would be accomplished.
Inasmuch as we are producers, it must be confessed that we have each of us anti-social desires. Are we vine-growers? It would not distress _us_ were the frost to nip all the vines in the world except our own: _this is the scarcity theory_. Are we iron-workers? We would desire (whatever might be the public need) that the market should offer no iron but our own; and precisely for the reason that this need, painfully felt and imperfectly supplied, causes us to receive a high price for _our_ iron: _again here is the theory of scarcity_. Are we agriculturists? We say with Mr. Bugeaud, let bread be dear, that is to say scarce, and our business goes well: _again the theory of scarcity_.
Are we physicians? We cannot but see that certain physical ameliorations, such as the improved climate of the country, the development of certain moral virtues, the progress of knowledge pushed to the extent of enabling each individual to take care of his own health, the discovery of certain simple remedies easily applied, would be so many fatal blows to our profession. As physicians, then, our secret desires are anti-social. I must not be understood to imply that physicians allow themselves to form such desires. I am happy to believe that they would hail with joy a universal panacea. But in such a sentiment it is the man, the Christian, who manifests himself, and who by a praiseworthy abnegation of self, takes that point of view of the question, which belongs to the consumer. As a physician exercising his profession, and gaining from this profession his standing in society, his comforts, even the means of existence of his family, it is impossible but that his desires, or if you please so to word it, his interests, should be anti-social.
Are we manufacturers of cotton goods? We desire to sell them at the price most advantageous to _ourselves_. We would willingly consent to the suppression of all rival manufactories. And if we dare not publicly express this desire, or pursue the complete realization of it with some success, we do so, at least to a certain extent, by indirect means; as for example, the exclusion of foreign goods, in order to diminish the _quantity offered_, and to produce thus by forcible means, and for our own profits, a _scarcity_ of clothing.
We might thus pass in review every business and every profession, and should always find that the producers, _in their character of producers_, have invariably anti-social interests. "The shop-keeper (says Montaigne) succeeds in his business through the extravagance of youth; the laborer by the high price of grain; the architect by the decay of houses; officers of justice by lawsuits and quarrels. The standing and occupation even of ministers of religion are drawn from our death and our vices. No physician takes pleasure in the health even of his friends; no soldier in the peace of his country; and so on with all."
If then the secret desires of each producer were realized, the world would rapidly retrograde towards barbarism. The sail would proscribe steam; the oar would proscribe the sail, only in its turn to give way to wagons, the wagon to the mule, and the mule to the foot-peddler. Wool would exclude cotton; cotton would exclude wool; and thus on, until the scarcity and want of every thing would cause man himself to disappear from the face of the globe.
If we now go on to consider the immediate interest of the _consumer_, we shall find it in perfect harmony with the public interest, and with the well-being of humanity. When the buyer presents himself in the market, he desires to find it abundantly furnished. He sees with pleasure propitious seasons for harvesting; wonderful inventions putting within his reach the largest possible quantity of produce; time and labor saved; distances effaced; the spirit of peace and justice diminishing the weight of taxes; every barrier to improvement cast down; and in all this his interest runs parallel with an enlightened public interest. He may push his secret desires to an absurd and chimerical height, but never can they cease to be humanizing in their tendency. He may desire that food and clothing, house and hearth, instruction and morality, security and peace, strength and health, should come to us without limit and without labor or effort on our part, as the water of the stream, the air which we breathe, and the sunbeams in which we bask, but never could the realization of his most extravagant wishes run counter to the good of society.
It may be said, perhaps, that were these desires granted, the labor of the producer constantly checked would end by being entirely arrested for want of support. But why? Because in this extreme supposition every imaginable need and desire would be completely satisfied. Man, like the All-powerful, would create by the single act of his will. How in such an hypothesis could laborious production be regretted?
Imagine a legislative assembly composed of producers, of whom each member should cause to pass into a law his secret desire as a _producer_; the code which would emanate from such an assembly could be nothing but systematized monopoly; the scarcity theory put into practice.
In the same manner, an assembly in which each member should consult only his immediate interest of _consumer_ would aim at the systematizing of free trade; the suppression of every restrictive measure; the destruction of artificial barriers; in a word, would realize the theory of abundance.
It follows then,
That to consult exclusively the immediate interest of the producer, is to consult an anti-social interest.
To take exclusively for basis the interest of the consumer, is to take for basis the general interest.
* * * * *
Let me be permitted to insist once more upon this point of view, though at the risk of repetition.
A radical antagonism exists between the seller and the buyer.
The former wishes the article offered to be _scarce_, supply small, and at a high price.
The latter wishes it _abundant_, supply large, and at a low price.
The laws, which should at least remain neutral, take part for the seller against the buyer; for the producer against the consumer; for high against low prices; for scarcity against abundance. They act, if not intentionally at least logically, upon the principle that _a nation is rich in proportion as it is in want of every thing_.
For, say they, it is necessary to favor the producer by securing him a profitable disposal of his goods. To effect this, their price must be raised; to raise the price the supply must be diminished; and to diminish the supply is to create scarcity.
Let us suppose that at this moment, with these laws in full action, a complete inventory should be made, not by value, but by weight, measure and quantity, of all articles now in France calculated to supply the necessities and pleasures of its inhabitants; as grain, meat, woollen and cotton goods, fuel, etc.
Let us suppose again that to-morrow every barrier to the introduction of foreign goods should be removed.
Then, to judge of the effect of such a reform, let a new inventory be made three months hence.
Is it not certain that at the time of the second inventory, the quantity of grain, cattle, goods, iron, coal, sugar, etc., will be greater than at the first?
So true is this, that the sole object of our protective tariffs is to prevent such articles from reaching us, to diminish the supply, to prevent low prices, or which is the same thing, the abundance of goods.
Now I ask, are the people under the action of these laws better fed because there is _less_ bread, _less_ meat, and _less_ sugar in the country? Are they better dressed because there are _fewer_ goods? Better warmed because there is _less_ coal? Or do they prosper better in their labor because iron, copper, tools and machinery are scarce?
But, it is answered, if we are inundated with foreign goods and produce, our coin will leave the country.
Well, and what matters that? Man is not fed with coin. He does not dress in gold, nor warm himself with silver. What difference does it make whether there be more or less coin in the country, provided there be more bread in the cupboard, more meat in the larder, more clothing in the press, and more wood in the cellar?
* * * * *
To Restrictive Laws, I offer this dilemma:
Either you allow that you produce scarcity, or you do not allow it.
If you allow it, you confess at once that your end is to injure the people as much as possible. If you do not allow it, then you deny your power to diminish the supply, to raise the price, and consequently you deny having favored the producer.
You are either injurious or inefficient. You can never be useful.
II.
OBSTACLE--CAUSE.
The obstacle mistaken for the cause--scarcity mistaken for abundance. The sophism is the same. It is well to study it under every aspect.
Man naturally is in a state of entire destitution.
Between this state and the satisfying of his wants, there exists a multitude of _obstacles_ which it is the object of labor to surmount. It is interesting to seek how and why he could have been led to look even upon these obstacles to his happiness as the cause of it.
I wish to take a journey of some hundred miles. But, between the point of my departure and my destination, there are interposed, mountains, rivers, swamps, forests, robbers--in a word, _obstacles_; and to conquer these obstacles, it is necessary that I should bestow much labor and great efforts in opposing them;--or, what is the same thing, if others do it for me, I must pay them the value of their exertions. It is evident that I should have been better off had these obstacles never existed.
Through the journey of life, in the long series of days from the cradle to the tomb, man has many difficulties to oppose him in his progress. Hunger, thirst, sickness, heat, cold, are so many obstacles scattered along his road. In a state of isolation, he would be obliged to combat them all by hunting, fishing, agriculture, spinning, weaving, architecture, etc., and it is very evident that it would be better for him that these difficulties should exist to a less degree, or even not at all. In a state of society he is not obliged, personally, to struggle with each of these obstacles, but others do it for him; and he, in return, must remove some one of them for the benefit of his fellow-men.
Again it is evident, that, considering mankind as a whole, it would be better for society that these obstacles should be as weak and as few as possible.
But if we examine closely and in detail the phenomena of society, and the private interests of men as modified by exchange of produce, we perceive, without difficulty, how it has happened that wants have been confounded with riches, and the obstacle with the cause.
The separation of occupations, which results from the habits of exchange, causes each man, instead of struggling against all surrounding obstacles to combat only _one_; the effort being made not for himself alone, but for the benefit of his fellows, who, in their turn, render a similar service to him.
Now, it hence results, that this man looks upon the obstacle which he has made it his profession to combat for the benefit of others, as the immediate cause of his riches. The greater, the more serious, the more stringent may be this obstacle, the more he is remunerated for the conquering of it, by those who are relieved by his labors.
A physician, for instance, does not busy himself in baking his bread, or in manufacturing his clothing and his instruments; others do it for him, and he, in return, combats the maladies with which his patients are afflicted. The more dangerous and frequent these maladies are, the more others are willing, the more, even, are they forced, to work in his service. Disease, then, which is an obstacle to the happiness of mankind, becomes to him the source of his comforts. The reasoning of all producers is, in what concerns themselves, the same. As the doctor draws his profits from disease, so does the ship owner from the obstacle called _distance_; the agriculturist from that named _hunger_; the cloth manufacturer from _cold_; the schoolmaster lives upon _ignorance_, the jeweler upon _vanity_, the lawyer upon _quarrels_, the notary upon _breach of faith_. Each profession has then an immediate interest in the continuation, even in the extension, of the particular obstacle to which its attention has been directed.
Theorists hence go on to found a system upon these individual interests, and say: Wants are riches: Labor is riches: The obstacle to well-being is well-being: To multiply obstacles is to give food to industry.
Then comes the statesman;--and as the developing and propagating of obstacles is the developing and propagating of riches, what more natural than that he should bend his efforts to that point? He says, for instance: If we prevent a large importation of iron, we create a difficulty in procuring it. This obstacle severely felt, obliges individuals to pay, in order to relieve themselves from it. A certain number of our citizens, giving themselves up to the combating of this obstacle, will thereby make their fortunes. In proportion, too, as the obstacle is great, and the mineral scarce, inaccessible, and of difficult and distant transportation, in the same proportion will be the number of laborers maintained by the various branches of this industry.
The same reasoning will lead to the suppression of machinery.
Here are men who are at a loss how to dispose of their wine-harvest. This is an obstacle which other men set about removing for them by the manufacture of casks. It is fortunate, say our statesmen, that this obstacle exists, since it occupies a portion of the labor of the nation, and enriches a certain number of our citizens. But here is presented to us an ingenious machine, which cuts down the oak, squares it, makes it into staves, and, gathering these together, forms them into casks. The obstacle is thus diminished, and with it the profits of the coopers. We must prevent this. Let us proscribe the machine!
To sift thoroughly this sophism, it is sufficient to remember that human labor is not an _end_, but a _means_. _It is never without employment._ If one obstacle is removed, it seizes another, and mankind is delivered from two obstacles by the same effort which was at first necessary for one. If the labor of coopers becomes useless, it must take another direction. But with what, it may be asked, will they be remunerated? Precisely with what they are at present remunerated. For if a certain quantity of labor becomes free from its original occupation, to be otherwise disposed of, a corresponding quantity of wages must thus also become free. To maintain that human labor can end by wanting employment, it would be necessary to prove that mankind will cease to encounter obstacles. In such a case, labor would be not only impossible, it would be superfluous. We should have nothing to do, because we should be all-powerful, and our _fiat_ alone would satisfy at once our wants and our desires.
III.
EFFORT--RESULT.
We have seen that between our wants and their gratification many obstacles are interposed. We conquer or weaken these by the employment of our faculties. It may be said, in general terms, that industry is an effort followed by a result.
But by what do we measure our well-being? By the _result_ of our effort, or by the _effort itself_? There exists always a proportion between the effort employed and the result obtained. Does progress consist in the relative increase of the second or of the first term of this proportion?
Both propositions have been sustained, and in political economy opinions are divided between them.
According to the first system, riches are the result of labor. They increase in the same ratio as _the result does to the effort_. Absolute perfection, of which _God_ is the type, consists in the infinite distance between these two terms in this relation, viz., effort none, result infinite.
The second system maintains that it is the effort itself which forms the measure of, and constitutes, our riches. Progression is the increase of the _proportion of the effort to the result_. Its ideal extreme may be represented by the eternal and fruitless efforts of Sisyphus.[7]
[Footnote 7: We will therefore beg the reader to allow us in future, for the sake of conciseness, to designate this system under the term of _Sisyphism_.]
The first system tends naturally to the encouragement of every thing which diminishes difficulties, and augments production,--as powerful machinery, which adds to the strength of man; the exchange of produce, which allows us to profit by the various natural agents distributed in different degrees over the surface of our globe; the intellect which discovers, experience which proves, and emulation which excites.
The second as logically inclines to every thing which can augment the difficulty and diminish the product; as privileges, monopolies, restrictions, prohibitions, suppression of machinery, sterility, etc.
It is well to remark here that the universal practice of men is always guided by the principle of the first system. Every _workman_, whether agriculturist, manufacturer, merchant, soldier, writer or philosopher, devotes the strength of his intellect to do better, to do more quickly, more economically,--in a word, _to do more with less_.
The opposite doctrine is in use with legislators, editors, statesmen, men whose business is to make experiments upon society. And even of these we may observe, that in what personally concerns _themselves_, they act, like every body else, upon the principle of obtaining from their labor the greatest possible quantity of useful results.
It may be supposed that I exaggerate, and that there are no true _Sisyphists_.
I grant that in practice the principle is not pushed to its extremest consequences. And this must always be the case when one starts upon a wrong principle, because the absurd and injurious results to which it leads, cannot but check it in its progress. For this reason, practical industry never can admit of _Sisyphism_. The error is too quickly followed by its punishment to remain concealed. But in the speculative industry of theorists and statesmen, a false principle may be for a long time followed up, before the complication of its consequences, only half understood, can prove its falsity; and even when all is revealed, the opposite principle is acted upon, self is contradicted, and justification sought, in the incomparably absurd modern axiom, that in political economy there is no principle universally true.
Let us see then, if the two opposite principles I have laid down do not predominate, each in its turn;--the one in practical industry, the other in industrial legislation.
I have already quoted some words of Mr. Bugeaud; but we must look on Mr. Bugeaud in two separate characters, the agriculturist and the legislator.
As agriculturist, Mr. Bugeaud makes every effort to attain the double object of sparing labor, and obtaining bread cheap. When he prefers a good plough to a bad one, when he improves the quality of his manures; when, to loosen his soil, he substitutes as much as possible the action of the atmosphere for that of the hoe or the harrow; when he calls to his aid every improvement that science and experience have revealed, he has, and can have, but one object, viz., _to diminish the proportion of the effort to the result_. We have indeed no other means of judging of the success of an agriculturist, or of the merits of his system, but by observing how far he has succeeded in lessening the one, while he increases the other; and as all the farmers in the world act upon this principle, we may say that all mankind are seeking, no doubt for their own advantage, to obtain at the lowest price, bread, or whatever other article of produce they may need, always diminishing the effort necessary for obtaining any given quantity thereof.
This incontestable tendency of human nature, once proved, would, one might suppose, be sufficient to point out the true principle to the legislator, and to show him how he ought to assist industry (if indeed it is any part of his business to assist it at all), for it would be absurd to say that the laws of men should operate in an inverse ratio from those of Providence.
Yet we have heard Mr. Bugeaud in his character of legislator, exclaim, "I do not understand this theory of cheapness; I would rather see bread dear, and work more abundant." And consequently the deputy from Dordogne votes in favor of legislative measures whose effect is to shackle and impede commerce, precisely because by so doing we are prevented from procuring by exchange, and at low price, what direct production can only furnish more expensively.
Now it is very evident that the system of Mr. Bugeaud the deputy, is directly opposed to that of Mr. Bugeaud the agriculturist. Were he consistent with himself, he would as legislator vote against all restriction; or else as farmer, he would practice in his fields the same principle which he proclaims in the public councils. We should then see him sowing his grain in his most sterile fields, because he would thus succeed in _laboring much_, to _obtain little_. We should see him forbidding the use of the plough, because he could, by scratching up the soil with his nails, fully gratify his double wish of "_dear bread_ and _abundant labor_."
Restriction has for its avowed object, and acknowledged effect, the augmentation of labor. And again, equally avowed and acknowledged, its object and effect are, the increase of prices;--a synonymous term for scarcity of produce. Pushed then to its greatest extreme, it is pure _Sisyphism_ as we have defined it: _labor infinite; result nothing_.
Baron Charles Dupin, who is looked upon as the oracle of the peerage in the science of political economy, accuses railroads of _injuring shipping_, and it is certainly true that the most perfect means of attaining an object must always limit the use of a less perfect means. But railways can only injure shipping by drawing from it articles of transportation; this they can only do by transporting more cheaply; and they can only transport more cheaply, by _diminishing the proportion of the effort employed to the result obtained_; for it is in this that cheapness consists. When, therefore, Baron Dupin laments the suppression of labor in attaining a given result, he maintains the doctrine of _Sisyphism_. Logically, if he prefers the vessel to the railway, he should also prefer the wagon to the vessel, the pack-saddle to the wagon, and the wallet to the pack-saddle; for this is, of all known means of transportation, the one which requires the greatest amount of labor, in proportion to the result obtained.
"Labor constitutes the riches of the people," said Mr. de Saint Cricq, a minister who has laid not a few shackles upon our commerce. This was no elliptical expression, meaning that the "results of labor constitute the riches of the people." No,--this statesman intended to say, that it is the _intensity_ of labor, which measures riches; and the proof of this is, that from step to step, from restriction to restriction, he forced on France (and in so doing believed that he was doing well) to give to the procuring, of, for instance, a certain quantity of iron, double the necessary labor. In England, iron was then at eight francs; in France it cost sixteen. Supposing the day's work to be worth one franc, it is evident that France could, by barter, procure a quintal of iron by eight days' labor taken from the labor of the nation. Thanks to the restrictive measures of Mr. de Saint Cricq, sixteen days' work were necessary to procure it, by direct production. Here then we have double labor for an identical result; therefore double riches; and riches, measured not by the result, but by the intensity of labor. Is not this pure and unadulterated _Sisyphism_?
That there may be nothing equivocal, the minister carries his idea still farther, and on the same principle that we have heard him call the intensity of labor _riches_, we will find him calling the abundant results of labor, and the plenty of every thing proper to the satisfying of our wants, _poverty_. "Every where," he remarks, "machinery has pushed aside manual labor; every where production is superabundant; every where the equilibrium is destroyed between the power of production and that of consumption." Here then we see that, according to Mr. de Saint Cricq, if France was in a critical situation, it was because her productions were too abundant; there was too much intelligence, too much efficiency in her national labor. We were too well fed, too well clothed, too well supplied with every thing; the rapid production was more than sufficient for our wants. It was necessary to put an end to this calamity, and therefore it became needful to force us, by restrictions, to work more, in order to produce less.
I also touched upon an opinion expressed by another minister of commerce, Mr. d'Argout, which is worthy of being a little more closely looked into. Wishing to give a death blow to the beet, he said: "The culture of the beet is undoubtedly useful, _but this usefulness is limited_. It is not capable of the prodigious developments which have been predicted of it. To be convinced of this it is enough to remark that the cultivation of it must necessarily be confined within the limits of consumption. Double, treble if you will, the present consumption of France, and _you will still find that a very small portion of her soil will suffice for this consumption_. (Truly a most singular cause of complaint!) Do you wish the proof of this? How many hectares were planted in beets in the year 1828? 3,130, which is 1-10540th of our cultivable soil. How many are there at this time, when our domestic sugar supplies one-third of the consumption of the country? 16,700 hectares, or 1-1978th of the cultivable soil, or 45 centiares for each commune. Suppose that our domestic sugar should monopolize the supply of the whole consumption, we still would have but 48,000 hectares or 1-689th of our cultivable soil in beets."[8]
[Footnote 8: In justice to Mr. d'Argout we should say that this singular language is given by him as the argument of the enemies of the beet. But he made it his own, and sanctioned it by the law in justification of which he adduced it.]
There are two things to consider in this quotation. The facts and the doctrine. The facts go to prove that very little soil, capital, and labor would be necessary for the production of a large quantity of sugar; and that each commune of France would be abundantly provided with it by giving up one hectare to its cultivation. The peculiarity of the doctrine consists in the looking upon this facility of production as an unfortunate circumstance, and the regarding the very fruitfulness of this new branch of industry as a _limitation to its usefulness_.
It is not my purpose here to constitute myself the defender of the beet, or the judge of the singular facts stated by Mr. d'Argout, but it is worth the trouble of examining into the doctrines of a statesman, to whose judgment France, for a long time, confided the fate of her agriculture and her commerce.
I began by saying that a variable proportion exists in all industrial pursuits, between the effort and the result. Absolute imperfection consists in an infinite effort, without any result; absolute perfection in an unlimited result, without any effort; and perfectibility, in the progressive diminution of the effort, compared with the result.
But Mr. d'Argout tells us, that where we looked for life, we shall find only death. The importance of any object of industry is, according to him, in direct proportion to its feebleness. What, for instance, can we expect from the beet? Do you not see that 48,000 hectares of land, with capital and labor in proportion, will suffice to furnish sugar to all France? It is then an object of _limited usefulness_; limited, be it understood, in the _work_ which it calls for; and this is the sole measure, according to our minister, of the usefulness of any pursuit. This usefulness would be much more limited still, if, thanks to the fertility of the soil, or the richness of the beet, 24,000 hectares would serve instead of 48,000. If there were only needed twenty times, a hundred times more soil, more capital, more labor, to _attain the same result_--Oh! then some hopes might be founded upon this article of industry; it would be worthy of the protection of the state, for it would open a vast field to national labor. But to produce much with little is a bad example, and the laws ought to set things to rights.
What is true with regard to sugar, cannot be false with regard to bread. If therefore the usefulness of an object of industry is to be calculated, not by the comforts which it can furnish with a certain quantum of labor, but, on the contrary, by the increase of labor which it requires in order to furnish a certain quantity of comforts, it is evident that we ought to desire, that each acre of land should produce little corn, and that each grain of corn should furnish little nutriment; in other words, that our territory should be sterile enough to require a considerably larger proportion of soil, capital, and labor to nourish its population. The demand for human labor could not fail to be in direct proportion to this sterility, and then truly would the wishes of Messrs. Bugeaud, Saint Cricq, Dupin, and d'Argout be satisfied; bread would be dear, work abundant, and France would be rich--rich according to the understanding of these gentlemen.
All that we could have further to hope for, would be, that human intellect might sink and become extinct; for, while intellect exists, it can but seek continually to increase the _proportion of the end to the means; of the product to the labor_. Indeed it is in this continuous effort, and in this alone, that intellect consists.
_Sisyphism_ has then been the doctrine of all those who have been intrusted with the regulation of the industry of our country. It would not be just to reproach them with this; for this principle becomes that of our ministry, only because it prevails in the chambers; it prevails in the chambers, only because it is sent there by the electoral body; and the electoral body is imbued with it, only because public opinion is filled with it to repletion.
Let me repeat here, that I do not accuse such men as Messrs. Bugeaud, Dupin, Saint Cricq, and d'Argout, of being absolutely and always _Sisyphists_. Very certainly they are not such in their personal transactions; very certainly each one of them will procure for himself _by barter_, what by _direct production_ would be attainable only at a higher price. But I maintain that they are _Sisyphists_ when they prevent the country from acting upon the same principle.
IV.
EQUALIZING OF THE FACILITIES OF PRODUCTION.
It is said ... but, for fear of being accused of manufacturing Sophisms for the mouths of the protectionists, I will allow one of their most able reasoners to speak for himself.
"It is our belief that protection should correspond to, should be the representation of, the difference which exists between the price of an article of home production and a similar article of foreign production.... A protecting duty calculated upon such a basis does nothing more than secure free competition; ... free competition can only exist where there is an equality in the facilities of production. In a horse-race the load which each horse carries is weighed and all advantages equalized; otherwise there could be no competition. In commerce, if one producer can undersell all others, he ceases to be a competitor and becomes a monopolist.... Suppress the protection which represents the difference of price according to each, and foreign productions must immediately inundate and obtain the monopoly of our market."[9]
[Footnote 9: M. le Vicomte de Romanet.]
"Every one ought to wish, for his own sake and for that of the community, that the productions of the country should be protected against foreign competition, _whenever the latter may be able to undersell the former_."[10]
[Footnote 10: Mathieu de Dombasle.]
This argument is constantly recurring in all writings of the protectionist school. It is my intention to make a careful investigation of its merits, and I must begin by soliciting the attention and the patience of the reader. I will first examine into the inequalities which depend upon natural causes, and afterwards into those which are caused by diversity of taxes.
Here, as elsewhere, we find the theorists who favor protection, taking part with the producer. Let us consider the case of the unfortunate consumer, who seems to have entirely escaped their attention. They compare the field of production to the _turf_. But on the turf, the race is at once a _means and an end_. The public has no interest in the struggle, independent of the struggle itself. When your horses are started in the course with the single object of determining which is the best runner, nothing is more natural than that their burdens should be equalized. But if your object were to send an important and critical piece of intelligence, could you without incongruity place obstacles to the speed of that one whose fleetness would secure the best means of attaining your end? And yet this is your course in relation to industry. You forget the end aimed at, which is the _well-being_ of the community.
But we cannot lead our opponents to look at things from our point of view, let us now take theirs; let us examine the question as producers.
I will seek to prove
1. That equalizing the facilities of production is to attack the foundations of all trade.
2. That it is not true that the labor of one country can be crushed by the competition of more favored climates.
3. That, even were this the case, protective duties cannot equalize the facilities of production.
4. That freedom of trade equalizes these conditions as much as possible; and
5. That the countries which are the least favored by nature are those which profit most by freedom of trade.
I. The equalizing of the facilities of production, is not only the shackling of certain articles of commerce, but it is the attacking of the system of mutual exchange in its very foundation principle. For this system is based precisely upon the very diversities, or, if the expression be preferred, upon the inequalities of fertility, climate, temperature, capabilities, which the protectionists seek to render null. If Guyenne sends its wines to Brittany, and Brittany sends corn to Guyenne, it is because these two provinces are, from different circumstances, induced to turn their attention to the production of different articles. Is there any other rule for international exchanges? Again, to bring against such exchanges the very inequalities of condition which excite and explain them, is to attack them in their very cause of being. The protective system, closely followed up, would bring men to live like snails, in a state of complete isolation. In short, there is not one of its Sophisms, which if carried through by vigorous deductions, would not end in destruction and annihilation.
II. It is not true that the unequal facility of production, in two similar branches of industry, should necessarily cause the destruction of the one which is the least fortunate. On the turf, if one horse gains the prize, the other loses it; but when two horses work to produce any useful article, each produces in proportion to his strength; and because the stronger is the more useful, it does not follow that the weaker is good for nothing. Wheat is cultivated in every department of France, although there are great differences in the degree of fertility existing among them. If it happens that there be one which does not cultivate it, it is because, even to itself, such cultivation is not useful. Analogy will show us, that under the influence of an unshackled trade, notwithstanding similar differences, wheat would be produced in every kingdom of Europe; and if any one were induced to abandon entirely the cultivation of it, this would only be, because it would _be her interest_ to employ otherwise her lands, her capital, and her labor. And why does not the fertility of one department paralyze the agriculture of a neighboring and less favored one? Because the phenomena of political economy have a suppleness, an elasticity, and, so to speak, _a self-leveling power_, which seems to escape the attention of the school of protectionists. They accuse us of being theorists, but it is themselves who are theorists to a supreme degree, if being theoretic consists in building up systems upon the experience of a single fact, instead of profiting by the experience of a series of facts. In the above example, it is the difference in the value of lands, which compensates for the difference in their fertility. Your field produces three times as much as mine. Yes. But it has cost you three times as much, and therefore I can still compete with you: this is the sole mystery. And observe how the advantage on one point leads to disadvantage on the other. Precisely because your soil is more fruitful, it is more dear. It is not _accidentally_ but _necessarily_ that the equilibrium is established, or at least inclines to establish itself; and can it be denied that perfect freedom in exchanges is, of all the systems, the one which favors this tendency?
I have cited an agricultural example; I might as easily have taken one from any trade. There are tailors at Quimper, but that does not prevent tailors from being in Paris also, although the latter have to pay a much higher rent, as well as higher price for furniture, workmen, and food. But their customers are sufficiently numerous not only to re-establish the balance, but also to make it lean on their side.
When therefore the question is about equalizing the advantages of labor, it would be well to consider whether the natural freedom of exchange is not the best umpire.
This self-leveling faculty of political phenomena is so important, and at the same time so well calculated to cause us to admire the providential wisdom which presides over the equalizing government of society, that I must ask permission a little longer, to turn to it the attention of the reader.
The protectionists say, Such a nation has the advantage over us, in being able to procure cheaply, coal, iron, machinery, capital; it is impossible for us to compete with it.
We must examine the proposition under other aspects. For the present, I stop at the question, whether, when an advantage and a disadvantage are placed in juxtaposition, they do not bear in themselves, the former a descending, the latter an ascending power, which must end by placing them in a just equilibrium.
Let us suppose the countries A and B. A has every advantage over B; you thence conclude that labor will be concentrated upon A, while B must be abandoned. A, you say, sells much more than it buys; B buys more than it sells. I might dispute this, but I will meet you upon your own ground.
In the hypothesis, labor, being in great demand in A, soon rises in value; while labor, iron, coal, lands, food, capital, all being little sought after in B, soon fall in price.
Again: A being always selling and B always buying, cash passes from B to A. It is abundant in A--very scarce in B.
But where there is abundance of cash, it follows that in all purchases a large proportion of it will be needed. Then in A, _real dearness_, which proceeds from a very active demand, is added to _nominal dearness_, the consequence of a superabundance of the precious metals.
Scarcity of money implies that little is necessary for each purchase. Then in B, a _nominal cheapness_ is combined with _real cheapness_.
Under these circumstances, industry will have the strongest possible motives for deserting A, to establish itself in B.
Now, to return to what would be the true course of things. As the progress of such events is always gradual, industry from its nature being opposed to sudden transits, let us suppose that, without waiting the extreme point, it will have gradually divided itself between A and B, according to the laws of supply and demand; that is to say, according to the laws of justice and usefulness.
I do not advance an empty hypothesis when I say, that were it possible that industry should concentrate itself upon a single point, there must, from its nature, arise spontaneously, and in its midst, an irresistible power of decentralization.
We will quote the words of a manufacturer to the Chamber of Commerce at Manchester (the figures brought into his demonstration are suppressed):
"Formerly we exported goods; this exportation gave way to that of thread for the manufacture of goods; later, instead of thread, we exported machinery for the making of thread; then capital for the construction of machinery; and lastly, workmen and talent, which are the source of capital. All these elements of labor have, one after the other, transferred themselves to other points, where their profits were increased, and where the means of subsistence being less difficult to obtain, life is maintained at a less cost. There are at present to be seen in Prussia, Austria, Saxony, Switzerland, and Italy, immense manufacturing establishments, founded entirely by English capital, worked by English labor, and directed by English talent."
We may here perceive, that Nature, or rather Providence, with more wisdom and foresight than the narrow rigid system of the protectionists can suppose, does not permit the concentration of labor, the monopoly of advantages, from which they draw their arguments as from an absolute and irremediable fact. It has, by means as simple as they are infallible, provided for dispersion, diffusion, mutual dependence, and simultaneous progress; all of which, your restrictive laws paralyze as much as is in their power, by their tendency towards the isolation of nations. By this means they render much more decided the differences existing in the conditions of production; they check the self-leveling power of industry, prevent fusion of interests, and fence in each nation within its own peculiar advantages and disadvantages.
III. To say that by a protective law the conditions of production are equalized, is to disguise an error under false terms. It is not true that an import duty equalizes the conditions of production. These remain after the imposition of the duty just as they were before. The most that the law can do is to equalize the _conditions of sale_. If it should be said that I am playing upon words, I retort the accusation upon my adversaries. It is for them to prove that _production_ and _sale_ are synonymous terms, which if they cannot do, I have a right to accuse them, if not of playing upon words, at least of confounding them.
Let me be permitted to exemplify my idea.
Suppose that several Parisian speculators should determine to devote themselves to the production of oranges. They know that the oranges of Portugal can be sold in Paris at ten centimes, whilst on account of the boxes, hot-houses, etc., which are necessary to ward against the severity of our climate, it is impossible to raise them at less than a franc apiece. They accordingly demand a duty of ninety centimes upon Portugal oranges. With the help of this duty, say they, the _conditions of production_ will be equalized. The legislative body, yielding as usual to this argument, imposes a duty of ninety centimes on each foreign orange.
Now I say that the _relative conditions of production_ are in no wise changed. The law can take nothing from the heat of the sun in Lisbon, nor from the severity of the frosts in Paris. Oranges continuing to mature themselves _naturally_ on the banks of the Tagus, and artificially upon those of the Seine, must continue to require for their production much more labor on the latter than the former. The law can only equalize the _conditions of sale_. It is evident that while the Portuguese sell their oranges at a franc apiece, the ninety centimes which go to pay the tax are taken from the French consumer. Now look at the whimsicality of the result. Upon each Portuguese orange, the country loses nothing; for the ninety centimes which the consumer pays to satisfy the tax, enter into the treasury. There is improper distribution, but no loss. Upon each French orange consumed, there will be about ninety centimes lost; for while the buyer very certainly loses them, the seller just as certainly does not gain them, for even according to the hypothesis, he will receive only the price of production. I will leave it to the protectionists to draw their conclusion.
IV. I have laid some stress upon this distinction between the conditions of production and those of sale, which perhaps the prohibitionists may consider as paradoxical, because it leads me on to what they will consider as a still stranger paradox. This is: If you really wish to equalize the facilities of production, leave trade free.
This may surprise the protectionists; but let me entreat them to listen, if it be only through curiosity, to the end of my argument. It shall not be long. I will now take it up where we left off.
If we suppose for the moment, that the common and daily profits of each Frenchman amount to one franc, it will indisputably follow that to produce an orange by _direct_ labor in France, one day's work, or its equivalent, will be requisite; whilst to produce the cost of a Portuguese orange, only one-tenth of this day's labor is required; which means simply this, that the sun does at Lisbon what labor does at Paris. Now is it not evident, that if I can produce an orange, or, what is the same thing, the means of buying it, with one-tenth of a day's labor, I am placed exactly in the same condition as the Portuguese producer himself, excepting the expense of the transportation? It is then certain that freedom of commerce equalizes the conditions of production direct or indirect, as much as it is possible to equalize them; for it leaves but the one inevitable difference, that of transportation.
I will add that free trade equalizes also the facilities for attaining enjoyments, comforts, and general consumption; the last an object which is, it would seem, quite forgotten, and which is nevertheless all important; since consumption is the main object of all our industrial efforts. Thanks to freedom of trade, we would enjoy here the results of the Portuguese sun, as well as Portugal itself; and the inhabitants of Havre, would have in their reach, as well as those of London, and with the same facilities, the advantages which nature has in a mineralogical point of view conferred upon Newcastle.
The protectionists may suppose me in a paradoxical humor, for I go farther still. I say, and I sincerely believe, that if any two countries are placed in unequal circumstances as to advantages of production, _that one of the two which is the least favored by nature, will gain most by freedom of commerce_. To prove this, I shall be obliged to turn somewhat aside from the form of reasoning which belongs to this work. I will do so, however; first, because the question in discussion turns upon this point; and again, because it will give me the opportunity of exhibiting a law of political economy of the highest importance, and which, well understood, seems to me to be destined to lead back to this science all those sects which, in our days, are seeking in the land of chimeras that social harmony which they have been unable to discover in nature. I speak of the law of consumption, which the majority of political economists may well be reproached with having too much neglected.
Consumption is the _end_, the final cause, of all the phenomena of political economy, and, consequently, in it is found their final solution.
No effect, whether favorable or unfavorable, can be arrested permanently upon the producer. The advantages and the disadvantages, which, from his relations to nature and to society, are his, both equally pass gradually from him, with an almost insensible tendency to be absorbed and fused into the community at large; the community considered as consumers. This is an admirable law, alike in its cause and its effects, and he who shall succeed in making it well understood, will have a right to say, "I have not, in my passage through the world, forgotten to pay my tribute to society."
Every circumstance which favors the work of production is of course hailed with joy by the producer, for its _immediate effect_ is to enable him to render greater services to the community, and to exact from it a greater remuneration. Every circumstance which injures production, must equally be the source of uneasiness to him; for its _immediate effect_ is to diminish his services, and consequently his remuneration. This is a fortunate and necessary law of nature. The immediate good or evil of favorable or unfavorable circumstances must fall upon the producer, in order to influence him invincibly to seek the one and to avoid the other.
Again, when a workman succeeds in his labor, the _immediate_ benefit of this success is received by him. This again is necessary, to determine him to devote his attention to it. It is also just; because it is just that an effort crowned with success should bring its own reward.
But these effects, good and bad, although permanent in themselves, are not so as regards the producer. If they had been so, a principle of progressive and consequently infinite _inequality_ would have been introduced among men. This good, and this evil, both therefore pass on, to become absorbed in the general destinies of humanity.
How does this come about? I will try to make it understood by some examples.
Let us go back to the thirteenth century. Men who gave themselves up to the business of copying, received for this service _a remuneration regulated by the general rate of profits_. Among them is found one, who seeks and finds the means of multiplying rapidly copies of the same work. He invents printing. The first effect of this is, that the individual is enriched, while many more are impoverished. At the first view, wonderful as the discovery is, one hesitates in deciding whether it is not more injurious than useful. It seems to have introduced into the world, as I said above, an element of infinite inequality. Guttenberg makes large profits by this invention, and perfects the invention by the profits, until all other copyists are ruined. As for the public,--the consumer,--it gains but little, for Guttenberg takes care to lower the price of books only just so much as is necessary to undersell all rivals.
But the great Mind which put harmony into the movements of celestial bodies, could also give it to the internal mechanism of society. We will see the advantages of this invention escaping from the individual, to become forever the common patrimony of mankind.
The process finally becomes known. Guttenberg is no longer alone in his art; others imitate him. Their profits are at first considerable. They are recompensed for being the first who make the effort to imitate the processes of the newly invented art. This again was necessary, in order that they might be induced to the effort, and thus forward the great and final result to which we approach. They gain much; but they gain less than the inventor, for _competition_ has commenced its work. The price of books now continually decreases. The gains of the imitators diminish in proportion as the invention becomes older; and in the same proportion imitation becomes less meritorious. Soon the new object of industry attains its normal condition; in other words, the remuneration of printers is no longer an exception to the general rules of remuneration, and, like that of copyists formerly, it is only regulated _by the general rate of profits_. Here then the producer, as such, holds only the old position. The discovery, however, has been made; the saving of time, labor, effort, for a fixed result, for a certain number of volumes, is realized. But in what is this manifested? In the cheap price of books. For the good of whom? For the good of the consumer,--of society,--of humanity. Printers, having no longer any peculiar merit, receive no longer a peculiar remuneration. As men,--as consumers,--they no doubt participate in the advantages which the invention confers upon the community; but that is all. As printers, as producers, they are placed upon the ordinary footing of all other producers. Society pays them for their labor, and not for the usefulness of the invention. _That_ has become a gratuitous benefit, a common heritage to mankind.
What has been said of printing can be extended to every agent for the advancement of labor; from the nail and the mallet, up to the locomotive and the electric telegraph. Society enjoys all, by the abundance of its use, its consumption; and it _enjoys all gratuitously_. For as their effect is to diminish prices, it is evident that just so much of the price as is taken off by their intervention, renders the production in so far _gratuitous_. There only remains the actual labor of man to be paid for; and the remainder, which is the result of the invention, is subtracted; at least after the invention has run through the cycle which I have just described as its destined course. I send for a workman; he brings a saw with him; I pay him two francs for his day's labor, and he saws me twenty-five boards. If the saw had not been invented, he would perhaps not have been able to make one board, and I would have paid him the same for his day's labor. The _usefulness_ then of the saw, is for me a gratuitous gift of nature, or rather it is a portion of the inheritance which, _in common_ with my brother men, I have received from the genius of my ancestors. I have two workmen in my field; the one directs the handle of a plough, the other that of a spade. The result of their day's labor is very different, but the price is the same, because the remuneration is proportioned, not to the usefulness of the result, but to the effort, the labor given to attain it.
I invoke the patience of the reader, and beg him to believe, that I have not lost sight of free trade: I entreat him only to remember the conclusion at which I have arrived: _Remuneration is not proportioned to the usefulness of the articles brought by the producer into the market, but to the labor_.[11]
[Footnote 11: It is true that labor does not receive a uniform remuneration; because labor is more or less intense, dangerous, skillful, etc. Competition establishes for each category a price current; and it is of this variable price that I speak.]
I have so far taken my examples from human inventions, but will now go on to speak of natural advantages.
In every article of production, nature and man must concur. But the portion of nature is always gratuitous. Only so much of the usefulness of an article as is the result of human labor becomes the object of mutual exchange, and consequently of remuneration. The remuneration varies much, no doubt, in proportion to the intensity of the labor, of the skill which it requires, of its being _à propos_ to the demand of the day, of the need which exists for it, of the momentary absence of competition, etc. But it is not the less true in principle, that the assistance received from natural laws, which belongs to all, counts for nothing in the price.
We do not pay for the air we breathe, although so useful to us, that we could not live two minutes without it. We do not pay for it, because Nature furnishes it without the intervention of man's labor. But if we wish to separate one of the gases which compose it, for instance, to fill a balloon, we must take some trouble and labor; or if another takes it for us, we must give him an equivalent in something which will have cost us the trouble of production. From which we see that the exchange is between troubles, efforts, labors. It is certainly not for hydrogen gas that I pay, for this is every where at my disposal, but for the work that it has been necessary to accomplish in order to disengage it; work which I have been spared, and which I must refund. If I am told that there are other things to pay for; as expense, materials, apparatus; I answer, that still in these things it is the work that I pay for. The price of the coal employed is only the representation of the labor necessary to dig and transport it.
We do not pay for the light of the sun, because Nature alone gives it to us. But we pay for the light of gas, tallow, oil, wax, because here is labor to be remunerated;--and remark, that it is so entirely labor and not utility to which remuneration is proportioned, that it may well happen that one of these means of lighting, while it may be much more effective than another, may still cost less. To cause this, it is only necessary that less human labor should be required to furnish it.
When the water-carrier comes to supply my house, were I to pay him in proportion to the _absolute utility_ of the water, my whole fortune would not be sufficient. But I pay him only for the trouble he has taken. If he requires more, I can get others to furnish it, or finally go and get it myself. The water itself is not the subject of our bargain; but the labor taken to get the water. This point of view is so important, and the consequences that I am going to draw from it so clear, as regards the freedom of international exchanges, that I will still elucidate my idea by a few more examples.
The alimentary substance contained in potatoes does not cost us very dear, because a great deal of it is attainable with little work. We pay more for wheat, because, to produce it Nature requires more labor from man. It is evident that if Nature did for the latter what she does for the former, their prices would tend to the same level. It is impossible that the producer of wheat should permanently gain more than the producer of potatoes. The law of competition cannot allow it.
If by a happy miracle the fertility of all arable lands were to be increased, it would not be the agriculturist, but the consumer, who would profit by this phenomenon; for the result of it would be, abundance and cheapness. There would be less labor incorporated into an acre of grain, and the agriculturist would be therefore obliged to exchange it for a less labor incorporated into some other article. If, on the contrary, the fertility of the soil were suddenly to deteriorate, the share of Nature in production would be less, that of labor greater, and the result would be higher prices. I am right then in saying that it is in consumption, in mankind, that at length all political phenomena find their solution. As long as we fail to follow their effects to this point, and look only at _immediate_ effects, which act but upon individual men or classes of men _as producers_, we know nothing more of political economy than the quack does of medicine, when, instead of following the effects of a prescription in its action upon the whole system, he satisfies himself with knowing how it affects the palate and the throat.
The tropical regions are very favorable to the production of sugar and coffee; that is to say, Nature does most of the business and leaves but little for labor to accomplish. But who reaps the advantage of this liberality of Nature? Not these regions, for they are forced by competition to receive simply remuneration for their labor. It is mankind who is the gainer; for the result of this liberality is _cheapness_, and cheapness belongs to the world.
Here in the temperate zone, we find coal and iron ore, on the surface of the soil; we have but to stoop and take them. At first, I grant, the immediate inhabitants profit by this fortunate circumstance. But soon comes competition, and the price of coal and iron falls, until this gift of Nature becomes gratuitous to all, and human labor is only paid according to the general rate of profits.
Thus natural advantages, like improvements in the process of production, are, or have a constant tendency to become, under the law of competition, the common and _gratuitous_ patrimony of consumers, of society, of mankind. Countries therefore which do not enjoy these advantages, must gain by commerce with those which do; because the exchanges of commerce are between _labor and labor_; subtraction being made of all the natural advantages which are combined with these labors; and it is evidently the most favored countries which can incorporate into a given labor the largest proportion of these _natural advantages_. Their produce representing less labor, receives less recompense; in other words, is _cheaper_. If then all the liberality of Nature results in cheapness, it is evidently not the producing, but the consuming country, which profits by her benefits.
Hence we may see the enormous absurdity of the consuming country, which rejects produce precisely because it is cheap. It is as though we should say: "We will have nothing of that which Nature gives you. You ask of us an effort equal to two, in order to furnish ourselves with articles only attainable at home by an effort equal to four. You can do it because with you Nature does half the work. But we will have nothing to do with it; we will wait till your climate, becoming more inclement, forces you to ask of us a labor equal to four, and then we can treat with you _upon an equal footing_."
A is a favored country; B is maltreated by Nature. Mutual traffic then is advantageous to both, but principally to B, because the exchange is not between _utility_ and _utility_, but between _value_ and _value_. Now A furnishes a greater _utility in a similar value_, because the _utility_ of any article includes at once what Nature and what labor have done; whereas the _value_ of it only corresponds to the portion accomplished by labor. B then makes an entirely advantageous bargain; for by simply paying the producer from A for his labor, it receives in return not only the results of that labor, but in addition there is thrown in whatever may have accrued from the superior bounty of Nature.
We will lay down the general rule.
Traffic is an exchange of _values_; and as value is reduced by competition to the simple representation of labor, traffic is the exchange of equal labors. Whatever Nature has done towards the production of the articles exchanged, is given on both sides _gratuitously_; from whence it necessarily follows, that the most advantageous commerce is transacted with those countries which are the most favored by Nature.
* * * * *
The theory of which I have attempted, in this chapter, to trace the outlines, would require great developments. But perhaps the attentive reader will have perceived in it the fruitful seed which is destined in its future growth to smother Protection, at once with Fourierism, Saint Simonism, Commonism, and the various other schools whose object is to exclude the law of COMPETITION from the government of the world. Competition, no doubt, considering man as producer, must often interfere with his individual and _immediate_ interests. But if we consider the great object of all labor, the universal good, in a word, _Consumption_, we cannot fail to find that Competition is to the moral world what the law of equilibrium is to the material one. It is the foundation of true Commonism, of true Socialism, of the equality of comforts and condition, so much sought after in our day; and if so many sincere reformers, so many earnest friends to the public rights, seek to reach their end by commercial _legislation_, it is only because they do not yet understand _commercial freedom_.
V.
OUR PRODUCTIONS ARE OVERLOADED WITH TAXES.
This is but a new wording of the last Sophism. The demand made is, that the foreign article should be taxed, in order to neutralize the effects of the tax, which weighs down national produce. It is still then but the question of equalizing the facilities of production. We have but to say that the tax is an artificial obstacle, which has exactly the same effect as a natural obstacle, i.e. the increasing of the price. If this increase is so great that there is more loss in producing the article in question than in attracting it from foreign parts by the production of an equivalent value, let it alone. Individual interest will soon learn to choose the lesser of two evils. I might refer the reader to the preceding demonstration for an answer to this Sophism; but it is one which recurs so often in the complaints and the petitions, I had almost said the demands, of the protectionist school, that it deserves a special discussion.
If the tax in question should be one of a special kind, directed against fixed articles of production, I agree that it is perfectly reasonable that foreign produce should be subjected to it. For instance, it would be absurd to free foreign salt from impost duty; not that in an economical point of view France would lose any thing by it; on the contrary, whatever may be said, principles are invariable, and France would gain by it, as she must always gain by avoiding an obstacle whether natural or artificial. But here the obstacle has been raised with a fiscal object. It is necessary that this end should be attained; and if foreign salt were to be sold in our market free from duty, the treasury would not receive its revenue, and would be obliged to seek it from some thing else. There would be evident inconsistency in creating an obstacle with a given object, and then avoiding the attainment of that object. It would have been better at once to seek what was needed in the other impost without taxing French salt. Such are the circumstances under which I would allow upon any foreign article a duty, _not protecting_ but fiscal.
But the supposition that a nation, because it is subjected to heavier imposts than those of another neighboring nation, should protect itself by tariffs against the competition of its rival, is a Sophism, which it is now my purpose to attack.
I have said more than once, that I am opposing only the theory of the protectionists, with the hope of discovering the source of their errors. Were I disposed to enter into controversy with them, I would say: Why direct your tariffs principally against England and Belgium, both countries more overloaded with taxes than any in the world? Have I not a right to look upon your argument as a mere pretext? But I am not of the number of those who believe that prohibitionists are guided by interest, and not by conviction. The doctrine of Protection is too popular not to be sincere. If the majority could believe in freedom, we would be free. Without doubt it is individual interest which weighs us down with tariffs; but it acts upon conviction.
The State may make either a good or a bad use of taxes; it makes a good use of them when it renders to the public services equivalent to the value received from them; it makes a bad use of them when it expends this value, giving nothing in return.
To say in the first case that they place the country which pays them in more disadvantageous conditions for production, than the country which is free from them, is a Sophism. We pay, it is true, twenty millions for the administration of justice, and the maintenance of the police, but we have justice and the police; we have the security which they give, the time which they save for us; and it is most probable that production is neither more easy nor more active among nations, where (if there be such) each individual takes the administration of justice into his own hands. We pay, I grant, many hundred millions for roads, bridges, ports, railways; but we have these railways, these ports, bridges and roads, and unless we maintain that it is a losing business to establish them, we cannot say that they place us in a position inferior to that of nations who have, it is true, no taxes for public works, but who likewise have no public works. And here we see why (even while we accuse internal taxes of being a cause of industrial inferiority) we direct our tariffs precisely against those nations which are the most taxed. It is because these taxes, well used, far from injuring, have ameliorated the _conditions of production_ to these nations. Thus we again arrive at the conclusion that the protectionist Sophisms not only wander from, but are the contrary--the very antithesis of truth.
As to unproductive imposts, suppress them if you can; but surely it is a most singular idea to suppose, that their evil effect is to be neutralized by the addition of individual taxes to public taxes. Many thanks for the compensation! The State, you say, has taxed us too much; surely this is no reason why we should tax each other!
A protective duty is a tax directed against foreign produce, but which returns, let us keep in mind, upon the national consumer. Is it not then a singular argument to say to him, "Because the taxes are heavy, we will raise prices higher for you; and because the State takes a part of your revenue, we will give another portion of it to benefit a monopoly?"
But let us examine more closely this Sophism so accredited among our legislators; although, strange to say, it is precisely those who keep up the unproductive imposts (according to our present hypothesis) who attribute to them afterwards our supposed inferiority, and seek to re-establish the equilibrium by further imposts and new clogs.
It appears to me to be evident that protection, without any change in its nature and effects, might have taken the form of a direct tax, raised by the State, and distributed as a premium to privileged industry.
Let us admit that foreign iron could be sold in our market at eight francs, but not lower; and French iron at not lower than twelve francs.
In this hypothesis there are two ways in which the State can secure the national market to the home producer.
The first, is to put upon foreign iron a duty of five francs. This, it is evident, would exclude it, because it could no longer be sold at less than thirteen francs; eight francs for the cost price, five for the tax; and at this price it must be driven from the market by French iron, which we have supposed to cost twelve francs. In this case the buyer, the consumer, will have paid all the expenses of the protection given.
The second means would be to lay upon the public a tax of five francs, and to give it as a premium to the iron manufacturer. The effect would in either case be equally a protective measure. Foreign iron would, according to both systems, be alike excluded; for our iron manufacturer could sell at seven francs, what, with the five francs premium, would thus bring him in twelve. While the price of sale being seven francs, foreign iron could not obtain a market at eight.
In these two systems the principle is the same; the effect is the same. There is but this single difference; in the first case the expense of protection is paid by a part, in the second by the whole of the community.
I frankly confess my preference for the second system, which I regard as more just, more economical and more legal. More just, because, if society wishes to give bounties to some of its members, the whole community ought to contribute; more economical, because it would banish many difficulties, and save the expenses of collection; more legal, lastly, because the public would see clearly into the operation, and know what was required of it.
But if the protective system had taken this form, would it not have been laughable enough to hear it said, "We pay heavy taxes for the army, the navy, the judiciary, the public works, the schools, the public debt, etc. These amount to more than a thousand million. It would therefore be desirable that the State should take another thousand million, to relieve the poor iron manufacturers; or the suffering stockholders of coal mines; or those unfortunate lumber dealers, or the useful codfishery."
This, it must be perceived, by an attentive investigation, is the result of the Sophism in question. In vain, gentlemen, are all your efforts; you cannot _give money_ to one without taking it from another. If you are absolutely determined to exhaust the funds of the taxable community, well; but, at least, do not mock them; do not tell them, "We take from you again, in order to compensate you for what we have already taken."
It would be a too tedious undertaking to endeavor to point out all the fallacies of this Sophism. I will therefore limit myself to the consideration of it in three points.
You argue that France is overburthened with taxes, and deduce thence the conclusion that it is necessary to protect such and such an article of produce. But protection does not relieve us from the payment of these taxes. If, then, individuals devoting themselves to any one object of industry, should advance this demand: "We, from our participation in the payment of taxes, have our expenses of production increased, and therefore ask for a protective duty which shall raise our price of sale;" what is this but a demand on their part to be allowed to free themselves from the burthen of the tax, by laying it on the rest of the community? Their object is to balance, by the increased price of their produce, the amount which _they_ pay in taxes. Now, as the whole amount of these taxes must enter into the treasury, and the increase of price must be paid by society, it follows that (where this protective duty is imposed) society has to bear, not only the general tax, but also that for the protection of the article in question. But it is answered, let _every thing_ be protected. Firstly, this is impossible; and, again, were it possible, how could such a system give relief? _I_ will pay for you, _you_ will pay for me; but not the less, still there remains the tax to be paid.
Thus you are the dupes of an illusion. You determine to raise taxes for the support of an army, a navy, the church, university, judges, roads, etc. Afterwards you seek to disburthen from its portion of the tax, first one article of industry, then another, then a third; always adding to the burthen of the mass of society. You thus only create interminable complications. If you can prove that the increase of price resulting from protection, falls upon the foreign producer, I grant something specious in your argument. But if it be true that the French people paid the tax before the passing of the protective duty, and afterwards that it has paid not only the tax, but the protective duty also, truly I do not perceive wherein it has profited.
But I go much further, and maintain that the more oppressive our taxes are, the more anxiously ought we to open our ports and frontiers to foreign nations, less burthened than ourselves. And why? In order that we may share with them, as much as possible, the burthen which we bear. Is it not an incontestable maxim in political economy, that taxes must, in the end, fall upon the consumer? The greater then our commerce, the greater the portion which will be reimbursed to us, of taxes incorporated in the produce, which we will have sold to foreign consumers; whilst we, on our part, will have made to them only a lesser reimbursement, because (according to our hypothesis) their produce is less taxed than ours.
Again, finally, has it ever occurred to you to ask yourself, whether these heavy taxes which you adduce as a reason for keeping up the prohibitive system, may not be the result of this very system itself? To what purpose would be our great standing armies, and our powerful navies, if commerce were free?
VI.
BALANCE OF TRADE.
Our adversaries have adopted a system of tactics, which embarrasses us not a little. Do we prove our doctrine? They admit the truth of it in the most respectful manner. Do we attack their principles? They abandon them with the best possible grace. They only ask that our doctrine, which they acknowledge to be true, should be confined to books; and that their principles, which they allow to be false, should be established in practice. If we will give up to them the regulation of our tariffs, they will leave us triumphant in the domain of theory.
"Assuredly," said Mr. Gauthier de Roumilly, lately, "assuredly no one wishes to call up from their graves the defunct theories of the balance of trade." And yet Mr. Gauthier, after giving this passing blow to error, goes on immediately afterwards, and for two hours consecutively, to reason as though this error were a truth.
Give me Mr. Lestiboudois. Here we have a consistent reasoner! a logical arguer! There is nothing in his conclusions which cannot be found in his premises. He asks nothing in practice which he does not justify in theory. His principles may perchance be false, and this is the point in question. But he has a principle. He believes, he proclaims aloud, that if France gives ten to receive fifteen, she loses five; and surely, with such a belief, nothing is more natural than that he should make laws consistent with it.
He says: "What it is important to remark, is, that constantly the amount of importation is augmenting, and surpassing that of exportation. Every year France buys more foreign produce, and sells less of its own produce. This can be proved by figures. In 1842, we see the importation exceed the exportation by two hundred millions. This appears to me to prove, in the clearest manner, that national labor _is not sufficiently protected_, that we are provided by foreign labor, and that the competition of our rivals _oppresses_ our industry. The law in question, appears to me to be a consecration of the fact, that our political economists have assumed a false position in declaring, that in proportion to produce bought, there is always a corresponding quantity sold. It is evident that purchases may be made, not with the habitual productions of a country, not with its revenue, not with the results of actual labor, but with its capital, with the accumulated savings which should serve for reproduction. A country may spend, dissipate its profits and savings, may impoverish itself, and by the consumption of its national capital, progress gradually to its ruin. _This is precisely what we are doing. We give, every year, two hundred millions to foreign nations_."
Well! here, at least, is a man whom we can understand. There is no hypocrisy in this language. The balance of trade is here clearly maintained and defended. France imports two hundred millions more than she exports. Then France loses two hundred millions yearly. And the remedy? It is to check importation. The conclusion is perfectly consistent.
It is, then, with Mr. Lestiboudois that we will argue, for how is it possible to do so with Mr. Gauthier? If you say to the latter, the balance of trade is a mistake, he will answer, So I have declared it in my exordium. If you exclaim, But it is a truth, he will say, Thus I have classed it in my conclusions.
Political economists may blame me for arguing with Mr. Lestiboudois. To combat the balance of trade, is, they say, neither more nor less than to fight against a windmill.
But let us be on our guard. The balance of trade is neither so old, nor so sick, nor so dead, as Mr. Gauthier is pleased to imagine; for all the legislature, Mr. Gauthier himself included, are associated by their votes with the theory of Mr. Lestiboudois.
However, not to fatigue the reader, I will not seek to investigate too closely this theory, but will content myself with subjecting it to the experience of facts.
It is constantly alleged in opposition to our principles, that they are good only in theory. But, gentlemen, do you believe that merchants' books are good in practice? It does appear to me that if there is any thing which can have a practical authority, when the object is to prove profit and loss, that this must be commercial accounts. We cannot suppose that all the merchants of the world, for centuries back, should have so little understood their own affairs, as to have kept their books in such a manner as to represent gains as losses, and losses as gains. Truly it would be easier to believe that Mr. Lestiboudois is a bad political economist.
A merchant, one of my friends, having had two business transactions, with very different results, I have been curious to compare on this subject the accounts of the counter with those of the custom-house, interpreted by Mr. Lestiboudois with the sanction of our six hundred legislators.
Mr. T... despatched from Havre a vessel, freighted, for the United States, with French merchandise, principally Parisian articles, valued at 200,000 francs. Such was the amount entered at the custom-house. The cargo, on its arrival at New Orleans, had paid ten per cent. expenses, and was liable to thirty per cent. duties; which raised its value to 280,000 francs. It was sold at twenty per cent. profit on its original value, which being 40,000 francs, the price of sale was 320,000 francs, which the assignee converted into cotton. This cotton, again, had to pay for expenses of transportation, insurance, commissions, etc., ten per cent.: so that when the return cargo arrived at Havre, its value had risen to 352,000 francs, and it was thus entered at the custom-house. Finally, Mr. T... realized again on this return cargo twenty per cent. profits; amounting to 70,400 francs. The cotton thus sold for the sum of 422,400 francs.
If Mr. Lestiboudois requires it, I will send him an extract from the books of Mr. T... He will there see, _credited_ to the account of _profit and loss_, that is to say, set down as gained, two sums; the one of 40,000, the other of 70,000 francs, and Mr. T ... feels perfectly certain that as regards these, there is no mistake in his accounts.
Now what conclusion does Mr. Lestiboudois draw from the sums entered into the custom-house, in this operation? He thence learns that France has exported 200,000 francs, and imported 352,000; from whence the honorable deputy concludes "_that she has spent, dissipated the profits of her previous savings; that she is impoverishing herself and progressing to her ruin; and that she has squandered on a foreign nation_ 152,000 _francs of her capital_."
Some time after this transaction, Mr. T... despatched another vessel, again freighted with domestic produce, to the amount of 200,000 francs. But the vessel foundered after leaving the port, and Mr. T ... had only farther to inscribe on his books two little items, thus worded:
"_Sundries due to X_, 200,000 francs, for purchase of divers articles despatched by vessel N.
"_Profit and loss due to sundries, 200,000 francs, for final and total loss of cargo._"
In the meantime the custom-house inscribed 200,000 francs upon its list of _exportations_, and as there can of course be nothing to balance this entry on the list of _importations_, it hence follows that Mr. Lestiboudois and the Chamber must see in this wreck _a clear profit_ to France of 200,000 francs.
We may draw hence yet another conclusion, viz.: that according to the Balance of Trade theory, France has an exceedingly simple manner of constantly doubling her capital. It is only necessary, to accomplish this, that she should, after entering into the custom-house her articles for exportation, cause them to be thrown into the sea. By this course, her exportations can speedily be made to equal her capital; importations will be nothing, and our gain will be, all which the ocean will have swallowed up.
You are joking, the protectionists will reply. You know that it is impossible that we should utter such absurdities. Nevertheless, I answer, you do utter them, and what is more, you give them life, you exercise them practically upon your fellow citizens, as much, at least, as is in your power to do.
The truth is, that the theory of the Balance of Trade should be precisely _reversed_. The profits accruing to the nation from any foreign commerce should be calculated by the overplus of the importation above the exportation. This overplus, after the deduction of expenses, is the real gain. Here we have the true theory, and it is one which leads directly to freedom in trade. I now, gentlemen, abandon you this theory, as I have done all those of the preceding chapters. Do with it as you please, exaggerate it as you will; it has nothing to fear. Push it to the farthest extreme; imagine, if it so please you, that foreign nations should inundate us with useful produce of every description, and ask nothing in return; that our importations should be _infinite_, and our exportations _nothing_. Imagine all this, and still I defy you to prove that we will be the poorer in consequence.
VII.
PETITION FROM THE MANUFACTURERS OF CANDLES, WAX-LIGHTS, LAMPS, CHANDELIERS, REFLECTORS, SNUFFERS, EXTINGUISHERS; AND FROM THE PRODUCERS OF TALLOW, OIL, RESIN, ALCOHOL, AND GENERALLY OF EVERY THING USED FOR LIGHTS.
_To the Honorable the Members of the Chamber of Deputies:_
"GENTLEMEN,--You are in the right way: you reject abstract theories; abundance, cheapness, concerns you little. You are entirely occupied with the interest of the producer, whom you are anxious to free from foreign competition. In a word, you wish to secure the _national market_ to _national labor_.
"We come now to offer you an admirable opportunity for the application of your----what shall we say? your theory? no, nothing is more deceiving than theory;--your doctrine? your system? your principle? But you do not like doctrines; you hold systems in horror; and, as for principles, you declare that there are no such things in political economy. We will say then, your practice; your practice without theory, and without principle.
"We are subjected to the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, who enjoys, it would seem, such superior facilities for the production of light, that he is enabled to _inundate_ our _national market_ at so exceedingly reduced a price, that, the moment he makes his appearance, he draws off all custom from us; and thus an important branch of French industry, with all its innumerable ramifications, is suddenly reduced to a state of complete stagnation. This rival, who is no other than the sun, carries on so bitter a war against us, that we have every reason to believe that he has been excited to this course by our perfidious neighbor England. (Good diplomacy this, for the present time!) In this belief we are confirmed by the fact that in all his transactions with this proud island, he is much more moderate and careful than with us.
"Our petition is, that it would please your honorable body to pass a law whereby shall be directed the shutting up of all windows, dormers, sky-lights, shutters, curtains, vasistas, oeil-de-boeufs, in a word, all openings, holes, chinks and fissures through which the light of the sun is used to penetrate into our dwellings, to the prejudice of the profitable manufactures which we flatter ourselves we have been enabled to bestow upon the country; which country cannot, therefore, without ingratitude, leave us now to struggle unprotected through so unequal a contest.
"We pray your honorable body not to mistake our petition for a satire, nor to repulse us without at least hearing the reasons which we have to advance in its favor.
"And first, if, by shutting out as much as possible all access to natural light, you thus create the necessity for artificial light, is there in France an industrial pursuit which will not, through some connection with this important object, be benefited by it?
"If more tallow be consumed, there will arise a necessity for an increase of cattle and sheep. Thus artificial meadows must be in greater demand; and meat, wool, leather, and above all, manure, this basis of agricultural riches, must become more abundant.
"If more oil be consumed, it will cause an increase in the cultivation of the olive-tree. This plant, luxuriant and exhausting to the soil, will come in good time to profit by the increased fertility which the raising of cattle will have communicated to our fields.
"Our heaths will become covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather upon our mountains the perfumed treasures, which are now cast upon the winds, useless as the blossoms from which they emanate. There is, in short, no branch of agriculture which would not be greatly developed by the granting of our petition.
"Navigation would equally profit. Thousands of vessels would soon be employed in the whale fisheries, and thence would arise a navy capable of sustaining the honor of France, and of responding to the patriotic sentiments of the undersigned petitioners, candle merchants, etc.
"But what words can express the magnificence which _Paris_ will then exhibit! Cast an eye upon the future and behold the gildings, the bronzes, the magnificent crystal chandeliers, lamps, reflectors and candelabras, which will glitter in the spacious stores, compared with which the splendor of the present day will appear trifling and insignificant.
"There is none, not even the poor manufacturer of resin in the midst of his pine forests, nor the miserable miner in his dark dwelling, but who would enjoy an increase of salary and of comforts.
"Gentlemen, if you will be pleased to reflect, you cannot fail to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman, from the opulent stockholder of Anzin down to the poorest vendor of matches, who is not interested in the success of our petition.
"We foresee your objections, gentlemen; but there is not one that you can oppose to us which you will not be obliged to gather from the works of the partisans of free trade. We dare challenge you to pronounce one word against our petition, which is not equally opposed to your own practice and the principle which guides your policy.
"Do you tell us, that if we gain by this protection, France will not gain, because the consumer must pay the price of it?
"We answer you:
"You have no longer any right to cite the interest of the consumer. For whenever this has been found to compete with that of the producer, you have invariably sacrificed the first. You have done this to _encourage labor_, to _increase the demand for labor_. The same reason should now induce you to act in the same manner.
"You have yourselves already answered the objection. When you were told: The consumer is interested in the free introduction of iron, coal, corn, wheat, cloths, etc., your answer was: Yes, but the producer is interested in their exclusion. Thus, also, if the consumer is interested in the admission of light, we, the producers, pray for its interdiction.
"You have also said, the producer and the consumer are one. If the manufacturer gains by protection, he will cause the agriculturist to gain also; if agriculture prospers, it opens a market for manufactured goods. Thus we, if you confer upon us the monopoly of furnishing light during the day, will as a first consequence buy large quantities of tallow, coals, oil, resin, wax, alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, crystal, for the supply of our business; and then we and our numerous contractors having become rich, our consumption will be great, and will become a means of contributing to the comfort and competency of the workers in every branch of national labor.
"Will you say that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift, and that to repulse gratuitous gifts, is to repulse riches under pretence of encouraging the means of obtaining them?
"Take care,--you carry the death-blow to your own policy. Remember that hitherto you have always repulsed foreign produce, _because_ it was an approach to a gratuitous gift, and _the more in proportion_ as this approach was more close. You have, in obeying the wishes of other monopolists, acted only from a _half-motive_; to grant our petition there is a much _fuller inducement_. To repulse us, precisely for the reason that our case is a more complete one than any which have preceded it, would be to lay down the following equation: + × + =-; in other words, it would be to accumulate absurdity upon absurdity.
"Labor and Nature concur in different proportions, according to country and climate, in every article of production. The portion of Nature is always gratuitous; that of labor alone regulates the price.
"If a Lisbon orange can be sold at half the price of a Parisian one, it is because a natural and gratuitous heat does for the one, what the other only obtains from an artificial and consequently expensive one.
"When, therefore, we purchase a Portuguese orange, we may say that we obtain it half gratuitously and half by the right of labor; in other words, at _half price_ compared to those of Paris.
"Now it is precisely on account of this _demi-gratuity_ (excuse the word) that you argue in favor of exclusion. How, you say, could national labor sustain the competition of foreign labor, when the first has every thing to do, and the last is rid of half the trouble, the sun taking the rest of the business upon himself? If then the _demi-gratuity_ can determine you to check competition, on what principle can the _entire gratuity_ be alleged as a reason for admitting it? You are no logicians if, refusing the demi-gratuity as hurtful to human labor, you do not _à fortiori_, and with double zeal, reject the full gratuity.
"Again, when any article, as coal, iron, cheese, or cloth, comes to us from foreign countries with less labor than if we produced it ourselves, the difference in price is a _gratuitous gift_ conferred upon us; and the gift is more or less considerable, according as the difference is greater or less. It is the quarter, the half, or the three-quarters of the value of the produce, in proportion as the foreign merchant requires the three-quarters, the half, or the quarter of the price. It is as complete as possible when the producer offers, as the sun does with light, the whole in free gift. The question is, and we put it formally, whether you wish for France the benefit of gratuitous consumption, or the supposed advantages of laborious production. Choose, but be consistent. And does it not argue the greatest inconsistency to check as you do the importation of coal, iron, cheese, and goods of foreign manufacture, merely because and even in proportion as their price approaches _zero_, while at the same time you freely admit, and without limitation, the light of the sun, whose price is during the whole day at _zero_?"
VIII.
DISCRIMINATING DUTIES.
A poor laborer of Gironde had raised, with the greatest possible care and attention, a nursery of vines, from which, after much labor, he at last succeeded in producing a pipe of wine, and forgot, in the joy of his success, that each drop of this precious nectar had cost a drop of sweat to his brow. I will sell it, said he to his wife, and with the proceeds I will buy thread, which will serve you to make a _trousseau_ for our daughter. The honest countryman, arriving in the city, there met an Englishman and a Belgian. The Belgian said to him, Give me your wine, and I in exchange, will give you fifteen bundles of thread. The Englishman said, Give it to me, and I will give you twenty bundles, for we English can spin cheaper than the Belgians. But a custom-house officer standing by, said to the laborer, My good fellow, make your exchange, if you choose, with the Belgian, but it is my duty to prevent your doing so with the Englishman. What! exclaimed the countryman, you wish me to take fifteen bundles of Brussels thread, when I can have twenty from Manchester? Certainly; do you not see that France would be a loser, if you were to receive twenty bundles instead of fifteen? I can scarcely understand this, said the laborer. Nor can I explain it, said the custom-house officer, but there is no doubt of the fact; for deputies, ministers, and editors, all agree that a people is impoverished in proportion as it receives a large compensation for any given quantity of its produce. The countryman was obliged to conclude his bargain with the Belgian. His daughter received but three-fourths of her _trousseau_; and these good folks are still puzzling themselves to discover how it can happen that people are ruined by receiving four instead of three; and why they are richer with three dozen towels instead of four.
IX.
WONDERFUL DISCOVERY!
At this moment, when all minds are occupied in endeavoring to discover the most economical means of transportation; when, to put these means into practice, we are leveling roads, improving rivers, perfecting steamboats, establishing railroads, and attempting various systems of traction, atmospheric, hydraulic, pneumatic, electric, etc.,--at this moment when, I believe, every one is seeking in sincerity and with ardor the solution of this problem--
"_To bring the price of things in their place of consumption, as near as possible to their price in that of production_"--
I would believe myself acting a culpable part towards my country, towards the age in which I live, and towards myself, if I were longer to keep secret the wonderful discovery which I have just made.
I am well aware that the self-illusions of inventors have become proverbial, but I have, nevertheless, the most complete certainty of having discovered an infallible means of bringing the produce of the entire world into France, and reciprocally to transport ours, with a very important reduction of price.
Infallible! and yet this is but a single one of the advantages of my astonishing invention, which requires neither plans nor devices, neither preparatory studies, nor engineers, nor machinists, nor capital, nor stockholders, nor governmental assistance! There is no danger of shipwrecks, of explosions, of shocks, of fire, nor of displacement of rails! It can be put into practice without preparation from one day to another!
Finally, and this will, no doubt, recommend it to the public, it will not increase taxes one cent; but the contrary. It will not augment the number of government functionaries, nor the exigencies of government officers; but the contrary. It will put in hazard the liberty of no one; but the contrary.
I have been led to this discovery not from accident, but observation, and I will tell you how.
I had this question to determine:
"Why does any article made, for instance, at Brussels, bear an increased price on its arrival at Paris?"
It was immediately evident to me that this was the result of _obstacles_ of various kinds existing between Brussels and Paris. First, there is _distance_, which cannot be overcome without trouble and loss of time; and either we must submit to these in our own person, or pay another for bearing them for us. Then come rivers, swamps, accidents, heavy and muddy roads; these are so many _difficulties_ to be overcome; in order to do which, causeways are constructed, bridges built, roads cut and paved, railroads established, etc. But all this is costly, and the article transported must bear its portion of the expense. There are robbers, too, on the roads, and this necessitates guards, a police, etc.
Now, among these _obstacles_, there is one which we ourselves have placed, and that at no little expense, between Brussels and Paris. This consists of men planted along the frontier, armed to the teeth, whose business it is to place _difficulties_ in the way of the transportation of goods from one country to another. These men are called custom-house officers, and their effect is precisely similar to that of steep and boggy roads. They retard and put obstacles in the way of transportation, thus contributing to the difference which we have remarked between the price of production and that of consumption; to diminish which difference as much as possible, is the problem which we are seeking to resolve.
Here, then, we have found its solution. _Let our tariff be diminished._ We will thus have constructed a Northern Railroad which will cost us nothing. Nay, more, we will be saved great expenses, and will begin from the first day to save capital.
Really, I cannot but ask myself, in surprise, how our brains could have admitted so whimsical a piece of folly, as to induce us to pay many millions to destroy the _natural obstacles_ interposed between France and other nations, only at the same time to pay so many millions more in order to replace them by _artificial obstacles_, which have exactly the same effect; so that the obstacle removed, and the obstacle created, neutralize each other; things go on as before, and the only result of our trouble, is, a double expense.
An article of Belgian production is worth at Brussels twenty francs, and, from the expenses of transportation, thirty francs at Paris. A similar article of Parisian manufacture costs forty francs. What is our course under these circumstances?
First, we impose a duty of at least ten francs on the Belgian article, so as to raise its price to a level with that of the Parisian; the government withal, paying numerous officials to attend to the levying of this duty. The article thus pays ten francs for transportation, ten for the tax.
This done, we say to ourselves: Transportation between Brussels and Paris is very dear; let us spend two or three millions in railways, and we will reduce it one-half. Evidently the result of such a course will be to get the Belgian article at Paris for thirty-five francs, viz:
20 francs--price at Brussels. 10 " duty. 5 " transportation by railroad. -- 35 francs--total, or market price at Paris.
Could we not have attained the same end by lowering the tariff to five francs? We would then have--
20 francs--price at Brussels. 5 " duty. 10 " transportation on the common road. -- 35 francs--total, or market price at Paris.
And this arrangement would have saved us the 200,000,000 spent upon the railroad, besides the expense saved in custom-house surveillance, which would of course diminish in proportion as the temptation to smuggling would become less.
But it is answered, the duty is necessary to protect Parisian industry. So be it; but do not then destroy the effect of it by your railroad.
For if you persist in your determination to keep the Belgian article on a par with the Parisian at forty francs, you must raise the duty to fifteen francs, in order to have:--
20 francs--price at Brussels. 15 " protective duty. 5 " transportation by railroad. -- 40 francs--total, at equalized prices.
And I now ask, of what benefit, under these circumstances, is the railroad?
Frankly, is it not humiliating to the nineteenth century, that it should be destined to transmit to future ages the example of such puerilities seriously and gravely practiced? To be the dupe of another, is bad enough; but to employ all the forms and ceremonies of legislation in order to cheat one's self,--to doubly cheat one's self, and that too in a mere mathematical account,--truly this is calculated to lower a little the pride of this _enlightened age_.
X.
RECIPROCITY.
We have just seen that all which renders transportation difficult, acts in the same manner as protection; or, if the expression be preferred, that protection tends towards the same result as obstacles to transportation.
A tariff may then be truly spoken of, as a swamp, a rut, a steep hill; in a word, an _obstacle_, whose effect is to augment the difference between the price of consumption and that of production. It is equally incontestable that a swamp, a bog, etc., are veritable protective tariffs.
There are people (few in number, it is true, but such there are) who begin to understand that obstacles are not the less obstacles, because they are artificially created, and that our well-being is more advanced by freedom of trade than by protection; precisely as a canal is more desirable than a sandy, hilly, and difficult road.
But they still say, this liberty ought to be reciprocal. If we take off our taxes in favor of Spain, while Spain does not do the same towards us, it is evident that we are duped. Let us then make _treaties of commerce_ upon the basis of a just reciprocity; let us yield where we are yielded to; let us make the _sacrifice_ of buying that we may obtain the advantage of selling.
Persons who reason thus, are (I am sorry to say), whether they know it or not, governed by the protectionist principle. They are only a little more inconsistent than the pure protectionists, as these are more inconsistent than the absolute prohibitionists.
I will illustrate this by a fable.
STULTA AND PUERA (FOOL-TOWN AND BOY-TOWN).
There were, it matters not where, two towns, _Stulta_ and _Puera_, which at great expense had a road built which connected them with each other. Some time after this was done, the inhabitants of _Stulta_ became uneasy, and said: _Puera_ is overwhelming us with its productions; this must be attended to. They established therefore a corps of _Obstructors_, so called because their business was to place obstacles in the way of the wagon trains which arrived from _Puera_. Soon after, _Puera_ also established a corps of Obstructors.
After some centuries, people having become more enlightened, the inhabitants of _Puera_ began to discover that these reciprocal obstacles might possibly be reciprocal injuries. They sent therefore an ambassador to _Stulta_, who (passing over the official phraseology) spoke much to this effect: "We have built a road, and now we put obstacles in the way of this road. This is absurd. It would have been far better to have left things in their original position, for then we would not have been put to the expense of building our road, and afterwards of creating difficulties. In the name of _Puera_, I come to propose to you, not to renounce at once our system of mutual obstacles, for this would be acting according to a theory, and we despise theories as much as you do; but to lighten somewhat these obstacles, weighing at the same time carefully our respective _sacrifices_." The ambassador having thus spoken, the town of _Stulta_ asked time to reflect; manufacturers, agriculturists were consulted; and at last, after some years' deliberation, it was declared that the negotiations were broken off.
At this news, the inhabitants of _Puera_ held a council. An old man (who it has always been supposed had been secretly bribed by _Stulta_) rose and said: "The obstacles raised by _Stulta_ are injurious to our sales; this is a misfortune. Those which we ourselves create, injure our purchases; this is a second misfortune. We have no power over the first, but the second is entirely dependent upon ourselves. Let us then at least get rid of one, since we cannot be delivered from both. Let us suppress our corps of _Obstructors_, without waiting for _Stulta_ to do the same. Some day or other she will learn to understand better her own interests."
A second counselor, a man of practice and of facts, uncontrolled by theories and wise in ancestral experience, replied: "We must not listen to this dreamer, this theorist, this innovator, this utopian, this political economist, this friend to _Stulta_. We would be entirely ruined if the embarrassments of the road were not carefully weighed and exactly equalized, between _Stulta_ and _Peura_. There would be more difficulty in going than in coming; in exportation than in importation. We would be, with regard to _Stulta_, in the inferior condition in which Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lisbon, London, Hamburg, and New Orleans, are, in relation to cities placed higher up the rivers Seine, Loire, Garonne, Tagus, Thames, the Elbe, and the Mississippi; for the difficulties of ascending must always be greater than those of descending rivers. (A voice exclaims: 'But the cities near the mouths of rivers have always prospered more than those higher up the stream.') This is not possible. (The same voice: 'But it is a fact.') Well, they have then prospered _contrary to rule_." Such conclusive reasoning staggered the assembly. The orator went on to convince them thoroughly and conclusively by speaking of national independence, national honor, national dignity, national labor, overwhelming importation, tributes, ruinous competition. In short, he succeeded in determining the assembly to continue their system of obstacles, and I can now point out a certain country where you may see road-builders and _Obstructors_ working with the best possible understanding, by the decree of the same legislative assembly, paid by the same citizens; the first to improve the road, the last to embarrass it.
XI.
ABSOLUTE PRICES.
If we wish to judge between freedom of trade and protection, to calculate the probable effect of any political phenomenon, we should notice how far its influence tends to the production of _abundance or scarcity_, and not simply of _cheapness or dearness_ of price. We must beware of trusting to _absolute prices_, it would lead to inextricable confusion.
Mr. Mathieu de Dombasle, after having established the fact that protection raises prices, adds:
"The augmentation of price increases the expenses of life, and consequently the price of labor, and every one finds in the increase of the price of his produce the same proportion as in the increase of his expenses. Thus, if every body pays as consumer, every body receives also as producer."
It is evident that it would be easy to reverse the argument and say: If every body receives as producer, every body must pay as consumer.
Now, what does this prove? Nothing whatever, unless it be that protection _transfers_ riches, uselessly and unjustly. Robbery does the same.
Again, to prove that the complicated arrangements of this system give even simple compensation, it is necessary to adhere to the "_consequently_" of Mr. de Dombasle, and to convince one's self that the price of labor rises with that of the articles protected. This is a question of fact, which I refer to Mr. Moreau de Jonnès, begging him to examine whether the rate of wages was found to increase with the stock of the mines of Anzin. For my own part I do not believe in it, because I think that the price of labor, like every thing else, is governed by the proportion existing between the supply and the demand. Now I can perfectly well understand that _restriction_ will diminish the supply of coal, and consequently raise its price; but I do not as clearly see that it increases the demand for labor, thereby raising the rate of wages. This is the less conceivable to me, because the sum of labor required depends upon the quantity of disposable capital; and protection, while it may change the direction of capital, and transfer it from one business to another, cannot increase it one penny.
This question, which is of the highest interest, we will examine elsewhere. I return to the discussion of _absolute prices_, and declare that there is no absurdity which cannot be rendered specious by such reasoning as that of Mr. de Dombasle.
Imagine an isolated nation possessing a given quantity of cash, and every year wantonly burning the half of its produce. I will undertake to prove by the theory of Mr. de Dombasle that this nation will not be the less rich in consequence of such a procedure.
For, the result of the conflagration must be, that every thing would double in price. An inventory made before this event would offer exactly the same nominal value, as one made after it. Who then would be the loser? If John buys his cloth dearer, he also sells his corn at a higher price; and if Peter makes a loss on the purchase of his corn, he gains it back by the sale of his cloth. Thus "every one finds in the increase of the price of his produce, the same proportion as in the increase of his expenses; and thus if every body pays as consumer, every body also receives as producer."
All this is nonsense. The simple truth is: that whether men destroy their corn and cloth by fire or by use, the effect is the same _as regards price_, but not _as regards riches_, for it is precisely in the enjoyment of the use, that riches--in other words, comfort, well-being--exist.
Protection may, in the same way, while it lessens the abundance of things, raise their prices, so as to leave each individual as rich, _numerically speaking_, as when unembarrassed by it. But because we put down in an inventory three hectolitres of corn at 20 francs, or four hectolitres at 15 francs, and sum up the nominal value of each at 60 francs, does it thence follow that they are equally capable of contributing to the necessities of the community?
To this view of consumption, it will be my continual endeavor to lead the protectionists; for in this is the end of all my efforts, the solution of every problem. I must continually repeat to them that restriction, by impeding commerce, by limiting the division of labor, by forcing it to combat difficulties of situation and temperature, must in its results diminish the quantity produced by any fixed quantum of labor. And what can it benefit us that the smaller quantity produced under the protective system bears the same _nominal value_ as the greater quantity produced under the free trade system? Man does not live on _nominal values_, but on real articles of produce; and the more abundant these articles are, no matter what price they may bear, the richer is he.
XII.
DOES PROTECTION RAISE THE RATE OF WAGES?
Workmen, your situation is singular! you are robbed, as I will presently prove to you.... But no; I retract the word; we must avoid an expression which is violent; perhaps indeed incorrect; inasmuch as this spoliation, wrapped in the sophisms which disguise it, is practiced, we must believe, without the intention of the spoiler, and with the consent of the spoiled. But it is nevertheless true that you are deprived of the just compensation of your labor, while no one thinks of causing _justice_ to be rendered to you. If you could be consoled by noisy appeals to philanthropy, to powerless charity, to degrading alms-giving, or if high-sounding words would relieve you, these indeed you can have in abundance. But _justice_, simple _justice_--nobody thinks of rendering you this. For would it not be _just_ that after a long day's labor, when you have received your little wages, you should be permitted to exchange them for the largest possible sum of comforts that you can obtain voluntarily from any man whatsoever upon the face of the earth?
Let us examine if _injustice_ is not done to you, by the legislative limitation of the persons from whom you are allowed to buy those things which you need; as bread, meat, cotton and woolen cloths, etc.; thus fixing (so to express myself) the artificial price which these articles must bear.
Is it true that protection, which avowedly raises prices, and thus injures you, raises proportionably the rate of wages?
On what does the rate of wages depend?
One of your own class has energetically said: "When two workmen run after a master, wages fall; when two masters run after a workman, wages rise."
Allow me, in more laconic phrase, to employ a more scientific, though perhaps a less striking expression: "The rate of wages depends upon the proportion which the supply of labor bears to the demand."
On what depends the _demand_ for labor?
On the quantity of disposable national capital. And the law which says, "such or such an article shall be limited to home production and no longer imported from foreign countries," can it in any degree increase this capital? Not in the least. This law may withdraw it from one course, and transfer it to another; but cannot increase it one penny. Then it cannot increase the demand for labor.
While we point with pride to some prosperous manufacture, can we answer, from whence comes the capital with which it is founded and maintained? Has it fallen from the moon? or rather is it not drawn either from agriculture, or navigation, or other industry? We here see why, since the reign of protective tariffs, if we see more workmen in our mines and our manufacturing towns, we find also fewer sailors in our ports, and fewer laborers and vine-growers in our fields and upon our hillsides.
I could speak at great length upon this subject, but prefer illustrating my thought by an example.
A countryman had twenty acres of land, with a capital of 10,000 francs. He divided his land into four parts, and adopted for it the following changes of crops: 1st, maize; 2d, wheat; 3d, clover; and 4th, rye. As he needed for himself and family but a small portion of the grain, meat, and dairy-produce of the farm, he sold the surplus and bought oil, flax, wine, etc. The whole of his capital was yearly distributed in wages and payments of accounts to the workmen of the neighborhood. This capital was, from his sales, again returned to him, and even increased from year to year. Our countryman, being fully convinced that idle capital produces nothing, caused to circulate among the working classes this annual increase, which he devoted to the inclosing and clearing of lands, or to improvements in his farming utensils and his buildings. He deposited some sums in reserve in the hands of a neighboring banker, who on his part did not leave these idle in his strong box, but lent them to various tradesmen, so that the whole came to be usefully employed in the payment of wages.
The countryman died, and his son, become master of the inheritance, said to himself: "It must be confessed that my father has, all his life, allowed himself to be duped. He bought oil, and thus paid _tribute_ to Province, while our own land could, by an effort, be made to produce olives. He bought wine, flax, and oranges, thus paying _tribute_ to Brittany, Medoc, and the Hiera islands very unnecessarily, for wine, flax and oranges may be forced to grow upon our own lands. He paid tribute to the miller and the weaver; our own servants could very well weave our linen, and crush our wheat between two stones. He did all he could to ruin himself, and gave to strangers what ought to have been kept for the benefit of his own household."
Full of this reasoning, our headstrong fellow determined to change the routine of his crops. He divided his farm into twenty parts. On one he cultivated the olive; on another the mulberry; on a third flax; he devoted the fourth to vines, the fifth to wheat, etc., etc. Thus he succeeded in rendering himself _independent_, and furnished all his family supplies from his own farm. He no longer received any thing from the general circulation; neither, it is true, did he cast any thing into it. Was he the richer for this course? No, for his land did not suit the cultivation of the vine; nor was the climate favorable to the olive. In short, the family supply of all these articles was very inferior to what it had been during the time when the father had obtained them all by exchange of produce.
With regard to the demand for labor, it certainly was no greater than formerly. There were, to be sure, five times as many fields to cultivate, but they were five times smaller. If oil was raised, there was less wheat; and because there was no more flax bought, neither was there any more rye sold. Besides, the farmer could not spend in wages more than his capital, and his capital, instead of increasing, was now constantly diminishing. A great part of it was necessarily devoted to numerous buildings and utensils, indispensable to a person who determines to undertake every thing. In short, the supply of labor continued the same, but the means of paying becoming less, there was, necessarily, a reduction of wages.
The result is precisely similar, when a nation isolates itself by the prohibitive system. Its number of industrial pursuits is certainly multiplied, but their importance is diminished. In proportion to their number, they become less productive, for the same capital and the same skill are obliged to meet a greater number of difficulties. The fixed capital absorbs a greater part of the circulating capital; that is to say, a greater part of the funds destined to the payment of wages. What remains, ramifies itself in vain, the quantity cannot be augmented. It is like the water of a pond, which, distributed in a multitude of reservoirs, appears to be more abundant, because it covers a greater quantity of soil, and presents a larger surface to the sun, while we hardly perceive that, precisely on this account, it absorbs, evaporates, and loses itself the quicker.
Capital and labor being given, the result is, a sum of production, always the less great, in proportion as obstacles are numerous. There can be no doubt that protective tariffs, by forcing capital and labor to struggle against greater difficulties of soil and climate, must cause the general production to be less, or, in other words, diminish the portion of comforts which would thence result to mankind. If, then, there be a general diminution of comforts, how, workmen, can it be possible that _your_ portion should be increased? Under such a supposition, it would be necessary to believe that the rich, those who made the law, have so arranged matters, that not only they subject themselves to their own proportion of the general loss, but taking the whole of it upon themselves, that they submit also to a further loss, in order to increase your gains. Is this credible? Is this possible? It is, indeed, a most suspicious act of generosity, and if you act wisely, you will reject it.
XIII.
THEORY--PRACTICE.
Partisans of free trade, we are accused of being theorists, and not relying sufficiently upon practice.
What a powerful argument against Mr. Say (says Mr. Ferrier,) is the long succession of distinguished ministers, the imposing league of writers who have all differed from him; and Mr. Say is himself conscious of this, for he says: "It has been said, in support of old errors, that there must necessarily be some foundation for ideas so generally adopted by all nations. Ought we not, it is asked, to distrust observations and reasoning which run counter to every thing which has been looked upon as certain up to this day, and which has been regarded as undoubted by so many who were to be confided in, alike on account of their learning and of their philanthropic intentions? This argument is, I confess, calculated to make a profound impression, and might cast a doubt upon the most incontestable facts, if the world had not seen so many opinions, now universally recognized as false, as universally maintain, during a long series of ages, their dominion over the human mind. The day is not long passed since all nations, from the most ignorant to the most enlightened, and all men, the wisest as well as the most uninformed, admitted only four elements. Nobody dreamed of disputing this doctrine, which is, nevertheless, false, and to-day universally decried."
Upon this passage Mr. Ferrier makes the following remarks:
"Mr. Say is strangely mistaken, if he believes that he has thus answered the very strong objections which he has himself advanced. It is natural enough that, for ages, men otherwise well informed, might mistake upon a question of natural history; this proves nothing. Water, air, earth, and fire, elements or not, were not the less useful to man.... Such errors as this are of no importance. They do not lead to revolutions, nor do they cause mental uneasiness; above all, they clash with no interests, and might, therefore, without inconvenience, last for millions of years. The physical world progresses as though they did not exist. But can it be thus with errors which affect the moral world? Can it be conceived that a system of government absolutely false, consequently injurious, could be followed for many centuries, and among many nations, with the general consent of well-informed men? Can it be explained how such a system could be connected with the constantly increasing prosperity of these nations? Mr. Say confesses that the argument which he combats is calculated to make a profound impression. Most certainly it is; and this impression remains; for Mr. Say has rather increased than diminished it."
Let us hear Mr. de Saint Chamans.
"It has been only towards the middle of the last, the eighteenth century, when every subject and every principle have without exception been given up to the discussion of book-makers, that these furnishers of _speculative_ ideas, applied to every thing and applicable to nothing, have begun to write upon the subject of political economy. There existed previously a system of political economy, not written, but _practiced_ by governments. Colbert was, it is said, the inventor of it; and Colbert gave the law to every state of Europe. Strange to say, he does so still, in spite of contempt and anathemas, in spite too of the discoveries of the modern school. This system, which has been called by our writers the _mercantile system_, consisted in ... checking by prohibition or import duties such foreign productions as were calculated to ruin our manufactures by competition.... This system has been declared, by all writers on political economy, of every school,[12] to be weak, absurd, and calculated to impoverish the countries where it prevails. Banished from books, it has taken refuge in _the practice_ of all nations, greatly to the surprise of those who cannot conceive that in what concerns the wealth of nations, governments should, rather than be guided by the wisdom of authors, prefer the _long experience_ of a system, etc.... It is above all inconceivable to them that the French government ... should obstinately resist the new lights of political economy, and maintain in its _practice_ the old errors, pointed out by all our writers.... But I am devoting too much time to this mercantile system, which, unsustained by writers, _has only facts_ in its favor!"
[Footnote 12: Might we not say: It is a powerful argument against Messrs. Ferrier and de Saint Chamans, that all writers on political economy, of _every school_, that is to say, all men who have studied the question, come to this conclusion: After all, freedom is better than restriction, and the laws of God wiser than those of Mr. Colbert.]
Would it not be supposed from this language that political economists, in claiming for each individual the _free disposition of his own property_, have, like the Fourierists, stumbled upon some new, strange, and chimerical system of social government, some wild theory, without precedent in the annals of human nature? It does appear to me, that, if in all this there is any thing doubtful, and of fanciful or theoretic origin, it is not free trade, but protection; not the operating of exchanges, but the custom-house, the duties, imposed to overturn artificially the natural order of things.
The question, however, is not here to compare and judge of the merits of the two systems, but simply to know which of the two is sanctioned by experience.
You, Messrs. monopolists, maintain that _facts_ are for you, and that we on our side have only _theory_.
You even flatter yourselves that this long series of public acts, this old experience of Europe which you invoke, appeared imposing to Mr. Say; and I confess that he has not refuted you, with his habitual sagacity.
I, for my part, cannot consent to give up to you the domain of _facts_; for while on your side you can advance only limited and special facts, _we_ can oppose to them universal facts, the free and voluntary acts of all men.
What do _we_ maintain? and what do _you_ maintain?
We maintain that "it is best to buy from others what we ourselves can produce only at a higher price."
You maintain that "it is best to make for ourselves, even though it should cost us more than to buy from others."
Now gentlemen, putting aside theory, demonstration, reasoning, (things which seem to nauseate you,) which of these assertions is sanctioned by _universal practice_?
Visit our fields, workshops, forges, stores; look above, below, and around you; examine what is passing in your own household; observe your own actions at every moment, and say which principle it is, that directs these laborers, workmen, contractors, and merchants; say what is your own personal _practice_.
Does the agriculturist make his own clothes? Does the tailor produce the grain which he consumes? Does not your housekeeper cease to make her bread at home, as soon as she finds it more economical to buy it from the baker? Do you lay down your pen to take up the blacking-brush in order to avoid paying tribute to the shoe-black? Does not the whole economy of society depend upon a separation of occupations, a division of labor, in a word, upon mutual exchange of production, by which we, one and all, make a calculation which causes us to discontinue direct production, when indirect acquisition offers us a saving of time and labor.
You are not then sustained by _practice_, since it would be impossible, were you to search the world, to show us a single man who acts according to your principle.
You may answer that you never intended to make your principle the rule of individual relations. You confess that it would thus destroy all social ties, and force men to the isolated life of snails. You only contend that it governs _in fact_, the relations which are established between the agglomerations of the human family.
We say that this assertion too is erroneous. A family, a town, county, department, province, all are so many agglomerations, which, without any exception, all _practically_ reject your principle; never, indeed, even think of it. Each of these procures by barter, what would be more expensively procured by production. Nations would do the same, did you not _by force_ prevent them.
We, then, are the men who are guided by practice and experience. For to combat the interdict which you have specially put upon some international exchanges, we bring forward the practice and experience of all individuals, and of all agglomerations of individuals, whose acts being voluntary, render them proper to be given as proof in the question. But you, on your part, begin by _forcing_, by _hindering_, and then, adducing forced or forbidden acts, you exclaim: "Look; we can prove ourselves justified by example!"
You exclaim against our _theory_, and even against _all theory_. But are you certain, in laying down your principles, so antagonistic to ours, that you too are not building up theories? Truly, you too have your theory; but between yours and ours there is this difference:
Our theory is formed upon the observation of universal _facts_, universal sentiments, universal calculations and acts. We do nothing more than classify and arrange these, in order to better understand them. It is so little opposed to practice, that it is in fact only _practice explained_. We look upon the actions of men as prompted by the instinct of self-preservation and of progress. What they do freely, willingly,--this is what we call _Political Economy_, or economy of society. We must repeat constantly that each man is _practically_ an excellent political economist, producing or exchanging, as his advantage dictates. Each by experience raises himself to the science; or rather the science is nothing more than experience, scrupulously observed and methodically expounded.
But _your_ theory is _theory_ in the worst sense of the word. You imagine procedures which are sanctioned by the experience of no living man, and then call to your aid constraint and prohibition. You cannot avoid having recourse to force; because, wishing to make men produce what they can _more advantageously_ buy, you require them to give up an advantage, and to be led by a doctrine which implies contradiction even in its terms.
I defy you too, to take this doctrine, which by your own avowal would be absurd in individual relations, and apply it, even in speculation, to transactions between families, towns, departments, or provinces. You yourselves confess that it is only applicable to internal relations.
Thus it is that you are daily forced to repeat:
"Principles can never be universal. What is _well_ in an individual, a family, commune, or province, is _ill_ in a nation. What is good in detail--for instance: purchase rather than production, where purchase is more advantageous--is _bad_ in a society. The political economy of individuals is not that of nations;" and other such stuff, _ejusdem farinæ_.
And all this for what? To prove to us, that we consumers, we are your property! that we belong to you, soul and body! that you have an exclusive right on our stomachs and our limbs! that it is your right to feed and dress us at your own price, however great your ignorance, your rapacity, or the inferiority of your work.
Truly, then, your system is one not founded upon practice; it is one of abstraction--of extortion.
XIV.
CONFLICTING PRINCIPLES.
There is one thing which embarrasses me not a little; and it is this:
Sincere men, taking upon the subject of political economy the point of view of producers, have arrived at this double formula:
"A government should dispose of consumers subject to its laws in favor of home industry."
"It should subject to its laws foreign consumers, in order to dispose of them in favor of home industry."
The first of the formulas is that of _Protection_; the second that of _Outlets_.
Both rest upon this proposition, called the _Balance of Trade_, that
"A people is impoverished by importations and enriched by exportations."
For if every foreign purchase is a _tribute paid_, a loss, nothing can be more natural than to restrain, even to prohibit importations.
And if every foreign sale is a _tribute received_, a gain, nothing more natural than to create _outlets_, even by force.
_Protective System; Colonial System._--These are only two aspects of the same theory. To _prevent_ our citizens from buying from foreigners, and to _force_ foreigners to buy from our citizens. Two consequences of one identical principle.
It is impossible not to perceive that according to this doctrine, if it be true, the welfare of a country depends upon _monopoly_ or domestic spoliation, and upon _conquest_ or foreign spoliation.
Let us take a glance into one of these huts, perched upon the side of our Pyrenean range.
The father of a family has received the little wages of his labor; but his half-naked children are shivering before a biting northern blast, beside a fireless hearth, and an empty table. There is wool, and wood, and corn, on the other side of the mountain, but these are forbidden to them; for the other side of the mountain is not France. Foreign wood must not warm the hearth of the poor shepherd; his children must not taste the bread of Biscay, nor cover their numbed limbs with the wool of Navarre. It is thus that the general good requires!
The disposing by law of consumers, forcing them to the support of home industry, is an encroachment upon their liberty, the forbidding of an action (mutual exchange) which is in no way opposed to morality! In a word, it is an act of _injustice_.
But this, it is said, is necessary, or else home labor will be arrested, and a severe blow will be given to public prosperity.
Thus then we must come to the melancholy conclusion, that there is a radical incompatibility between the Just and the Useful.
Again, if each people is interested in _selling_, and not in _buying_, a violent action and reaction must form the natural state of their mutual relations; for each will seek to force its productions upon all, and all will seek to repulse the productions of each.
A sale in fact implies a purchase, and since, according to this doctrine, to sell is beneficial, and to buy injurious, every international transaction must imply the benefiting of one people by the injuring of another.
But men are invincibly inclined to what they feel to be advantageous to themselves, while they also, instinctively resist that which is injurious. From hence then we must infer that each nation bears within itself a natural force of expansion, and a not less natural force of resistance, which are equally injurious to all others. In other words, antagonism and war are the _natural_ state of human society.
Thus then the theory in discussion resolves itself into the two following axioms. In the affairs of a nation,
Utility is incompatible with the internal administration of justice.
Utility is incompatible with the maintenance of external peace.
Well, what embarrasses and confounds me is, to explain how any writer upon public rights, any statesman who has sincerely adopted a doctrine of which the leading principle is so antagonistic to other incontestable principles, can enjoy one moment's repose or peace of mind.
For myself, if such were my entrance upon the threshold of science, if I did not clearly perceive that Liberty, Utility, Justice, and Peace, are not only compatible, but closely connected, even identical, I would endeavor to forget all I have learned; I would say:
"Can it be possible that God can allow men to attain prosperity only through injustice and war? Can he so direct the affairs of mortals, that they can only renounce war and injustice by, at the same time, renouncing their own welfare?
"Am I not deceived by the false lights of a science which can lead me to the horrible blasphemy implied in this alternative, and shall I dare to take it upon myself to propose this as a basis for the legislation of a great people? When I find a long succession of illustrious and learned men, whose researches in the same science have led to more consoling results; who, after having devoted their lives to its study, affirm that through it they see Liberty and Utility indissolubly linked with Justice and Peace, and find these great principles destined to continue on through eternity in infinite parallels, have they not in their favor the presumption which results from all that we know of the goodness and wisdom of God as manifested in the sublime harmony of material creation? Can I lightly believe, in opposition to such a presumption and such imposing authorities, that this same God has been pleased to put disagreement and antagonism in the laws of the moral world? No; before I can believe that all social principles oppose, shock and neutralize each other; before I can think them in constant, anarchical and eternal conflict; above all, before I can seek to impose upon my fellow-citizens the impious system to which my reasonings have led me, I must retrace my steps, hoping, perchance, to find some point where I have wandered from my road."
And if, after a sincere investigation twenty times repeated, I should still arrive at the frightful conclusion that I am driven to choose between the Desirable and the Good, I would reject the science, plunge into a voluntary ignorance, above all, avoid participation in the affairs of my country, and leave to others the weight and responsibility of so fearful a choice.
XV.
RECIPROCITY AGAIN.
Mr. de Saint Cricq has asked: "Are we sure that our foreign customers will buy from us as much as they sell us?"
Mr. de Dombasle says: "What reason have we for believing that English producers will come to seek their supplies from us, rather than from any other nation, or that they will take from us a value equivalent to their exportations into France?"
I cannot but wonder to see men who boast, above all things, of being _practical_, thus reasoning wide of all practice!
In practice, there is perhaps no traffic which is a direct exchange of produce for produce. Since the use of money, no man says, I will seek shoes, hats, advice, lessons, only from the shoemaker, the hatter, the lawyer, or teacher, who will buy from me the exact equivalent of these in corn. Why should nations impose upon themselves so troublesome a restraint?
Suppose a nation without any exterior relations. One of its citizens makes a crop of corn. He casts it into the _national_ circulation, and receives in exchange--what? Money, bank bills, securities, divisible to any extent, by means of which it will be lawful for him to withdraw when he pleases, and, unless prevented by just competition from the national circulation, such articles as he may wish. At the end of the operation, he will have withdrawn from the mass the exact equivalent of what he first cast into it, and in value, _his consumption will exactly equal his production_.
If the exchanges of this nation with foreign nations are free, it is no longer into the _national_ circulation but into the _general_ circulation that each individual casts his produce, and from thence his consumption is drawn. He is not obliged to calculate whether what he casts into this general circulation is purchased by a countryman or by a foreigner; whether the notes he receives are given to him by a Frenchman or an Englishman, or whether the articles which he procures through means of this money are manufactured on this or the other side of the Rhine or the Pyrenees. One thing is certain; that each individual finds an exact balance between what he casts in and what he withdraws from the great common reservoir; and if this be true of each individual, it is not less true of the entire nation.
The only difference between these two cases is, that in the last, each individual has open to him a larger market both for his sales and his purchases, and has, consequently, a more favorable opportunity of making both to advantage.
The objection advanced against us here, is, that if all were to combine in not withdrawing from circulation the produce from any one individual, he, in his turn, could withdraw nothing from the mass. The same, too, would be the case with regard to a nation.
Our answer is: If a nation can no longer withdraw any thing from the mass of circulation, neither will it any longer cast any thing into it. It will work for itself. It will be obliged to submit to what, in advance, you wish to force upon it, viz., _Isolation_. And here you have the ideal of the prohibitive system.
Truly, then, is it not ridiculous enough that you should inflict upon it now, and unnecessarily, this system, merely through fear that some day or other it might chance to be subjected to it without your assistance?
XVI.
OBSTRUCTED RIVERS PLEADING FOR THE PROHIBITIONISTS.
Some years since, being at Madrid, I went to the meeting of the Cortes. The subject in discussion was a proposed treaty with Portugal, for improving the channel of the Douro. A member rose and said: If the Douro is made navigable, transportation must become cheaper, and Portuguese grain will come into formidable competition with our _national labor_. I vote against the project, unless ministers will agree to increase our tariff so as to re-establish the equilibrium.
Three months after, I was in Lisbon, and the same question came before the Senate. A noble Hidalgo said: Mr. President, the project is absurd. You guard at great expense the banks of the Douro, to prevent the influx into Portugal of Spanish grain, and at the same time you now propose, at great expense, _to facilitate such an event_. There is in this a want of consistency in which I can have no part. Let the Douro descend to our Sons as we have received it from our Fathers.
XVII.
A NEGATIVE RAILROAD.
I have already remarked that when the observer has unfortunately taken his point of view from the position of producer, he cannot fail in his conclusions to clash with the general interest, because the producer, as such, must desire the existence of efforts, wants, and obstacles.
I find a singular exemplification of this remark in a journal of Bordeaux.
Mr. Simiot puts this question:
Ought the railroad from Paris into Spain to present a break or terminus at Bordeaux?
This question he answers affirmatively. I will only consider one among the numerous reasons which he adduces in support of his opinion.
The railroad from Paris to Bayonne ought (he says) to present a break or terminus at Bordeaux, in order that goods and travelers stopping in this city should thus be forced to contribute to the profits of the boatmen, porters, commission merchants, hotel-keepers, etc.
It is very evident that we have here again the interest of the agents of labor put before that of the consumer.
But if Bordeaux would profit by a break in the road, and if such profit be conformable to the public interest, then Angoulème, Poictiers, Tours, Orleans, and still more all the intermediate points, as Ruffec, Châtellerault, etc., etc., would also petition for breaks; and this too would be for the general good and for the interest of national labor. For it is certain, that in proportion to the number of these breaks or termini, will be the increase in consignments, commissions, lading, unlading, etc. This system furnishes us the idea of a railroad made up of successive breaks; _a negative railroad_.
Whether or not the Protectionists will allow it, most certain it is, that the _restrictive principle_ is identical with that which would maintain _this system of breaks_: it is the sacrifice of the consumer to the producer, of the end to the means.
XVIII.
"THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTE PRINCIPLES."
The facility with which men resign themselves to ignorance in cases where knowledge is all-important to them, is often astonishing; and we may be sure that a man has determined to rest in his ignorance, when he once brings himself to proclaim as a maxim that there are no absolute principles.
We enter into the legislative halls, and find that the question is, to determine whether the law will or will not allow of international exchanges.
A deputy rises and says, If we tolerate these exchanges, foreign nations will overwhelm us with their produce. We will have cotton goods from England, coal from Belgium, woolens from Spain, silks from Italy, cattle from Switzerland, iron from Sweden, corn from Prussia, so that no industrial pursuit will any longer be possible to us.
Another answers: Prohibit these exchanges, and the divers advantages with which nature has endowed these different countries, will be for us as though they did not exist. We will have no share in the benefits resulting from English skill, or Belgian mines, from the fertility of the Polish soil, or the Swiss pastures; neither will we profit by the cheapness of Spanish labor, or the heat of the Italian climate. We will be obliged to seek by a forced and laborious production, what, by means of exchanges, would be much more easily obtained.
Assuredly one or other of these deputies is mistaken. But which? It is worth the trouble of examining. There lie before us two roads, one of which leads inevitably to _wretchedness_. We must choose.
To throw off the feeling of responsibility, the answer is easy: There are no absolute principles.
This maxim, at present so fashionable, not only pleases idleness, but also suits ambition.
If either the theory of prohibition, or that of free trade, should finally triumph, one little law would form our whole economical code. In the first case this would be: _foreign trade is forbidden_; in the second: _foreign trade is free_; and thus, many great personages would lose their importance.
But if trade has no distinctive character, if it is capriciously useful or injurious, and is governed by no natural law, if it finds no spur in its usefulness, no check in its inutility, if its effects cannot be appreciated by those who exercise it; in a word, if it has no absolute principles,--oh! then it is necessary to deliberate, weigh, and regulate transactions, the conditions of labor must be equalized, the level of profits sought. This is an important charge, well calculated to give to those who execute it, large salaries, and extensive influence.
Contemplating this great city of Paris, I have thought to myself: Here are a million of human beings who would die in a few days, if provisions of every kind did not flow in towards this vast metropolis. The imagination is unable to calculate the multiplicity of objects which to-morrow must enter its gates, to prevent the life of its inhabitants from terminating in famine, riot, or pillage. And yet at this moment all are asleep, without feeling one moment's uneasiness, from the contemplation of this frightful possibility. On the other side, we see eighty departments who have this day labored, without concert, without mutual understanding, for the victualing of Paris. How can each day bring just what is necessary, nothing less, nothing more, to this gigantic market? What is the ingenious and secret power which presides over the astonishing regularity of such complicated movements, a regularity in which we all have so implicit, though thoughtless, a faith; on which our comfort, our very existence depends? This power is an _absolute principle_, the principle of freedom in exchanges. We have faith in that inner light which Providence has placed in the heart of all men; confiding to it the preservation and amelioration of our species; _interest_, since we must give its name, so vigilant, so active, having so much forecast when allowed its free action. What would be your condition, inhabitants of Paris, if a minister, however superior his abilities, should undertake to substitute, in the place of this power, the combinations of his own genius? If he should think of subjecting to his own supreme direction this prodigious mechanism, taking all its springs into his own hand, and deciding by whom, how, and on what conditions each article should be produced, transported, exchanged and consumed? Ah! although there is much suffering within your walls; although misery, despair, and perhaps starvation, may call forth more tears than your warmest charity can wipe away, it is probable, it is certain, that the arbitrary intervention of government would infinitely multiply these sufferings, and would extend among you the evils which now reach but a small number of your citizens.
If then we have such faith in this principle as applied to our private concerns, why should we not extend it to international transactions, which are assuredly less numerous, less delicate, and less complicated? And if it be not necessary for the prefect of Paris to regulate our industrial pursuits, to weigh our profits and our losses, to occupy himself with the quantity of our cash, and to equalize the conditions of our labor in internal commerce, on what principle can it be necessary that the custom-house, going beyond its fiscal mission, should pretend to exercise a protective power over our external commerce?
XIX.
NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.
Among the arguments advanced in favor of a restrictive system, we must not forget that which is drawn from the plea of _national independence_.
"What will we do," it is asked, "in case of war, if we are at the mercy of England for our iron and coal?"
The English monopolists, on their side, do not fail to exclaim: "What will become of Great Britain in case of war if she depends upon France for provisions?"
One thing appears to be quite lost sight of, and this is, that the dependence which results from commercial transactions, is a _reciprocal_ dependence. We can only be dependent upon foreign supplies, in so far as foreign nations are dependent upon us. This is the essence of _society_. The breaking off of natural relations places a nation, not in an independent position, but in a state of isolation.
And remark that the reason given for this isolation, is that it is a necessary provision for war, while the act is itself a commencement of war. It renders war easier, less burdensome, and consequently less unpopular. If nations were to one another permanent outlets for mutual produce; if their respective relations were such that they could not be broken without inflicting the double suffering of privation and of over-supply, there could then no longer be any need of these powerful fleets which ruin, and these great armies which crush them; the peace of the world could no more be compromised by the whim of a Thiers or a Palmerston, and wars would cease, from want of resources, motives, pretexts, and popular sympathy.
I know that I shall be reproached (for it is the fashion of the day) for placing interest, vile and prosaic interest, at the foundation of the fraternity of nations. It would be preferred that this should be based upon charity, upon love; that there should be in it some self-denial, and that clashing a little with the material welfare of men, it should bear the merit of a generous sacrifice.
When will we have done with such puerile declamations? We contemn, we revile _interest_, that is to say, the good and the useful, (for if all men are interested in an object, how can this object be other than good in itself?) as though this interest were not the necessary, eternal, and indestructible mover, to the guidance of which Providence has confided human perfectibility! One would suppose that the utterers of such sentiments must be models of disinterestedness; but does the public not begin to perceive with disgust, that this affected language is the stain of those pages for which it oftenest pays the highest price?
What! because comfort and peace are correlative, because it has pleased God to establish so beautiful a harmony in the moral world, you would blame me when I admire and adore his decrees, and for accepting with gratitude his laws, which make justice a requisite for happiness! You will consent to have peace only when it clashes with your welfare, and liberty is irksome if it imposes no sacrifices! What then prevents you, if self-denial has so many charms, from exercising it as much as you desire in your private actions? Society will be benefited by your so doing, for some one must profit by your sacrifices. But it is the height of absurdity to wish to impose such a principle upon mankind generally; for the self-denial of all, is the sacrifice of all. This is evil systematized into theory.
But, thanks be to Heaven! these declamations may be written and read, and the world continues nevertheless to obey its great mover, its great cause of action, which, spite of all denials, is _interest_.
It is singular enough, too, to hear sentiments of such sublime self-abnegation quoted in support even of Spoliation; and yet to this tends all this pompous show of disinterestedness! These men so sensitively delicate, that they are determined not to enjoy even peace, if it must be propped by the vile _interest_ of men, do not hesitate to pick the pockets of other men, and above all of poor men. For what tariff protects the poor? Gentlemen, we pray you, dispose as you please of what belongs to yourselves, but let us entreat you to allow us to use, or to exchange, according to our own fancy, the fruit of our own labor, the sweat of our own brows. Declaim as you will about self-sacrifice; that is all pretty enough; but we beg of you, do not at the same time forget to be honest.
XX.
HUMAN LABOR--NATIONAL LABOR.
Destruction of machinery--prohibition of foreign goods. These are two acts proceeding from the same doctrine.
We do meet with men who, while they rejoice over the revelation of any great invention, favor nevertheless the protective policy; but such men are very inconsistent.
What is the objection they adduce against free trade? That it causes us to seek from foreign and more easy production, what would otherwise be the result of home production. In a word, that it injures domestic industry.
On the same principle, can it not be objected to machinery, that it accomplishes through natural agents what would otherwise be the result of manual labor, and that it is thus injurious to human labor?
The foreign laborer, enjoying greater facilities of production than the French laborer, is, with regard to the latter, a veritable _economical machine_, which crushes him by competition. Thus, a piece of machinery capable of executing any work at a less price than could be done by any given number of hands, is, as regards these hands, in the position of a _foreign competitor_, who paralyzes them by his rivalry.
If then it be judicious to protect _home labor_ against the competition of _foreign labor_, it cannot be less so to protect _human labor_ against _mechanical labor_.
Whoever adheres to the protective system, ought not, if his brain be possessed of any logical powers, to stop at the prohibition of foreign produce, but should extend this prohibition to the produce of the loom and of the plough.
I approve therefore of the logic of those who, whilst they cry out against the _inundation_ of foreign merchandise, have the courage to declaim equally against the _excessive production_ resulting from the inventive power of mind.
Of this number is Mr. de Saint Chamans. "One of the strongest arguments, (says he) which can be adduced against free trade, and the too extensive employment of machines, is, that many workmen are deprived of work, either by foreign competition, which depresses manufactures, or by machinery, which takes the place of men in workshops."
Mr. de St. Chamans saw clearly the analogy, or rather the identity which exists between _importation_ and _machinery_, and was, therefore, in favor of proscribing both. There is some pleasure in having to do with intrepid arguers, who, even in error, thus carry through a chain of reasoning.
But let us look at the difficulty into which they are here led.
If it be true, _à priori_, that the domain of _invention_, and that of _labor_, can be extended only to the injury of one another, it would follow that the fewest _workmen_ would be employed in countries (Lancashire, for instance) where there is the most _machinery_. And if it be, on the contrary, proved, that machinery and manual labor coexist to a greater extent among rich nations than among savages, it must necessarily follow, that these two powers do not interfere with one another.
I cannot understand how a thinking being can rest satisfied with the following dilemma:
Either the inventions of man do not injure labor; and this, from general facts, would appear to be the case, for there exists more of both among the English and the French, than among the Sioux and the Cherokees. If such be the fact, I have gone upon a wrong track, although unconscious at what point. I have wandered from my road, and I would commit high treason against humanity, were I to introduce such an error into the legislation of my country.
Or else the results of the inventions of mind limit manual labor, as would appear to be proved from limited facts; for every day we see some machine rendering unnecessary the labor of twenty, or perhaps a hundred workmen. If this be the case, I am forced to acknowledge, as a fact, the existence of a flagrant, eternal, and incurable antagonism between the intellectual and the physical power of man; between his improvement and his welfare. I cannot avoid feeling that the Creator should have bestowed upon man either reason or bodily strength; moral force, or brutal force; and that it has been a bitter mockery to confer upon him faculties which must inevitably counteract and destroy one another.
This is an important difficulty, and how is it put aside? By this singular apothegm:
"_In political economy there are no absolute principles._"
There are no principles! Why, what does this mean, but that there are no facts? Principles are only formulas, which recapitulate a whole class of well-proved facts.
Machinery and Importation must certainly have effects. These effects must be either good or bad. Here there may be a difference of opinion as to which is the correct conclusion, but whichever is adopted, it must be capable of being submitted to the formula of one or other of these principles, viz.: Machinery is a good, or, Machinery is an evil. Importations are beneficial, or, Importations are injurious. Bat to say _there are no principles_, is certainly the last degree of debasement to which the human mind can lower itself, and I confess that I blush for my country, when I hear so monstrous an absurdity uttered before, and approved by, the French Chambers, the _élite_ of the nation, who thus justify themselves for imposing upon the country laws, of the merits or demerits of which they are perfectly ignorant.
But, it may be said to me, finish, then, by destroying the _Sophism_. Prove to us that machines are not injurious to _human labor_, nor importations to _national labor_.
In a work of this nature, such demonstrations cannot be very complete. My aim is rather to point out than to explain difficulties, and to excite reflection rather than to satisfy it. The mind never attains to a firm conviction which is not wrought out by its own labor. I will, however, make an effort to put it upon the right track.
The adversaries of importations and of machinery are misled by allowing themselves to form too hasty a judgment from immediate and transitory effects, instead of following these up to their general and final consequences.
The immediate effect of an ingenious piece of machinery, is, that it renders superfluous, in the production of any given result, a certain quantity of manual labor. But its action does not stop here. This result being obtained at less labor, is given to the public at a less price. The amount thus saved to the buyers, enables them to procure other comforts, and thus to encourage general labor, precisely in proportion to the saving they have made upon the one article which the machine has given to them at an easier price. Thus the standard of labor is not lowered, though that of comfort is raised.
Let me endeavor to render this double fact more striking by an example.
I suppose that ten million of hats, at fifteen francs each, are yearly consumed in France. This would give to those employed in this manufacture one hundred and fifty millions. A machine is invented which enables the manufacturer to furnish hats at ten francs. The sum given to the maintenance of this branch of industry, is thus reduced (if we suppose the consumption not to be increased) to one hundred millions. But the other fifty millions are not, therefore, withdrawn from the maintenance of _human labor_. The buyers of hats are, from the surplus saved upon the price of that article, enabled to satisfy other wants, and thus, in the same proportion, to encourage general industry. John buys a pair of shoes; James, a book; Jerome, an article of furniture, etc. Human labor, as a whole, still receives the encouragement of the whole one hundred and fifty millions, while the consumers, with the same supply of hats as before, receive also the increased number of comforts accruing from the fifty millions, which the use of the machine has been the means of saving to them. These comforts are the net gain which France has received from the invention. It is a gratuitous gift; a tribute exacted from nature by the genius of man. We grant that, during this process, a certain sum of labor will have been _displaced_, forced to change its direction; but we cannot allow that it has been destroyed or even diminished.
The case is the same with regard to importations. I will resume my hypothesis.
France, according to our supposition, manufactured ten millions of hats at fifteen francs each. Let us now suppose that a foreign producer brings them into our market at ten francs. I maintain that _national labor_ is thus in no wise diminished. It will be obliged to produce the equivalent of the hundred millions which go to pay for the ten millions of hats at ten francs, and then there remains to each buyer five francs, saved on the purchase of his hat, or, in total, fifty millions, which serve for the acquisition of other comforts, and the encouragement of other labor.
The mass of labor remains, then, what it was, and the additional comforts accruing from the fifty millions saved in the purchase of hats, are the net profit of importation or free trade.
It is no argument to try and alarm us by a picture of the sufferings which, in this hypothesis, would result from the displacement or change of labor.
For, if prohibition had never existed, labor would have classed itself in accordance with the laws of trade, and no displacement would have taken place.
If prohibition has led to an artificial and unproductive classification of labor, then it is prohibition, and not free trade, which is responsible for the inevitable displacement which must result in the transition from evil to good.
It is a rather singular argument to maintain that, because an abuse which has been permitted a temporary existence, cannot be corrected without wounding the interests of those who have profited by it, it ought, therefore, to claim perpetual duration.
XXI.
RAW MATERIAL.
It is said that no commerce is so advantageous as that in which manufactured articles are exchanged for raw material; because the latter furnishes aliment for _national labor_.
And it is hence concluded:
That the best regulation of duties, would be to give the greatest possible facilities to the importation of raw material, and at the same time to check that of the finished article.
There is, in political economy, no more generally accredited Sophism than this. It serves for argument not only to the protectionists, but also to the pretended free trade school; and it is in the latter capacity that its most mischievous tendencies are called into action. For a good cause suffers much less in being attacked, than in being badly defended.
Commercial liberty must probably pass through the same ordeal as liberty in every other form. It can only dictate laws, after having first taken thorough possession of men's minds. If, then, it be true that a reform, to be firmly established, must be generally understood, it follows that nothing can so much retard it, as the misleading of public opinion. And what more calculated to mislead opinion than writings, which, while they proclaim free trade, support the doctrines of monopoly?
It is some years since three great cities of France, viz., Lyons, Bordeaux, and Havre, combined in opposition to the restrictive system. France, all Europe, looked anxiously and suspiciously at this apparent declaration in favor of free trade. Alas! it was still the banner of monopoly which they followed! a monopoly, only a little more sordid, a little more absurd than that of which they seemed to desire the destruction! Thanks to the Sophism which I would now endeavor to deprive of its disguise, the petitioners only reproduced, with an additional incongruity, the old doctrine of _protection to national labor_. What is, in fact, the prohibitive system? We will let Mr. de Saint Cricq answer for us.
"Labor constitutes the riches of a nation, because it creates supplies for the gratification of our necessities; and universal comfort consists in the abundance of these supplies." Here we have the principle.
"But this abundance ought to be the result of _national labor_. If it were the result of foreign labor, national labor must receive an inevitable check." Here lies the error. (See the preceding Sophism).
"What, then, ought to be the course of an agricultural and manufacturing country? It ought to reserve its market for the produce of its own soil and its own industry." Here is the object.
"In order to effect this, it ought, by restrictive, and, if necessary, by prohibitive duties, to prevent the influx of produce from foreign soils and foreign industry." Here is the means.
Let us now compare this system with that of the petition from Bordeaux.
This divided articles of merchandise into three classes. "The first class includes articles of food and _raw material untouched by human labor_. _A judicious system of political economy would require that this class should be exempt from taxation._" Here we have the principle of no labor, no protection.
"The second class is composed of articles which have received _some preparation_ for manufacture. This preparation would render reasonable the imposition of _some duties_." Here we find the commencement of protection, because, at the same time, likewise commences the demand for _national labor_.
"The third class comprehends finished articles, which can, under no circumstances, furnish material for national labor. We consider this as the most fit for taxation." Here we have at once the maximum of labor, and, consequently, of production.
The petitioners then, as we here see, proclaimed foreign labor as injurious to national labor. This is the _error_ of the prohibitive system.
They desired the French market to be reserved for _French labor_. This is the _object_ of the prohibitive system.
They demanded that foreign labor should be subjected to restrictions and taxes. These are the _means_ of the prohibitive system.
What difference, then, can we possibly discover to exist between the Bordalese petitioners and the Corypheus of restriction? One, alone; and that is simply the greater or less extension which is given to the signification of the word _labor_.
Mr. de Saint Cricq, taking it in its widest sense, is, therefore, in favor of _protecting_ every thing.
"Labor," he says, "constitutes _the whole_ wealth of a nation. Protection should be for the agricultural interest, and _the whole_ agricultural interest; for the manufacturing interest, and _the whole_ manufacturing interest; and this principle I will continually endeavor to impress upon this Chamber."
The petitioners consider no labor but that of the manufacturers, and accordingly, it is that, and that alone, which they would wish to admit to the favors of protection.
"Raw material being entirely _untouched by human labor_, our system should exempt it from taxes. Manufactured articles furnishing no material for national labor, we consider as the most fit for taxation."
There is no question here as to the propriety of protecting national labor. Mr. de Saint Cricq and the Bordalese agree entirely upon this point. We have, in our preceding chapters, already shown how entirely we differ from both of them.
The question to be determined, is, whether it is Mr. de Saint Cricq, or the Bordalese, who give to the word _labor_ its proper acceptation. And we must confess that Mr. de Saint Cricq is here decidedly in the right. The following dialogue might be supposed between them:
_Mr. de Saint Cricq._--You agree that national labor ought to be protected. You agree that no foreign labor can be introduced into our market, without destroying an equal quantity of our national labor. But you contend that there are numerous articles of merchandise possessing _value_, for they are sold, and which are nevertheless _untouched by human labor_. Among these you name corn, flour, meat, cattle, bacon, salt, iron, copper, lead, coal, wool, skins, seeds, etc.
If you can prove to me, that the _value_ of these things is not dependent upon labor, I will agree that it is useless to protect them.
But if I can prove to you that there is as much labor put upon a hundred francs worth of wool, as upon a hundred francs worth of cloth, you ought to acknowledge that protection is the right as much of the one, as of the other.
I ask you then why this bag of wool is worth a hundred francs? Is it not because this is its price of production? And what is the price of production, but the sum which has been distributed in wages for labor, payment of skill, and interest on money, among the various laborers and capitalists, who have assisted in the production of the article?
_The Petitioners._--It is true that with regard to wool you may be right; but a bag of corn, a bar of iron, a hundred weight of coal, are these the produce of labor? Is it not nature which _creates_ them?
_Mr. de St. Cricq._--Without doubt, nature _creates_ these substances, but it is labor which gives them their _value_. I have myself, in saying that labor _creates_ material objects, used a false expression, which has led me into many farther errors. No man can _create_. No man can bring any thing from nothing; and if _production_ is used as a synonym for _creation_, then indeed our labor must all be useless.
The agriculturist does not pretend that he has _created_ the corn; but he has given it its _value_. He has by his own labor, and by that of his servants, his laborers, and his reapers, transformed into corn substances which were entirely dissimilar from it. What more is effected by the miller who converts it into flour, or by the baker who makes it into bread?
In order that a man may be dressed in cloth, numerous operations are first necessary. Before the intervention of any human labor, the real _primary materials_ of this article are air, water, heat, gas, light, and the various salts which enter into its composition. These are indeed _untouched by human labor_, for they have no _value_, and I have never dreamed of their needing protection. But a first _labor_ converts these substances into forage; a second into wool; a third into thread; a fourth into cloth; and a fifth into garments. Who can pretend to say, that all these contributions to the work, from the first furrow of the plough, to the last stitch of the needle, are not _labor_?
And because, for the sake of speed and greater perfection in the accomplishment of the final object, these various branches of labor are divided among as many classes of workmen, you, by an arbitrary distinction, determine that the order in which the various branches of labor follow each other shall regulate their importance, so that while the first is not allowed to merit the name of labor, the last shall receive all the favors of protection.
_The Petitioners._--Yes, we begin to understand that neither wool nor corn are entirely _independent of human labor_; but certainly the agriculturist has not, like the manufacturer, had every thing to do by his own labor, and that of his workmen; nature has assisted him; and if there is some labor, at least all is not labor, in the production of corn.
_Mr. de St. Cricq._--But it is the labor alone which gives it _value_. I grant that nature has assisted in the production of grain. I will even grant that it is exclusively her work; but I must confess at least that I have constrained her to it by my labor. And remark, moreover, that when I sell my corn, it is not the _work of nature_ which I make you pay for, but _my own_.
You will perceive, also, by following up your manner of arguing, that neither will manufactured articles be the production of labor. Does not the manufacturer also call upon nature to assist him? Does he not by the assistance of steam-machinery force into his service the weight of the atmosphere, as I, by the use of the plough, take advantage of its humidity? Is it the cloth-manufacturer who has created the laws of gravitation, transmission of forces and of affinities?
_The Petitioners._--Well, well, we will give up wool, but assuredly coal is the work, the exclusive work, of nature. This, at least, is _independent of all human labor_.
_Mr. de St. Cricq._--Yes, nature certainly has made coal; but _labor has made its value_. Where was the _value_ of coal during the millions of years when it lay unknown and buried a hundred feet below the surface of the earth? It was necessary to seek it. Here was labor. It was necessary to transport it to a market. Again this was labor. The price which you pay for coal in the market is the remuneration given to these labors of digging and transportation.[13]
[Footnote 13: I do not, for many reasons, make explicit mention of such portion of the remuneration as belongs to the contractor, capitalist, etc. Firstly: because, if the subject be closely looked into, it will be seen that it is always either the reimbursing in advance, or the payment of anterior _labor_. Secondly: because, under the general labor, I include not only the salary of the workmen, but the legitimate payment of all co-operation in the work of production. Thirdly: finally, and above all, because the production of the manufactured articles is, like that of the raw material, burdened with interests and remunerations, entirely independent of _manual labor_; and that the objection, in itself, might be equally applied to the finest manufacture and to the roughest agricultural process.]
We see that, so far, all the advantage is on the side of Mr. de St. Cricq, and that the _value_ of unmanufactured as of manufactured articles, represents always the expense, or what is the same thing, the _labor_ of production; that it is impossible to conceive of an article bearing a _value, independent of human labor_; that the distinction made by the petitioners is futile in theory, and, as the basis of an unequal division of favors, would be iniquitous in practice; for it would thence result that the one-third of the French occupied in manufactures, would receive all the benefits of monopoly, because they produce _by labor_; while the two other thirds, formed by the agricultural population, would be left to struggle against competition, under pretense that they produce _without labor_.
It will, I know, be insisted that it is advantageous to a nation to import the raw material, whether or not it be the result of labor; and to export manufactured articles. This is a very generally received opinion.
"In proportion," says the petition of Bordeaux, "as raw material is abundant, manufactures will increase and flourish."
"The abundance of raw material," it elsewhere says, "gives an unlimited scope to labor in those countries where it prevails."
"Raw material," says the petition from Havre, "being the element of labor, should be _regulated on a different system_, and ought to be admitted _immediately_ and at the _lowest rate_."
The same petition asks, that the protection of manufactured articles should be reduced, not _immediately_, but at some indeterminate time, not to the _lowest rate_ of entrance, but to twenty per cent.
"Among other articles," says the petition of Lyons, "of which the low price and the abundance are necessary, the manufacturers name all _raw material_."
All this is based upon error.
All _value_ is, we have seen, the representative of labor. Now it is undoubtedly true that manufacturing labor increases ten-fold, a hundred-fold, the value of raw material, thus dispensing ten, a hundred-fold increased profits throughout the nation; and from this fact is deduced the following argument: The production of a hundred weight of iron, is the gain of only fifteen francs to the various workers therein engaged. This hundred weight of iron, converted into watch-springs, is increased in value by this process, ten thousand francs. Who can pretend that the nation is not more interested in securing the ten thousand francs, than the fifteen francs worth of labor?
In this reasoning it is forgotten, that international exchanges are, no more than individual exchanges, effected through weight and measure. The exchange is not between a hundred weight of unmanufactured iron, and a hundred weight of watch-springs, nor between a pound of wool just shorn, and a pound of wool just manufactured into cashmere, but between a fixed value in one of these articles, and a fixed equal value in another. To exchange equal value with equal value, is to exchange equal labor with equal labor, and it is therefore not true that the nation which sells its hundred francs worth of cloth or of watch-springs, gains more than the one which furnishes its hundred francs worth of wool or of iron.
In a country where no law can be passed, no contribution imposed without the consent of the governed, the public can be robbed, only after it has first been cheated. Our own ignorance is the primary, the _raw material_ of every act of extortion to which we are subjected, and it may safely be predicted of every _Sophism_, that it is the forerunner of an act of Spoliation. Good Public, whenever therefore you detect a Sophism in a petition, let me advise you, put your hand upon your pocket, for be assured, it is that which is particularly the point of attack.
Let us then examine what is the secret design which the ship-owners of Bordeaux and Havre, and the manufacturers of Lyons, would smuggle in upon us by this distinction between agricultural produce and manufactured produce.
"It is," say the petitioners of Bordeaux, "principally in this first class (that which comprehends raw material, _untouched by human labor_) that we find _the principal encouragement of our merchant vessels_.... A wise system of political economy would require that this class should not be taxed.... The second class (articles which have received some preparation) may be considered as taxable. The third (articles which have received from labor all the finish of which they are capable) we regard as _most proper for taxation_."
"Considering," say the petitioners of Havre, "that it is indispensable to reduce _immediately_ and to the _lowest rate_, the raw material, in order that manufacturing industry may give employment to our merchant vessels, which furnish its first and indispensable means of labor."
The manufacturers could not allow themselves to be behindhand in civilities towards the ship-owners, and accordingly the petition of Lyons demands the free introduction of raw material, "in order to prove," it remarks, "that the interests of manufacturing towns are not opposed to those of maritime cities."
This may be true enough; but it must be confessed that both, taken in the sense of the petitioners, are terribly adverse to the interest of agriculture and of consumers.
This, then, gentlemen, is the aim of all your subtle distinctions! You wish the law to oppose the maritime transportation of _manufactured_ articles, in order that the much more expensive transportation of the raw material should, by its larger bulk, in its rough, dirty and unimproved condition, furnish a more extensive business to your _merchant vessels_. And this is what you call a _wise system of political economy_!
Why not also petition for a law requiring that fir-trees, imported from Russia, should not be admitted without their branches, bark, and roots; that Mexican gold should be imported in the state of ore, and Buenos Ayres leathers only allowed an entrance into our ports, while still hanging to the dead bones and putrefying bodies to which they belong?
The stockholders of railroads, if they can obtain a majority in the Chambers, will no doubt soon favor us with a law forbidding the manufacture, at Cognac, of the brandy used in Paris. For, surely, they would consider it a wise law, which would, by forcing the transportation of ten casks of wine instead of one of brandy, thus furnish to Parisian industry an _indispensable encouragement to its labor_, and, at the same time, give employment to railroad locomotives!
Until when will we persist in shutting our eyes upon the following simple truth?
Labor and industry, in their general object, have but one legitimate aim, and this is the public good. To create useless industrial pursuits, to favor superfluous transportation, to maintain a superfluous labor, not for the good of the public, but at the expense of the public, is to act upon a _petitio principii_. For it is the result of labor, and not labor itself, which is a desirable object. All labor, without a result, is clear loss. To pay sailors for transporting rough dirt and filthy refuse across the ocean, is about as reasonable as it would be to engage their services, and pay them for pelting the water with pebbles. Thus we arrive at the conclusion that _political Sophisms_, notwithstanding their infinite variety, have one point in common, which is the constant confounding of the _means_ with the _end_, and the development of the former at the expense of the latter.
XXII.
METAPHORS.
A Sophism will sometimes expand and extend itself through the whole tissue of a long and tedious theory. Oftener it contracts into a principle, and hides itself in one word.
"Heaven preserve us," said Paul Louis, "from the Devil and from the spirit of metaphor!" And, truly, it might be difficult to determine which of the two sheds the most noxious influence over our planet. The Devil, you will say, because it is he who implants in our hearts the spirit of spoliation. Aye; but he leaves the capacity for checking abuses, by the resistance of those who suffer. It is the genius of Sophism which paralyzes this resistance. The sword which the spirit of evil places in the hands of the aggressor, would fall powerless, if the shield of him who is attacked were not shattered in his grasp by the spirit of Sophism. Malbranche has, with great truth, inscribed upon the frontispiece of his book this sentence: _Error is the cause of human misery_.
Let us notice what passes in the world. Ambitious hypocrites may take a sinister interest in spreading, for instance, the germ of national enmities. The noxious seed may, in its developments, lead to a general conflagration, check civilization, spill torrents of blood, and draw upon the country that most terrible of scourges, _invasion_. Such hateful sentiments cannot fail to degrade, in the opinion of other nations, the people among whom they prevail, and force those who retain some love of justice to blush for their country. These are fearful evils, and it would be enough that the public should have a clear view of them, to induce them to secure themselves against the plotting of those who would expose them to such heavy chances. How, then, are they kept in darkness? How, but by metaphors? The meaning of three or four words is forced, changed, and depraved--and all is said.
Such is the use made, for instance, of the word _invasion_.
A master of French iron-works, exclaims: Save us from the _invasion_ of English iron. An English landholder cries; Let us oppose the _invasion_ of French corn. And forthwith all their efforts are bent upon raising barriers between these two nations. Thence follows isolation; isolation leads to hatred; hatred to war; and war to _invasion_. What matters it? say the two _Sophists_; is it not better to expose ourselves to a possible _invasion_, than to meet a certain one? And the people believe; and the barriers are kept up.
And yet what analogy can exist between an exchange and an invasion? What resemblance can possibly be discovered between a man-of-war, vomiting fire, death, and desolation over our cities--and a merchant vessel, which comes to offer in free and peaceable exchange, produce for produce?
Much in the same way has the word _inundation_ been abused. This word is generally taken in a bad sense; and it is certainly of frequent occurrence for inundations to ruin fields and sweep away harvests. But if, as is the case in the inundations of the Nile, they were to leave upon the soil a superior value to that which they carried away, we ought, like the Egyptians, to bless and deify them. Would it not be well, before declaiming against the _inundations_ of foreign produce, and checking them with expensive and embarrassing obstacles, to certify ourselves whether these inundations are of the number which desolate, or of those which fertilize a country? What would we think of Mehemet Ali, if, instead of constructing, at great expense, dams across the Nile to increase the extent of its inundations, he were to scatter his piasters in attempts to deepen its bed, that he might rescue Egypt from the defilement of the _foreign_ mud which is swept down upon it from the mountains of the Moon? Exactly such a degree of wisdom do we exhibit, when at the expense of millions, we strive to preserve our country.... From what? From the blessings with which Nature has gifted other climates.
Among the _metaphors_ which sometimes conceal, each in itself, a whole theory of evil, there is none more common than that which is presented under the words _tribute_ and _tributary_.
These words are so frequently employed as synonyms of _purchase_ and _purchaser_, that the terms are now used almost indifferently. And yet there is as distinct a difference between a _tribute_, and a _purchase_, as between a _robbery_ and an _exchange_. It appears to me that it would be quite as correct to say, Cartouche has broken open my strong-box, and, has _bought_ a thousand crowns from me, as to state, as I have heard done to our honorable deputies, We have paid in _tribute_ to Germany the value of a thousand horses which she has sold us.
The action of Cartouche was not a _purchase_, because he did not put, and with my consent, into my strong box an equivalent value to that which he took out. Neither could the purchase-money paid to Germany be _tribute_, because it was not on our part a forced payment, gratuitously received on hers, but a willing compensation from us for a thousand horses, which we ourselves judged to be worth 500,000 francs.
Is it necessary then seriously to criticise such abuses of language? Yes, for very seriously are they put forth in our books and journals. Nor can we flatter ourselves that they are the careless expressions of uneducated writers, ignorant even of the terms of their own language. They are current with a vast majority, and among the most distinguished of our writers. We find them in the mouths of our d'Argouts, Dupins, Villèles; of peers, deputies and ministers; men whose words become laws, and whose influence might establish the most revolting Sophisms, as the basis of the administration of their country.
A celebrated modern Philosopher has added to the categories of Aristotle the Sophism which consists in expressing in one word a _petitio principii_. He cites several examples, and might have added the word _tributary_ to his nomenclature. For instance, the question is to determine whether foreign purchases are useful or hurtful. You answer, hurtful. And why? Because they render us _tributary_ to foreigners. Truly here is a word, which begs the question at once.
How has this delusive figure of speech introduced itself into the rhetoric of monopolists?
Money is _withdrawn from the country_ to satisfy the rapacity of a victorious enemy: money is also _withdrawn from the country_ to pay for merchandise. The analogy is established between the two cases, calculating only the point of resemblance and abstracting that by which they differ.
And yet it is certainly true, that the non-reimbursement in the first case, and the reimbursement freely agreed upon in the second, establishes between them so decided a difference, as to render it impossible to class them under the same category. To be obliged, with a dagger at your throat, to give a hundred francs, or to give them willingly in order to obtain a desired object,--truly these are cases in which we can perceive little similarity. It might just as correctly be said, that it is a matter of indifference whether we eat our bread, or have it thrown into the water, because in both cases it is destroyed. We here draw a false conclusion, as in the case of the word _tribute_, by a vicious manner of reasoning, which supposes an entire similitude between two cases, their resemblance only being noticed and their difference suppressed.
CONCLUSION.
All the Sophisms which I have so far combated, relate to the restrictive policy; and some even on this subject, and those of the most remarkable, I have, in pity to the reader, passed over: _acquired rights_; _unsuitableness_; _exhaustion of money_, _etc._, _etc._
But Social economy is not confined within this narrow circle. Fourierism, Saint Simonism, Commonism, agrarianism, anti-rentism, mysticism, sentimentalism, false philanthropy, affected aspirations for a chimerical equality and fraternity; questions relative to luxury, wages, machinery; to the pretended tyranny of capital; to colonies, outlets, population; to emigration, association, imposts, and loans, have encumbered the field of Science with a crowd of parasitical arguments,--_Sophisms_, whose rank growth calls for the spade and the weeding-hoe.
I am perfectly sensible of the defect of my plan, or rather absence of plan. By attacking as I do, one by one, so many incoherent Sophisms, which clash, and then again often mingle with each other, I am conscious that I condemn myself to a disorderly and capricious struggle, and am exposed to perpetual repetitions.
I should certainly much prefer to state simply how things _are_, without troubling myself to contemplate the thousand aspects under which ignorance _supposes_ them to be.... To lay down at once the laws under which society prospers or perishes, would be _virtually_ to destroy at once all Sophisms. When Laplace described what, up to his time, was known of the movements of celestial bodies, he dissipated, without even naming them, all the astrological reveries of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Hindoos, much more certainly than he could have done by attempting to refute them directly, through innumerable volumes. Truth is one, and the work which expounds it is an imposing and durable edifice. Error is multiple, and of ephemereal nature. The work which combats it, cannot bear in itself a principle of greatness or of durability.
But if power, and perhaps opportunity, have been wanting to me, to enable me to proceed in the manner of Laplace and of Say, I still cannot but believe that the mode adopted by me has also its modest usefulness. It appears to me likewise to be well suited to the wants of the age, and to the broken moments which it is now the habit to snatch for study.
A treatise has without doubt an incontestable superiority. But it requires to be read, meditated, and understood. It addresses itself to the select few. Its mission is first to fix attention, and then to enlarge the circle of acquired knowledge.
A work which undertakes the refutation of vulgar prejudices, cannot have so high an aim. It aspires only to clear the way for the steps of Truth; to prepare the minds of men to receive her; to rectify public opinion, and to snatch from unworthy hands dangerous weapons which they misuse.
It is above all, in social economy, that this hand-to-hand struggle, this ever-reviving combat with popular errors, has a true practical utility.
Sciences might be arranged in two categories. Those of the first class whose application belongs only to particular professions, can be understood only by the learned; but the most ignorant may profit by their fruits. We may enjoy the comforts of a watch; we may be transported by locomotives or steamboats, although knowing nothing of mechanism and astronomy. We walk according to the laws of equilibrium, while entirely ignorant of them.
But there are sciences whose influence upon the public is proportioned only to the information of that public itself, and whose efficacy consists not in the accumulated knowledge of some few learned heads, but in that which has diffused itself into the reason of man in the aggregate. Such are morals, hygiene, social economy, and (in countries where men belong to themselves) political economy. Of these sciences Bentham might above all have said: "It is better to circulate, than to advance them." What does it profit us that a great man, even a God, should promulgate moral laws, if the minds of men, steeped in error, will constantly mistake vice for virtue, and virtue for vice? What does it benefit us that Smith, Say, and, according to Mr. de St. Chamans, political economists of _every school_, should have proclaimed the superiority in all commercial transactions, of _liberty_ above _restraint_, if those who make laws, and for whom laws are made, are convinced of the contrary?
These sciences, which have very properly been named _social_, are again peculiar in this, that they, being of common application, no one will confess himself ignorant of them. If the object be to determine a question in chemistry or geometry, nobody pretends to have an innate knowledge of the science, or is ashamed to consult Mr. Thénard, or to seek information from the pages of Legendre or Bezout. But in the social sciences authorities are rarely acknowledged. As each individual daily acts upon his own notions whether right or wrong, of morals, hygiene, and economy; of politics, whether reasonable or absurd, each one thinks he has a right to prose, comment, decide, and dictate in these matters. Are you sick? There is not a good old woman in the country who is not ready to tell you the cause and the remedy of your sufferings. "It is from humors in the blood," says she, "you must be purged." But what are these humors, or are there any humors at all? On this subject she troubles herself but little. This good old woman comes into my mind, whenever I hear an attempt made to account for all the maladies of the social body, by some trivial form of words. It is superabundance of produce, tyranny of capital, industrial plethora, or other such nonsense, of which, it would be fortunate if we could say: _Verba et voces prætereaque nihil_, for these are errors from which fatal consequences follow.
From what precedes, the two following results may be deduced: 1st. That the social sciences, more than others, necessarily abound in _Sophisms_, because in their application, each individual consults only his own judgment and his own instincts. 2d. That in these sciences _Sophisms_ are especially injurious, because they mislead opinion on a subject in which opinion is power--is law.
Two kinds of books then are necessary in these sciences, those which teach, and those which circulate; those which expound the truth, and those which combat error.
I believe that the inherent defect of this little work, _repetition_, is what is likely to be the cause of its principal utility. Among the Sophisms which it has discussed, each has undoubtedly its own formula and tendency, but all have a common root; and this is, the _forgetfulness of the interests of men, considered as consumers_. By showing that a thousand mistaken roads all lead to this great _generative_ Sophism, I may perhaps teach the public to recognize, to know, and to mistrust it, under all circumstances.
After all, I am less at forcing convictions, than at waking doubts.
I have no hope that the reader as he lays down my book will exclaim, _I know_. My aspirations will be fully satisfied, if he can but sincerely say, _I doubt_.
"I doubt, for I begin to fear that there may be something illusory in the supposed blessings of scarcity." (Sophism I.)
"I am not so certain of the beneficial effect of obstacles." (Sophism II.)
"_Effort without result_, no longer appears to me so desirable as _result without effort_." (Sophism III.)
"I understand that the more an article has been labored upon, the more is its _value_. But in trade, do two _equal_ values cease to be equal, because one comes from the plough, and the other from the workshop?" (Sophism XXI.)
"I confess that I begin to think it singular that mankind should be the better of hindrances and obstacles, or should grow rich upon taxes; and truly I would be relieved from some anxiety, would be really happy to see the proof of the fact, as stated by the author of "the Sophisms," that there is no incompatibility between prosperity and justice, between peace and liberty, between the extension of labor and the advance of intelligence." (Sophisms XIV and XX.)
"Without, then, giving up entirely to arguments, which I am yet in doubt whether to look upon as fairly reasoned, or as paradoxical, I will at least seek enlightenment from the masters of the science."
* * * * *
I will now terminate this sketch by a last and important recapitulation.
The world is not sufficiently conscious of the influence exercised over it by _Sophistry_.
When _might ceases to be right_, and the government of mere _strength_ is dethroned, _Sophistry_ transfers the empire to _cunning and subtilty_. It would be difficult to determine which of the two tyrannies is most injurious to mankind.
Men have an immoderate love for pleasure, influence, consideration, power--in a word, for riches; and they are, by an almost unconquerable inclination, pushed to procure these, at the expense of others.
But these _others_, who form the public, have a no less strong inclination to keep what they have acquired; and this they will do, if they have the _strength_ and the _knowledge_ to effect it.
Spoliation, which plays so important a part in the affairs of this world, has then two agents; _Force_ and _Cunning_. She has also two checks; _Courage_ and _Knowledge_.
Force applied to spoliation, furnishes the great material for the annals of men. To retrace its history would be to present almost the entire history of every nation: Assyrians, Babylonians, Medes, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Franks, Huns, Turks, Arabs, Tartars, without counting the more recent expeditions of the English in India, the French in Africa, the Russians in Asia, etc., etc.
But among civilized nations surely the producers of riches are now become sufficiently numerous and strong to defend themselves.
Does this mean that they are no longer robbed? They are as much so as ever, and moreover they rob one another.
The only difference is that Spoliation has changed her agent. She acts no longer by _Force_, but by _Cunning_.
To rob the public, it is necessary to deceive them. To deceive them, it is necessary to persuade them that they are robbed for their own advantage, and to induce them to accept in exchange for their property, imaginary services, and often worse. Hence spring _Sophisms_ in all their varieties. Then, since Force is held in check, _Sophistry_ is no longer only an evil; it is the genius of evil, and requires a check in its turn. This check must be the enlightenment of the public, which must be rendered more _subtle_ than the subtle, as it is already _stronger_ than the strong.
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GOOD PUBLIC! I now dedicate to you this first essay; though it must be confessed that the Preface is strangely transposed, and the Dedication a little tardy.