Chapter 3

SOPHISMS OF PROTECTION.

SECOND SERIES.

"The request of Industry to the government is as modest as that of Diogenes to Alexander: 'Stand out of my sunshine.'"--BENTHAM.

I.

NATURAL HISTORY OF SPOLIATION.

Why do I give myself up to that dry science, political economy?

The question is a proper one. All labor is so repugnant in its nature that one has the right to ask of what use it is.

Let us examine and see.

I do not address myself to those philosophers who, if not in their own names, at least in the name of humanity, profess to adore poverty.

I speak to those who hold wealth in esteem--and understand by this word, not the opulence of the few, but the comfort, the well-being, the security, the independence, the instruction, the dignity of all.

There are only two ways by which the means essential to the preservation, the adornment and the perfection of life may be obtained--production and spoliation. Some persons may say: "Spoliation is an accident, a local and transient abuse, denounced by morality, punished by the law, and unworthy the attention of political economy."

Still, however benevolent or optimistic one may be, he is compelled to admit that spoliation is practiced on so vast a scale in this world, and is so generally connected with all great human events, that no social science, and, least of all, political economy, can refuse to consider it.

I go farther. That which prevents the perfection of the social system (at least in so far as it is capable of perfection) is the constant effort of its members to live and prosper at the expense of each other. So that, if spoliation did not exist, society being perfect, the social sciences would be without an object.

I go still farther. When spoliation becomes a means of subsistence for a body of men united by social ties, in course of time they make a law which sanctions it, a morality which glorifies it.

It is enough to name some of the best defined forms of spoliation to indicate the position it occupies in human affairs.

First comes war. Among savages the conqueror kills the conquered, to obtain an uncontested, if not incontestable, right to game.

Next slavery. When man learns that he can make the earth fruitful by labor, he makes this division with his brother: "You work and I eat."

Then comes superstition. "According as you give or refuse me that which is yours, I will open to you the gates of heaven or of hell."

Finally, monopoly appears. Its distinguishing characteristic is to allow the existence of the grand social law--_service for service_--while it brings the element of force into the discussion, and thus alters the just proportion between _service received_ and _service rendered_.

Spoliation always bears within itself the germ of its own destruction. Very rarely the many despoil the few. In such a case the latter soon become so reduced that they can no longer satisfy the cupidity of the former, and spoliation ceases for want of sustenance.

Almost always the few oppress the many, and in that case spoliation is none the less undermined, for, if it has force as an agent, as in war and slavery, it is natural that force in the end should be on the side of the greater number. And if deception is the agent, as with superstition and monopoly, it is natural that the many should ultimately become enlightened.

Another law of Providence wars against spoliation. It is this:

Spoliation not only displaces wealth, but always destroys a portion.

War annihilates values.

Slavery paralyzes the faculties.

Monopoly transfers wealth from one pocket to another, but it always occasions the loss of a portion in the transfer.

This is an admirable law. Without it, provided the strength of oppressors and oppressed were equal, spoliation would have no end.

A moment comes when the destruction of wealth is such that the despoiler is poorer than he would have been if he had remained honest.

So it is with a people when a war costs more than the booty is worth; with a master who pays more for slave labor than for free labor; with a priesthood which has so stupefied the people and destroyed its energy that nothing more can be gotten out of it; with a monopoly which increases its attempts at absorption as there is less to absorb, just as the difficulty of milking increases with the emptiness of the udder.

Monopoly is a species of the genus spoliation. It has many varieties, among them sinecure, privilege, and restriction upon trade.

Some of the forms it assumes are simple and _naive_, like feudal rights. Under this _regime_ the masses are despoiled, and know it.

Other forms are more complicated. Often the masses are plundered, and do not know it. It may even happen that they believe that they owe every thing to spoliation, not only what is left them but what is taken from them, and what is lost in the operation. I also assert that, in the course of time, thanks to the ingenious machinery of habit, many people become spoilers without knowing it or wishing it. Monopolies of this kind are begotten by fraud and nurtured by error. They vanish only before the light.

I have said enough to indicate that political economy has a manifest practical use. It is the torch which, unveiling deceit and dissipating error, destroys that social disorder called spoliation. Some one, a woman I believe, has correctly defined it as "the safety-lock upon the property of the people."

COMMENTARY.

If this little book were destined to live three or four thousand years, to be read and re-read, pondered and studied, phrase by phrase, word by word, and letter by letter, from generation to generation, like a new Koran; if it were to fill the libraries of the world with avalanches of annotations, explanations and paraphrases, I might leave to their fate, in their rather obscure conciseness, the thoughts which precede. But since they need a commentary, it seems wise to me to furnish it myself.

The true and equitable law of humanity is the _free exchange of service for service_. Spoliation consists in destroying by force or by trickery the freedom of exchange, in order to receive a service without rendering one.

Forcible spoliation is exercised thus: Wait till a man has produced something; then take it from him by violence.

It is solemnly condemned by the Decalogue: _Thou shalt not steal._

When practiced by one individual on another, it is called robbery, and leads to the prison; when practiced among nations, it takes the name of conquest, and leads to glory.

Why this difference? It is worth while to search for the cause. It will reveal to us an irresistible power, public opinion, which, like the atmosphere, envelopes us so completely that we do not notice it. Rousseau never said a truer thing than this: "A great deal of philosophy is needed to understand the facts which are very near to us."

The robber, for the reason that he acts alone, has public opinion against him. He terrifies all who are about him. Yet, if he has companions, he plumes himself before them on his exploits, and here we may begin to notice the power of public opinion, for the approbation of his band serves to obliterate all consciousness of his turpitude, and even to make him proud of it. The warrior lives in a different atmosphere. The public opinion which would rebuke him is among the vanquished. He does not feel its influence. But the opinion of those by whom he is surrounded approves his acts and sustains him. He and his comrades are vividly conscious of the common interest which unites them. The country which has created enemies and dangers, needs to stimulate the courage of its children. To the most daring, to those who have enlarged the frontiers, and gathered the spoils of war, are given honors, reputation, glory. Poets sing their exploits. Fair women weave garlands for them. And such is the power of public opinion that it separates the idea of injustice from spoliation, and even rids the despoiler of the consciousness of his wrong-doing.

The public opinion which reacts against military spoliation, (as it exists among the conquered and not among the conquering people), has very little influence. But it is not entirely powerless. It gains in strength as nations come together and understand one another better. Thus, it can be seen that the study of languages and the free communication of peoples tend to bring about the supremacy of an opinion opposed to this sort of spoliation.

Unfortunately, it often happens that the nations adjacent to a plundering people are themselves spoilers when opportunity offers, and hence are imbued with the same prejudices.

Then there is only one remedy--time. It is necessary that nations learn by harsh experience the enormous disadvantage of despoiling each other.

You say there is another restraint--moral influences. But moral influences have for their object the increase of virtuous actions. How can they restrain these acts of spoliation when these very acts are raised by public opinion to the level of the highest virtues? Is there a more potent moral influence than religion? Has there ever been a religion more favorable to peace or more universally received than Christianity? And yet what has been witnessed during eighteen centuries? Men have gone out to battle, not merely in spite of religion, but in the very name of religion.

A conquering nation does not always wage offensive war. Its soldiers are obliged to protect the hearthstones, the property, the families, the independence and liberty of their native land. At such a time war assumes a character of sanctity and grandeur. The flag, blessed by the ministers of the God of Peace, represents all that is sacred on earth; the people rally to it as the living image of their country and their honor; the warlike virtues are exalted above all others. When the danger is over, the opinion remains, and by a natural reaction of that spirit of vengeance which confounds itself with patriotism, they love to bear the cherished flag from capital to capital. It seems that nature has thus prepared the punishment of the aggressor.

It is the fear of this punishment, and not the progress of philosophy, which keeps arms in the arsenals, for it cannot be denied that those people who are most advanced in civilization make war, and bother themselves very little with justice when they have no reprisals to fear. Witness the Himalayas, the Atlas, and the Caucasus.

If religion has been impotent, if philosophy is powerless, how is war to cease?

Political economy demonstrates that even if the victors alone are considered, war is always begun in the interest of the few, and at the expense of the many. All that is needed, then, is that the masses should clearly perceive this truth. The weight of public opinion, which is yet divided, would then be cast entirely on the side of peace.

Forcible spoliation also takes another form. Without waiting for a man to produce something in order to rob him, they take possession of the man himself, deprive him of his freedom, and force him to work. They do not say to him, "If you will do this for me, I will do that for you," but they say to him, "You take all the troubles; we all the enjoyments." This is slavery.

Now it is important to inquire whether it is not in the nature of uncontrolled power always to abuse itself.

For my part I have no doubt of it, and should as soon expect to see the power that could arrest a stone in falling proceed from the stone itself, as to trust force within any defined limits.

I should like to be shown a country where slavery has been abolished by the voluntary action of the masters.

Slavery furnishes a second striking example of the impotence of philosophical and religious sentiments in a conflict with the energetic activity of self-interest.

This may seem sad to some modern schools which seek the reformation of society in self-denial. Let them begin by reforming the nature of man.

In the Antilles the masters, from father to son, have, since slavery was established, professed the Christian religion. Many times a day they repeat these words: "All men are brothers. Love thy neighbor as thyself; in this are the law and the prophets fulfilled." Yet they hold slaves, and nothing seems to them more legitimate or natural. Do modern reformers hope that their moral creed will ever be as universally accepted, as popular, as authoritative, or as often on all lips as the Gospel? If _that_ has not passed from the lips to the heart, over or through the great barrier of self-interest, how can they hope that their system will work this miracle?

Well, then, is slavery invulnerable? No; self-interest, which founded it, will one day destroy it, provided the special interests which have created it do not stifle those general interests which tend to overthrow it.

Another truth demonstrated by political economy is, that free labor is progressive, and slave labor stationary. Hence the triumph of the first over the second is inevitable. What has become of the cultivation of indigo by the blacks?

Free labor, applied to the production of sugar, is constantly causing a reduction in the price. Slave property is becoming proportionately less valuable to the master. Slavery will soon die out in America unless the price of sugar is artificially raised by legislation. Accordingly we see to-day the masters, their creditors and representatives, making vigorous efforts to maintain these laws, which are the pillars of the edifice.

Unfortunately they still have the sympathy of people among whom slavery has disappeared, from which circumstance the sovereignty of public opinion may again be observed. If public opinion is sovereign in the domain of force, it is much more so in the domain of fraud. Fraud is its proper sphere. Stratagem is the abuse of intelligence. Imposture on the part of the despoiler implies credulity on the part of the despoiled, and the natural antidote of credulity is truth. It follows that to enlighten the mind is to deprive this species of spoliation of its support.

I will briefly pass in review a few of the different kinds of spoliation which are practiced on an exceedingly large scale. The first which presents itself is spoliation through the avenue of superstition. In what does it consist? In the exchange of food, clothing, luxury, distinction, influence, power--substantial services for fictitious services. If I tell a man: "I will render you an immediate service," I am obliged to keep my word, or he would soon know what to depend upon, and my trickery would be unmasked.

But if I should tell him, "In exchange for your services I will do you immense service, not in this world but in another; after this life you may be eternally happy or miserable, and that happiness or misery depends upon me; I am a vicar between God and man, and can open to you the gates of heaven or of hell;" if that man believes me he is at my mercy.

This method of imposture has been very extensively practiced since the beginning of the world, and it is well known to what omnipotence the Egyptian priests attained by such means.

It is easy to see how impostors proceed. It is enough to ask one's self what he would do in their place.

If I, entertaining views of this kind, had arrived in the midst of an ignorant population, and were to succeed by some extraordinary act or marvelous appearance in passing myself off as a supernatural being, I would claim to be a messenger from God, having an absolute control over the future destinies of men.

Then I would forbid all examination of my claims. I would go still further, and, as reason would be my most dangerous enemy, I would interdict the use of reason--at least as applied to this dangerous subject. I would _taboo_, as the savages say, this question, and all those connected with it. To agitate them, discuss them, or even think of them, should be an unpardonable crime.

Certainly it would be the acme of art thus to put the barrier of the _taboo_ upon all intellectual avenues which might lead to the discovery of my imposture. What better guarantee of its perpetuity than to make even doubt sacrilege?

However, I would add accessory guarantees to this fundamental one. For instance, in order that knowledge might never be disseminated among the masses, I would appropriate to myself and my accomplices the monopoly of the sciences. I would hide them under the veil of a dead language and hieroglyphic writing; and, in order that no danger might take me unawares, I would be careful to invent some ceremony which day by day would give me access to the privacy of all consciences.

It would not be amiss for me to supply some of the real wants of my people, especially if by doing so I could add to my influence and authority. For instance, men need education and moral teaching, and I would be the source of both. Thus I would guide as I pleased the minds and hearts of my people. I would join morality to my authority by an indissoluble chain, and I would proclaim that one could not exist without the other, so that if any audacious individual attempted to meddle with a _tabooed_ question, society, which cannot exist without morality, would feel the very earth tremble under its feet, and would turn its wrath upon the rash innovator.

When things have come to this pass, it is plain that these people are more mine than if they were my slaves. The slave curses his chain, but my people will bless theirs, and I shall succeed in stamping, not on their foreheads, but in the very centre of their consciences, the seal of slavery.

Public opinion alone can overturn such a structure of iniquity; but where can it begin, if each stone is _tabooed_? It is the work of time and the printing press.

God forbid that I should seek to disturb those consoling beliefs which link this life of sorrows to a life of felicity. But, that the irresistible longing which attracts us toward religion has been abused, no one, not even the Head of Christianity, can deny. There is, it seems to me, one sign by which you can know whether the people are or are not dupes. Examine religion and the priest, and see whether the priest is the instrument of religion, or religion the instrument of the priest.

If the priest is the instrument of religion, if his only thought is to disseminate its morality and its benefits on the earth, he will be gentle, tolerant, humble, charitable, and full of zeal; his life will reflect that of his divine model; he will preach liberty and equality among men, and peace and fraternity among nations; he will repel the allurements of temporal power, and will not ally himself with that which, of all things in this world, has the most need of restraint; he will be the man of the people, the man of good advice and tender consolations, the man of public opinion, the man of the Evangelist.

If, on the contrary, religion is the instrument of the priest, he will treat it as one does an instrument which is changed, bent and twisted in all ways so as to get out of it the greatest possible advantage for one's self. He will multiply _tabooed_ questions; his morality will be as flexible as seasons, men, and circumstances. He will seek to impose on humanity by gesticulations and studied attitudes; an hundred times a day he will mumble over words whose sense has evaporated and which have become empty conventionalities. He will traffic in holy things, but just enough not to shake faith in their sanctity, and he will take care that the more intelligent the people are, the less open shall the traffic be. He will take part in the intrigues of the world, and he will always side with the powerful, on the simple condition that they side with him. In a word, it will be easy to see in all his actions that he does not desire to advance religion by the clergy, but the clergy by religion, and as so many efforts indicate an object, and as this object, according to the hypothesis, can be only power and wealth, the decisive proof that the people are dupes is when the priest is rich and powerful.

It is very plain that a true religion can be abused as well as a false one. The higher its authority the greater the fear that it may be severely tested. But there is much difference in the results. Abuse always stirs up to revolt the sound, enlightened, intelligent portion of a people. This inevitably weakens faith, and the weakening of a true religion is far more lamentable than of a false one. This kind of spoliation, and popular enlightenment, are always in an inverse ratio to one another, for it is in the nature of abuses to go as far as possible. Not that pure and devoted priests cannot be found in the midst of the most ignorant population, but how can the knave be prevented from donning the cassock and nursing the ambitious hope of wearing the mitre? Despoilers obey the Malthusian law; they multiply with the means of existence, and the means of existence of knaves is the credulity of their dupes. Turn whichever way you please, you always find the need of an enlightened public opinion. There is no other cure-all.

Another species of spoliation is _commercial fraud_, a term which seems to me too limited because the tradesman who changes his weights and measures is not alone culpable, but also the physician who receives a fee for evil counsel, the lawyer who provokes litigation, etc. In the exchange of two services one may be of less value than the other, but when the service received is that which has been agreed upon, it is evident that spoliation of that nature will diminish with the increase of public intelligence.

The next in order is the abuse in the _public service_--an immense field of spoliation, so immense that we can give it but partial consideration.

If God had made man a solitary animal, every one would labor for himself. Individual wealth would be in proportion to the services each one rendered to himself. But since _man is a social animal, one service is exchanged for another_. A proposition which you can transpose if it suits you.

In society there are certain requirements so general, so universal in their nature, that provision has been made for them in the organizing of the public service. Among these is the necessity of security. Society agrees to compensate in services of a different nature those who render it the service of guarding the public safety. In this there is nothing contrary to the principles of political economy. _Do this for me, I will do that for you._ The principle of the transaction is the same, although the process is different, but the circumstance has great significance.

In private transactions each individual remains the judge both of the service which he renders and of that which he receives. He can always decline an exchange, or negotiate elsewhere. There is no necessity of an interchange of services, except by previous voluntary agreement. Such is not the case with the State, especially before the establishment of representative government. Whether or not we require its services, whether they are good or bad, we are obliged to accept such as are offered and to pay the price.

It is the tendency of all men to magnify their own services and to disparage services rendered them, and private matters would be poorly regulated if there was not some standard of value. This guarantee we have not, (or we hardly have it,) in public affairs. But still society, composed of men, however strongly the contrary may be insinuated, obeys the universal tendency. The government wishes to serve us a great deal, much more than we desire, and forces us to acknowledge as a real service that which sometimes is widely different, and this is done for the purpose of demanding contributions from us in return.

The State is also subject to the law of Malthus. It is continually living beyond its means, it increases in proportion to its means, and draws its support solely, from the substance of the people. Woe to the people who are incapable of limiting the sphere of action of the State. Liberty, private activity, riches, well-being, independence, dignity, depend upon this.

There is one circumstance which must be noticed: Chief among the services which we ask of the State is _security_. That it may guarantee this to us it must control a force capable of overcoming all individual or collective domestic or foreign forces which might endanger it. Combined with that fatal disposition among men to live at the expense of each other, which we have before noticed, this fact suggests a danger patent to all.

You will accordingly observe on what an immense scale spoliation, by the abuses and excesses of the government, has been practiced.

If one should ask what service has been rendered the public, and what return has been made therefor, by such governments as Assyria, Babylon, Egypt, Rome, Persia, Turkey, China, Russia, England, Spain and France, he would be astonished at the enormous disparity.

At last representative government was invented, and, _a priori_, one might have believed that the disorder would have ceased as if by enchantment.

The principle of these governments is this:

"The people themselves, by their representatives, shall decide as to the nature and extent of the public service and the remuneration for those services."

The tendency to appropriate the property of another, and the desire to defend one's own, are thus brought in contact. One might suppose that the latter would overcome the former. Assuredly I am convinced that the latter will finally prevail, but we must concede that thus far it has not.

Why? For a very simple reason. Governments have had too much sagacity; people too little.

Governments are skillful. They act methodically, consecutively, on a well concerted plan, which is constantly improved by tradition and experience. They study men and their passions. If they perceive, for instance, that they have warlike instincts, they incite and inflame this fatal propensity. They surround the nation with dangers through the conduct of diplomats, and then naturally ask for soldiers, sailors, arsenals and fortifications. Often they have but the trouble of accepting them. Then they have pensions, places, and promotions to offer. All this calls for money. Hence loans and taxes.

If the nation is generous, the government proposes to cure all the ills of humanity. It promises to increase commerce, to make agriculture prosperous, to develop manufactures, to encourage letters and arts, to banish misery, etc. All that is necessary is to create offices and to pay public functionaries.

In other words, their tactics consist in presenting as actual services things which are but hindrances; then the nation pays, not for being served, but for being subservient. Governments assuming gigantic proportions end by absorbing half of all the revenues. The people are astonished that while marvelous labor-saving inventions, destined to infinitely multiply productions, are ever increasing in number, they are obliged to toil on as painfully as ever, and remain as poor as before.

This happens because, while the government manifests so much ability, the people show so little. Thus, when they are called upon to choose their agents, those who are to determine the sphere of, and compensation for, governmental action, whom do they choose? The agents of the government. They entrust the executive power with the determination of the limit of its activity and its requirements. They are like the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_, who referred the selection and number of his suits of clothes to his tailor.

However, things go from bad to worse, and at last the people open their eyes, not to the remedy, for there is none as yet, but to the evil.

Governing is so pleasant a trade that everybody desires to engage in it. Thus the advisers of the people do not cease to say: "We see your sufferings, and we weep over them. It would be otherwise if _we_ governed you."

This period, which usually lasts for some time, is one of rebellions and insurrections. When the people are conquered, the expenses of the war are added to their burdens. When they conquer, there is a change of those who govern, and the abuses remain.

This lasts until the people learn to know and defend their true interests. Thus we always come back to this: there is no remedy but in the progress of public intelligence.

Certain nations seem remarkably inclined to become the prey of governmental spoliation. They are those where men, not considering their own dignity and energy, would believe themselves lost, if they were not governed and administered upon in all things. Without having traveled much, I have seen countries where they think agriculture can make no progress unless the State keeps up experimental farms; that there will presently be no horses if the State has no stables; and that fathers will not have their children educated, or will teach them only immoralities, if the State does not decide what it is proper to learn. In such a country revolutions may rapidly succeed one another, and one set of rulers after another be overturned. But the governed are none the less governed at the caprice and mercy of their rulers, until the people see that it is better to leave the greatest possible number of services in the category of those which the parties interested exchange after a fair discussion of the price.

We have seen that society is an exchange of services, and should be but an exchange of good and honest ones. But we have also proven that men have a great interest in exaggerating the relative value of the services they render one another. I cannot, indeed, see any other limit to these claims than the free acceptance or free refusal of those to whom these services are offered.

Hence it comes that certain men resort to the law to curtail the natural prerogatives of this liberty. This kind of spoliation is called privilege or monopoly. We will carefully indicate its origin and character.

Every one knows that the services which he offers in the general market are the more valued and better paid for, the scarcer they are. Each one, then, will ask for the enactment of a law to keep out of the market all who offer services similar to his.

This variety of spoliation being the chief subject of this volume, I will say little of it here, and will restrict myself to one remark:

When the monopoly is an isolated fact, it never fails to enrich the person to whom the law has granted it. It may then happen that each class of workmen, instead of seeking the overthrow of this monopoly, claim a similar one for themselves. This kind of spoliation, thus reduced to a system, becomes then the most ridiculous of mystifications for every one, and the definite result is that each one believes that he gains more from a general market impoverished by all.

It is not necessary to add that this singular _regime_ also brings about an universal antagonism between all classes, all professions, and all peoples; that it requires the constant but always uncertain interference of government; that it swarms with the abuses which have been the subject of the preceding paragraph; that it places all industrial pursuits in hopeless insecurity; and that it accustoms men to place upon the law, and not upon themselves, the responsibility for their very existence. It would be difficult to imagine a more active cause of social disturbance.

JUSTIFICATION.

It may be asked, "Why this ugly word--spoliation? It is not only coarse, but it wounds and irritates; it turns calm and moderate men against you, and embitters the controversy."

I earnestly declare that I respect individuals; I believe in the sincerity of almost all the friends of Protection, and I do not claim that I have any right to suspect the personal honesty, delicacy of feeling, or philanthropy of any one. I also repeat that Protection is the work, the fatal work, of a common error, of which all, or nearly all, are at once victims and accomplices. But I cannot prevent things being what they are.

Just imagine some Diogenes putting his head out of his tub and saying, "Athenians, you are served by slaves. Have you never thought that you practice on your brothers the most iniquitous spoliation?" Or a tribune speaking in the forum, "Romans! you have laid the foundation of all your greatness on the pillage of other nations."

They would state only undeniable truths. But must we conclude from this that Athens and Rome were inhabited only by dishonest persons? that Socrates and Plato, Cato and Cincinnatus were despicable characters?

Who could harbor such a thought? But these great men lived amidst surroundings that relieved their consciences of the sense of this injustice. Even Aristotle could not conceive the idea of a society existing without slavery. In modern times slavery has continued to our own day without causing many scruples among the planters. Armies have served as the instruments of grand conquests--that is to say, of grand spoliations. Is this saying that they are not composed of officers and men as sensitive of their honor, even more so, perhaps, than men in ordinary industrial pursuits--men who would blush at the very thought of theft, and who would face a thousand deaths rather than stoop to a base action?

It is not individuals who are to blame, but the general movement of opinion which deludes and deceives them--a movement for which society in general is culpable.

Thus is it with monopoly. I accuse the system, and not individuals; society as a mass, and not this or that one of its members. If the greatest philosophers have been able to deceive themselves as to the iniquity of slavery, how much easier is it for farmers and manufacturers to deceive themselves as to the nature and effects of the protective system.

II.

TWO SYSTEMS OF MORALS.

Arrived at the end of the preceding chapter, if he gets so far, I imagine I hear the reader say:

"Well, now, was I wrong in accusing political economists of being dry and cold? What a picture of humanity! Spoliation is a fatal power, almost normal, assuming every form, practiced under every pretext, against law and according to law, abusing the most sacred things, alternately playing upon the feebleness and the credulity of the masses, and ever growing by what it feeds on. Could a more mournful picture of the world be imagined than this?"

The problem is, not to find whether the picture is mournful, but whether it is true. And for that we have the testimony of history.

It is singular that those who decry political economy, because it investigates men and the world as it finds them, are more gloomy than political economy itself, at least as regards the past and the present. Look into their books and their journals. What do you find? Bitterness and hatred of society. The very word _civilization_ is for them a synonym for injustice, disorder and anarchy. They have even come to curse _liberty_, so little confidence have they in the development of the human race, the result of its natural organization. Liberty, according to them, is something which will bring humanity nearer and nearer to destruction.

It is true that they are optimists as regards the future. For, although humanity, in itself incapable, for six thousand years has gone astray, a revelation has come, which has pointed out to men the way of safety, and, if the flock are docile and obedient to the shepherd's call, will lead them to the promised land, where well-being may be attained without effort, where order, security and prosperity are the easy reward of improvidence.

To this end humanity, as Rousseau said, has only to allow these reformers to change the physical and moral constitution of man.

Political economy has not taken upon itself the mission of finding out the probable condition of society had it pleased God to make men different from what they are. It may be unfortunate that Providence, at the beginning, neglected to call to his counsels a few of our modern reformers. And, as the celestial mechanism would have been entirely different had the Creator consulted _Alphonso the Wise_, society, also, had He not neglected the advice of Fourier, would have been very different from that in which we are compelled to live, and move, and breathe. But, since we are here, our duty is to study and to understand His laws, especially if the amelioration of our condition essentially depends upon such knowledge.

We cannot prevent the existence of unsatisfied desires in the hearts of men.

We cannot satisfy these desires except by labor.

We cannot deny the fact that man has as much repugnance for labor as he has satisfaction with its results.

Since man has such characteristics, we cannot prevent the existence of a constant tendency among men to obtain their part of the enjoyments of life while throwing upon others, by force or by trickery, the burdens of labor. It is not for us to belie universal history, to silence the voice of the past, which attests that this has been the condition of things since the beginning of the world. We cannot deny that war, slavery, superstition, the abuses of government, privileges, frauds of every nature, and monopolies, have been the incontestable and terrible manifestations of these two sentiments united in the heart of man: _desire for enjoyment; repugnance to labor_.

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread!" But every one wants as much bread and as little sweat as possible. This is the conclusion of history.

Thank Heaven, history also teaches that the division of blessings and burdens tends to a more exact equality among men. Unless one is prepared to deny the light of the sun, it must be admitted that, in this respect at least, society has made some progress.

If this be true, there exists in society a natural and providential force, a law which causes iniquity gradually to cease, and makes justice more and more a reality.

We say that this force exists in society, and that God has placed it there. If it did not exist we should be compelled, with the socialists, to search for it in those artificial means, in those arrangements which require a fundamental change in the physical and moral constitution of man, or rather we should consider that search idle and vain, for the reason that we could not comprehend the action of a lever without a place of support.

Let us, then, endeavor to indicate that beneficent force which tends progressively to overcome the maleficent force to which we have given the name spoliation, and the existence of which is only too well explained by reason and proved by experience.

Every maleficent act necessarily has two terms--the point of beginning and the point of ending; the man who performs the act and the man upon whom it is performed; or, in the language of the schools, the active and the passive agent. There are, then, two means by which the maleficent act can be prevented: by the voluntary absence of the active, or by the resistance of the passive agent. Whence two systems of morals arise, not antagonistic but concurrent; religious or philosophical morality, and the morality to which I permit myself to apply the name economical (utilitarian).

Religious morality, to abolish and extirpate the maleficent act, appeals to its author, to man in his capacity of active agent. It says to him: "Reform yourself; purify yourself; cease to do evil; learn to do well; conquer your passions; sacrifice your interests; do not oppress your neighbor, to succor and relieve whom is your duty; be first just, then generous." This morality will always be the most beautiful, the most touching, that which will exhibit the human race in all its majesty; which will the best lend itself to the offices of eloquence, and will most excite the sympathy and admiration of mankind.

Utilitarian morality works to the same end, but especially addresses itself to man in his capacity of passive agent. It points out to him the consequences of human actions, and, by this simple exhibition, stimulates him to struggle against those which injure, and to honor those which are useful to him. It aims to extend among the oppressed masses enough good sense, enlightenment and just defiance, to render oppression both difficult and dangerous.

It may also be remarked that utilitarian morality is not without its influence upon the oppressor. An act of spoliation causes good and evil--evil for him who suffers it, good for him in whose favor it is exercised--else the act would not have been performed. But the good by no means compensates the evil. The evil always, and necessarily, predominates over the good, because the very fact of oppression occasions a loss of force, creates dangers, provokes reprisals, and requires costly precautions. The simple exhibition of these effects is not then limited to retaliation of the oppressed; it places all, whose hearts are not perverted, on the side of justice, and alarms the security of the oppressors themselves.

But it is easy to understand that this morality which is simply a scientific demonstration, and would even lose its efficiency if it changed its character; which addresses itself not to the heart but to the intelligence; which seeks not to persuade but to convince; which gives proofs not counsels; whose mission is not to move but to enlighten, and which obtains over vice no other victory than to deprive it of its booty--it is easy to understand, I say, how this morality has been accused of being dry and prosaic. The reproach is true without being just. It is equivalent to saying that political economy is not everything, does not comprehend everything, is not the universal solvent. But who has ever made such an exorbitant pretension in its name? The accusation would not be well founded unless political economy presented its processes as final, and denied to philosophy and religion the use of their direct and proper means of elevating humanity. Look at the concurrent action of morality, properly so called, and of political economy--the one inveighing against spoliation by an exposure of its moral ugliness, the other bringing it into discredit in our judgment, by showing its evil consequences. Concede that the triumph of the religious moralist, when realized, is more beautiful, more consoling and more radical; at the same time it is not easy to deny that the triumph of economical science is more facile and more certain.

In a few lines, more valuable than many volumes, J.B. Say has already remarked that there are two ways of removing the disorder introduced by hypocrisy into an honorable family; to reform Tartuffe, or sharpen the wits of Orgon. Moliere, that great painter of human life, seems constantly to have had in view the second process as the more efficient.

Such is the case on the world's stage. Tell me what Cæsar did, and I will tell you what were the Romans of his day.

Tell me what modern diplomacy has accomplished, and I will describe the moral condition of the nations.

We should not pay two milliards of taxes if we did not appoint those who consume them to vote them.

We should not have so much trouble, difficulty and expense with the African question if we were as well convinced that two and two make four in political economy as in arithmetic.

M. Guizot would never have had occasion to say: "France is rich enough to pay for her glory," if France had never conceived a false idea of glory.

The same statesman never would have said: "_Liberty is too precious for France to traffic in it_," if France had well understood that _liberty_ and a _large budget_ are incompatible.

Let religious morality then, if it can, touch the heart of the Tartuffes, the Cæsars, the conquerors of Algeria, the sinecurists, the monopolists, etc. The mission of political economy is to enlighten their dupes. Of these two processes, which is the more efficient aid to social progress? I believe it is the second. I believe that humanity cannot escape the necessity of first learning a _defensive morality_. I have read, observed, and made diligent inquiry, and have been unable to find any abuse, practiced to any considerable extent, that has perished by voluntary renunciation on the part of those who profited by it. On the contrary, I have seen many that have yielded to the manly resistance of those who suffered by them.

To describe the consequences of abuses, is the most efficient way of destroying the abuses themselves. And this is true particularly in regard to abuses which, like the protective system, while inflicting real evil upon the masses, are to those who seem to profit by them only an illusion and a deception.

Well, then, does this species of morality realize all the social perfection which the sympathetic nature of the human heart and its noblest faculties cause us to hope for? This I by no means pretend. Admit the general diffusion of this defensive morality--which, after all, is only a knowledge that the best understood interests are in accord with general utility and justice. A society, although very well regulated, might not be very attractive, where there were no knaves, only because there were no fools; where vice, always latent, and, so to speak, overcome by famine, would only stand in need of available plunder in order to be restored to vigor; where the prudence of the individual would be guarded by the vigilance of the mass, and, finally, where reforms, regulating external acts, would not have penetrated to the consciences of men. Such a state of society we sometimes see typified in one of those exact, rigorous and just men who is ever ready to resent the slightest infringement of his rights, and shrewd in avoiding impositions. You esteem him--possibly you admire him. You may make him your deputy, but you would not necessarily choose him for a friend.

Let, then, the two moral systems, instead of criminating each other, act in concert, and attack vice at its opposite poles. While the economists perform their task in uprooting prejudice, stimulating just and necessary opposition, studying and exposing the real nature of actions and things, let the religious moralist, on his part, perform his more attractive, but more difficult, labor; let him attack the very body of iniquity, follow it to its most vital parts, paint the charms of beneficence, self-denial and devotion, open the fountains of virtue where we can only choke the sources of vice--this is his duty. It is noble and beautiful. But why does he dispute the utility of that which belongs to us?

In a society which, though not superlatively virtuous, should nevertheless be regulated by the influences of _economical morality_ (which is the knowledge of the economy of society), would there not be a field for the progress of religious morality?

Habit, it has been said, is a second nature. A country where the individual had become unaccustomed to injustice, simply by the force of an enlightened public opinion, might, indeed, be pitiable; but it seems to me it would be well prepared to receive an education more elevated and more pure. To be disaccustomed to evil is a great step towards becoming good. Men cannot remain stationary. Turned aside from the paths of vice which would lead only to infamy, they appreciate better the attractions of virtue. Possibly it may be necessary for society to pass through this prosaic state, where men practice virtue by calculation, to be thence elevated to that more poetic region where they will no longer have need of such an exercise.

III.

THE TWO HATCHETS.

_Petition of Jacques Bonhomme, Carpenter, to M. Cunin-Gridaine, Minister of Commerce._

MR. MANUFACTURER-MINISTER: I am a carpenter, as was Jesus; I handle the hatchet and the plane to serve you.

In chopping and splitting from morning until night in the domain of my lord, the King, the idea has occurred to me that my labor was as much _national_ as yours.

And accordingly I don't understand why protection should not visit my shop as well as your manufactory.

For indeed, if you make cloths, I make roofs. Both by different means protect our patrons from cold and rain. But I have to run after customers while business seeks you. You know how to manage this by obtaining a monopoly, while my business is open to any one who chooses to engage in it.

What is there astonishing in this? Mr. Cunin, the Cabinet Minister, has not forgotten Mr. Cunin, the manufacturer, as was very natural. But unfortunately, my humble occupation has not given a Minister to France, although it has given a Saviour to the world.

And this Saviour, in the immortal code which he bequeathed to men, did not utter the smallest word by virtue of which carpenters might feel authorized to enrich themselves as you do at the expense of others.

Look, then, at my position. I earn thirty cents every day, excepts Sundays and holidays. If I apply to you for work at the same time with a Flemish workman, you give him the preference.

But I need clothing. If a Belgian weaver puts his cloth beside yours, you drive both him and his cloth out of the country. Consequently, forced to buy at your shop, where it is dearest, my poor thirty cents are really worth only twenty-eight.

What did I say? They are worth only twenty-six. For, instead of driving the Belgian weaver away at _your own expense_ (which would be the least you could do) you compel me to pay those who, in your interest, force him out of the market.

And since a large number of your fellow-legislators, with whom you seem to have an excellent understanding, take away from me a cent or two each, under pretext of protecting somebody's coal, or oil, or wheat, when the balance is struck, I find that of my thirty cents I have only fifteen left from the pillage.

Possibly, you may answer that those few pennies which pass thus, without compensation, from my pocket to yours, support a number of people about your _chateau_, and at the same time assist you in keeping up your establishment. To which, if you would permit me, I would reply, they would likewise support a number of persons in my cottage.

However this may be, Hon. Minister-Manufacturer, knowing that I should meet with a cold reception were I to ask you to renounce the restriction imposed upon your customers, as I have a right to, I prefer to follow the fashion, and to demand for myself, also, a little morsel of _protection_.

To this, doubtless you will interpose some objections. "Friend," you will say, "I would be glad to protect you and your colleagues; but how can I confer such favors upon the labor of carpenters? Shall I prohibit the importation of houses by land and by sea?"

This would seem sufficiently ridiculous, but by giving much thought to the subject, I have discovered a way to protect the children of St. Joseph, and you will, I trust, the more readily grant it since it differs in no respect from the privilege which you vote for yourself every year. This wonderful way is to prohibit the use of sharp hatchets in France.

I say that this restriction would be neither more illogical nor arbitrary than that which you subject us to in regard to your cloth.

Why do you drive away the Belgians? Because they sell cheaper than you do. And why do they sell cheaper than you do? Because they are in some way or another your superiors as manufacturers.

Between you and the Belgians, then, there is exactly the same difference that there is between a dull hatchet and a sharp one. And you compel me, a carpenter, to buy the workmanship of your dull hatchet!

Consider France a laborer, obliged to live by his daily toil, and desiring, among other things, to purchase cloth. There are two means of doing this. The first is to card the wool and weave the cloth himself; the second is to manufacture clocks, or wines, or wall-paper, or something of the sort, and exchange them in Belgium for cloth.

The process which gives the larger result may be represented by the sharp hatchet; the other process by the dull one.

You will not deny that at the present day in France it is more difficult to manufacture cloth than to cultivate the vine--the former is the dull hatchet, the latter the sharp one--on the contrary, you make this greater difficulty the very reason why you recommend to us the worst of the two hatchets.

Now, then, be consistent, if you will not be just, and treat the poor carpenters as well as you treat yourself. Make a law which shall read: "It is forbidden to use beams or shingles which have not been fashioned by dull hatchets."

And you will immediately perceive the result.

Where we now strike an hundred blows with the ax, we shall be obliged to give three hundred. What a powerful encouragement to industry! Apprentices, journeymen and masters, we should suffer no more. We should be greatly sought after, and go away well paid. Whoever wishes to enjoy a roof must leave us to make his tariff, just as buyers of cloth are now obliged to submit to you.

As for those free trade theorists, should they ever venture to call the utility of this system in question we should know where to go for an unanswerable argument. Your investigation of 1834 is at our service. We should fight them with that, for there you have admirably pleaded the cause of prohibition, and of dull hatchets, which are both the same.

IV.

INFERIOR COUNCIL OF LABOR.

"What! You have the assurance to demand for every citizen the right to buy, sell, trade, exchange, and to render service for service according to his own discretion, on the sole condition that he will conduct himself honestly, and not defraud the revenue? Would you rob the workingman of his labor, his wages and his bread?"

This is what is said to us. I know what the general opinion is; but I have desired to know what the laborers themselves think. I have had an excellent opportunity of finding out.

It was not one of those _Superior Councils of Industry_ (Committee on the Revision of the Tariff), where large manufacturers, who style themselves laborers, influential ship-builders who imagine themselves seamen, and wealthy bondholders who think themselves workmen, meet and legislate in behalf of that philanthropy with whose nature we are so well acquainted.

No, they were workmen "to the manor born," real, practical laborers, such as joiners, carpenters, masons, tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, grocers, etc., etc., who had established in my village a _Mutual Aid Society_. Upon my own private authority I transformed it into an _Inferior Council of Labor_ (People's Committee for Revising the Tariff), and I obtained a report which is as good as any other, although unencumbered by figures, and not distended to the proportions of a quarto volume and printed at the expense of the State.

The subject of my inquiry was the real or supposed influence of the protective system upon these poor people. The President, indeed, informed me that the institution of such an inquiry was somewhat in contravention of the principles of the society. For, in France, the land of liberty, those who desire to form associations must renounce political discussions--that is to say, the discussion of their common interests. However, after much hesitation, he made the question the order of the day.

The assembly was divided into as many sub-committees as there were different trades represented. A blank was handed to each sub-committee, which, after fifteen days' discussion, was to be filled and returned.

On the appointed day the venerable President took the chair (official style, for it was only a stool) and found upon the table (official style, again, for it was a deal plank across a barrel) a dozen reports, which he read in succession.

The first presented was that of the tailors. Here it is, as accurately as if it had been photographed:

RESULTS OF PROTECTION--REPORT OF THE TAILORS.

_Disadvantages._ |_Advantages._ | 1. On account of the protective tariff, we pay | None. more for our own bread, meat, sugar, thread, | etc., which is equivalent to a considerable | 1. We have examined diminution of our wages. | the question in | every light, and 2. On account of the protective tariff, our patrons | have been unable to are also obliged to pay more for everything, and | perceive a single have less to spend for clothes, consequently we | point in regard to have less work and smaller profits. | which the protective | system is 3. On account of the protective tariff, clothes | advantageous to are expensive, and people make them wear longer, | our trade. which results in a loss of work, and compels us to | offer our services at greatly reduced rates. |

Here is another report:

EFFECTS OF PROTECTION--REPORT OF THE BLACKSMITHS.

_Disadvantages._ | _Advantages._ | 1. The protective system imposes a tax (which does | not get into the Treasury) every time we eat, drink, | warm, or clothe ourselves. | | 2. It imposes a similar tax upon our neighbors, and | hence, having less money, most of them use wooden | pegs, instead of buying nails, which deprives us of | labor. | | 3. It keeps the price of iron so high that it can | None. no longer be used in the country for plows, or gates,| or house fixtures, and our trade, which might give | work to so many who have none, does not even give | ourselves enough to do. | | 4. The deficit occasioned in the Treasury by those | goods _which do not enter_ is made up by taxes | on our salt. |

The other reports, with which I will not trouble the reader, told the same story. Gardeners, carpenters, shoemakers, boatmen, all complained of the same grievances.

I am sorry there were no day laborers in our association. Their report would certainly have been exceedingly instructive. But, unfortunately, the poor laborers of our province, all _protected_ as they are, have not a cent, and, after having taken care of their cattle, cannot go themselves to the _Mutual Aid Society_. The pretended favors of protection do not prevent them from being the pariahs of modern society.

What I would especially remark is the good sense with which our villagers have perceived not only the direct evil results of protection, but also the indirect evil which, affecting their patrons, reacts upon themselves.

This is a fact, it seems to me, which the economists of the school of the _Moniteur Industriel_ do not understand.

And possibly some men, who are fascinated by a very little protection, the agriculturists, for instance, would voluntarily renounce it if they noticed this side of the question. Possibly, they might say to themselves: "It is better to support one's self surrounded by well-to-do neighbors, than to be protected in the midst of poverty." For to seek to encourage every branch of industry by successively creating a void around them, is as vain as to attempt to jump away from one's shadow.

V.

DEARNESS--CHEAPNESS.

I consider it my duty to say a few words in regard to the delusion caused by the words _dear_ and _cheap_. At the first glance, I am aware, you may be disposed to find these remarks somewhat subtile, but whether subtile or not, the question is whether they are true. For my part I consider them perfectly true, and particularly well adapted to cause reflection among a large number of those who cherish a sincere faith in the efficacy of protection.

Whether advocates of free trade or defenders of protection, we are all obliged to make use of the expression _dearness_ and _cheapness_. The former take sides in behalf of _cheapness_, having in view the interests of consumers. The latter pronounce themselves in favor of _dearness_, preoccupying themselves solely with the interests of the producer. Others intervene, saying, _producer and consumer are one and the same_, which leaves wholly undecided the question whether cheapness or dearness ought to be the object of legislation.

In this conflict of opinion it seems to me that there is only one position for the law to take--to allow prices to regulate themselves naturally. But the principle of "let alone" has obstinate enemies. They insist upon legislation without even knowing the desired objects of legislation. It would seem, however, to be the duty of those who wish to create high or low prices artificially, to state, and to substantiate, the reasons of their preference. The burden of proof is upon them. Liberty is always considered beneficial until the contrary is proved, and to allow prices naturally to regulate themselves is liberty. But the _roles_ have been changed. The partisans of high prices have obtained a triumph for their system, and it has fallen to defenders of natural prices to prove the advantages of their system. The argument on both sides is conducted with two words. It is very essential, then, to understand their meaning.

It must be granted at the outset that a series of events have happened well calculated to disconcert both sides.

In order to produce _high prices_ the protectionists have obtained high tariffs, and still low prices have come to disappoint their expectations.

In order to produce _low prices_, free traders have sometimes carried their point, and, to their great astonishment, the result in some instances has been an increase instead of a reduction in prices.

For instance, in France, to protect farmers, a law was passed imposing a duty of twenty-two per cent. upon imported wools, and the result has been that native wools have been sold for much lower prices than before the passage of the law.

In England a law in behalf of the consumers was passed, exempting foreign wools from duty, and the consequence has been that native wools have sold higher than ever before.

And this is not an isolated fact, for the price of wool has no special or peculiar nature which takes it out of the general law governing prices. The same fact has been reproduced under analogous circumstances. Contrary to all expectation, protection has frequently resulted in low prices, and free trade in high prices. Hence there has been a deal of perplexity in the discussion, the protectionists saying to their adversaries: "These low prices that you talk about so much are the result of our system;" and the free traders replying: "Those high prices which you find so profitable are the consequence of free trade."

There evidently is a misunderstanding, an illusion, which must be dispelled. This I will endeavor to do.

Suppose two isolated nations, each composed of a million inhabitants; admit that, other things being equal, one nation had exactly twice as much of everything as the other--twice as much wheat, wine, iron, fuel, books, clothing, furniture, etc. It will be conceded that one will have twice as much wealth as the other.

There is, however, no reason for the statement that the _absolute prices_ are different in the two nations. They possibly may be higher in the wealthiest nation. It may happen that in the United States everything is nominally dearer than in Poland, and that, nevertheless, the people there are less generally supplied with everything; by which it may be seen that the abundance of products, and not the absolute price, constitutes wealth. In order, then, accurately to compare free trade and protection the inquiry should not be which of the two causes high prices or low prices, but which of the two produces abundance or scarcity.

For observe this: Products are exchanged, the one for the other, and a relative scarcity and a relative abundance leave the absolute price exactly at the same point, but not so the condition of men.

Let us look into the subject a little further.

Since the increase and the reduction of duties have been accompanied by results so different from what had been expected, a fall of prices frequently succeeding the increase of the tariff, and a rise sometimes following a reduction of duties, it has become necessary for political economy to attempt the explanation of a phenomenon which so overthrows received ideas; for, whatever may be said, science is simply a faithful exposition and a true explanation of facts.

This phenomenon may be easily explained by one circumstance which should never be lost sight of.

It is that there are _two causes_ for high prices, and not one merely.

The same is true of low prices. One of the best established principles of political economy is that price is determined by the law of supply and demand.

The price is then affected by two conditions--the demand and the supply. These conditions are necessarily subject to variation. The relations of demand to supply may be exactly counterbalanced, or may be greatly disproportionate, and the variations of price are almost interminable.

Prices rise either on account of augmented demand or diminished supply.

They fall by reason of an augmentation of the supply or a diminution of the demand.

Consequently there are two kinds of _dearness_ and two kinds of _cheapness_. There is a bad dearness, which results from a diminution of the supply; for this implies scarcity and privation. There is a good dearness--that which results from an increase of demand; for this indicates the augmentation of the general wealth.

There is also a good cheapness, resulting from abundance. And there is a baneful cheapness--such as results from the cessation of demand, the inability of consumers to purchase.

And observe this: Prohibition causes at the same time both the dearness and the cheapness which are of a bad nature; a bad dearness, resulting from a diminution of the supply (this indeed is its avowed object), and a bad cheapness, resulting from a diminution of the demand, because it gives a false direction to capital and labor, and overwhelms consumers with taxes and restrictions.

So that, _as regards the price_, these two tendencies neutralize each other; and for this reason, the protective system, restricting the supply and the demand at the same time, does not realize the high prices which are its object.

But with respect to the condition of the people, these two tendencies do not neutralize each other; on the contrary, they unite in impoverishing them.

The effect of free trade is exactly the opposite. Possibly it does not cause the cheapness which it promises; for it also has two tendencies, the one towards that desirable form of cheapness resulting from the increase of supply, or from abundance; the other towards that dearness consequent upon the increased demand and the development of the general wealth. These two tendencies neutralize themselves as regards the _mere price_; but they concur in their tendency to ameliorate the condition of mankind. In a word, under the protective system men recede towards a condition of feebleness as regards both supply and demand; under the free trade system, they advance towards a condition where development is gradual without any necessary increase in the absolute prices of things.

Price is not a good criterion of wealth. It might continue the same when society had relapsed into the most abject misery, or had advanced to a high state of prosperity.

Let me make application of this doctrine in a few words: A farmer in the south of France supposes himself as rich as Croesus, because he is protected by law from foreign competition. He is as poor as Job--no matter, he will none the less suppose that this protection will sooner or later make him rich. Under these circumstances, if the question was propounded to him, as it was by the committee of the Legislature, in these terms: "Do you want to be subject to foreign competition? yes or no," his first answer would be "No," and the committee would record his reply with great enthusiasm.

We should go, however, to the bottom of things. Doubtless foreign competition, and competition of any kind, is always inopportune; and, if any trade could be permanently rid of it, business, for a time, would be prosperous.

But protection is not an isolated favor. It is a system. If, in order to protect the farmer, it occasions a scarcity of wheat and of beef, in behalf of other industries it produces a scarcity of iron, cloth, fuel, tools, etc.--in short, a scarcity of everything.

If, then, the scarcity of wheat has a tendency to increase the price by reason of the diminution of the supply, the scarcity of all other products for which wheat is exchanged has likewise a tendency to depreciate the value of wheat on account of a falling off of the demand; so that it is by no means certain that wheat will be a mill dearer under a protective tariff than under a system of free trade. This alone is certain, that inasmuch as there is a smaller amount of everything in the country, each individual will be more poorly provided with everything.

The farmer would do well to consider whether it would not be more desirable for him to allow the importation of wheat and beef, and, as a consequence, to be surrounded by a well-to-do community, able to consume and to pay for every agricultural product.

There is a certain province where the men are covered with rags, dwell in hovels, and subsist on chestnuts. How can agriculture flourish there? What can they make the earth produce, with the expectation of profit? Meat? They eat none. Milk? They drink only the water of springs. Butter? It is an article of luxury far beyond them. Wool? They get along without it as much as possible. Can any one imagine that all these objects of consumption can be thus left untouched by the masses, without lowering prices?

That which we say of a farmer, we can say of a manufacturer. Cloth-makers assert that foreign competition will lower prices owing to the increased quantity offered. Very well, but are not these prices raised by the increase of the demand? Is the consumption of cloth a fixed and invariable quantity? Is each one as well provided with it as he might and should be? And if the general wealth were developed by the abolition of all these taxes and hindrances, would not the first use made of it by the population be to clothe themselves better?

Therefore the question, the eternal question, is not whether protection favors this or that special branch of industry, but whether, all things considered, restriction is, in its nature, more profitable than freedom?

Now, no person can maintain that proposition. And just this explains the admission which our opponents continually make to us: "You are right on principle."

If that is true, if restriction aids each special industry only through a greater injury to the general prosperity, let us understand, then, that the price itself, considering that alone, expresses a relation between each special industry and the general industry, between the supply and the demand, and that, reasoning from these premises, this _remunerative price_ (the object of protection) is more hindered than favored by it.

APPENDIX.

We published an article entitled _Dearness-Cheapness_, which gained for us the two following letters. We publish them, with the answers:

"DEAR MR. EDITOR:--You upset all my ideas. I preached in favor of free trade, and found it very convenient to put prominently forward the idea of _cheapness_. I went everywhere, saying, "With free trade, bread, meat, woolens, linen, iron and coal will fall in price." This displeased those who sold, but delighted those who bought. Now, you raise a doubt as to whether _cheapness_ is the result of free trade. But if not, of what use is it? What will the people gain, if foreign competition, which may interfere with them in their sales, does not favor them in their purchases?"

MY DEAR FREE TRADER:--Allow us to say that you have but half read the article which provoked your letter. We said that free trade acted precisely like roads, canals and railways, like everything which facilitates communications, and like everything which destroys obstacles. Its first tendency is to increase the quantity of the article which is relieved from duties, and consequently to lower its price. But by increasing, at the same time, the quantity of all the things for which this article is exchanged, it increases the _demand_, and consequently the price rises. You ask us what the people will gain. Suppose they have a balance with certain scales, in each one of which they have for their use a certain quantity of the articles which you have enumerated. If a little grain is put in one scale it will gradually sink, but if an equal quantity of cloth, iron and coal is added in the others, the equilibrium will be maintained. Looking at the beam above, there will be no change. Looking at the people, we shall see them better fed, clothed and warmed.

"DEAR MR. EDITOR:--I am a cloth manufacturer, and a protectionist. I confess that your article on _dearness_ and _cheapness_ has led me to reflect. It has something specious about it, and if well proven, would work my conversion."

MY DEAR PROTECTIONIST:--We say that the end and aim of your restrictive measures is a wrongful one--_artificial dearness_. But we do not say that they always realize the hopes of those who initiate them. It is certain that they inflict on the consumer all the evils of dearness. It is not certain that the producer gets the profit. Why? Because if they diminish the supply they also diminish the _demand_.

This proves that in the economical arrangement of this world there is a moral force, a _vis medicatrix_, which in the long run causes inordinate ambition to become the prey of a delusion.

Pray, notice, sir, that one of the elements of the prosperity of each special branch of industry is the general prosperity. The rent of a house is not merely in proportion to what it has cost, but also to the number and means of the tenants. Do two houses which are precisely alike necessarily rent for the same sum? Certainly not, if one is in Paris and the other in Lower Brittany. Let us never speak of a price without regarding the _conditions_, and let us understand that there is nothing more futile than to try to build the prosperity of the parts on the ruin of the whole. This is the attempt of the restrictive system.

Competition always has been, and always will be, disagreeable to those who are affected by it. Thus we see that in all times and in all places men try to get rid of it. We know, and you too, perhaps, a municipal council where the resident merchants make a furious war on the foreign ones. Their projectiles are import duties, fines, etc., etc.

Now, just think what would have become of Paris, for instance, if this war had been carried on there with success.

Suppose that the first shoemaker who settled there had succeeded in keeping out all others, and that the first tailor, the first mason, the first printer, the first watchmaker, the first hair-dresser, the first physician, the first baker, had been equally fortunate. Paris would still be a village, with twelve or fifteen hundred inhabitants. But it was not thus. Each one, except those whom you still keep away, came to make money in this market, and that is precisely what has built it up. It has been a long series of collisions for the enemies of competition, and from one collision after another, Paris has become a city of a million inhabitants. The general prosperity has gained by this, doubtless, but have the shoemakers and tailors, individually, lost anything by it? For you, this is the question. As competitors came, you said: The price of boots will fail. Has it been so? No, for if the _supply_ has increased, the _demand_ has increased also.

Thus will it be with cloth; therefore let it come in. It is true that you will have more competitors, but you will also have more customers, and richer ones. Did you never think of this when seeing nine-tenths of your countrymen deprived during the winter of that superior cloth that you make?

This is not a very long lesson to learn. If you wish to prosper, let your customers do the same.

When this is once known, each one will seek his welfare in the general welfare. Then, jealousies between individuals, cities, provinces and nations, will no longer vex the world.

VI.

TO ARTISANS AND LABORERS.

Many papers have attacked me before you. Will you not read my defense?

I am not mistrustful. When a man writes or speaks, I believe that he thinks what he says.

What is the question? To ascertain which is the more advantageous for you, restriction or liberty.

I believe that it is liberty; they believe it is restriction; it is for each one to prove his case.

Was it necessary to insinuate that we are the agents of England?

You will see how easy recrimination would be on this ground.

We are, they say, agents of the English, because some of us have used the English words _meeting_, _free trader_!

And do not they use the English words _drawback_ and _budget_?

We imitate Cobden and the English democracy!

Do not they parody Bentinck and the British aristocracy?

We borrow from perfidious Albion the doctrine of liberty.

Do not they borrow from her the sophisms of protection?

We follow the commercial impulse of Bordeaux and the South.

Do not they serve the greed of Lille, and the manufacturing North?

We favor the secret designs of the ministry, which desires to turn public attention away from the protective policy.

Do not they favor the views of the Custom House officers, who gain more than anybody else by this protective _regime_?

So you see that if we did not ignore this war of epithets, we should not be without weapons.

But that is not the point in issue.

The question which I shall not lose sight of is this:

_Which is better for the working-classes, to be free or not to be free to purchase from abroad?_

Workmen, they say to you, "If you are free to buy from abroad these things which you now make yourselves, you will no longer make them. You will be without work, without wages, and without bread. It is then for your own good that your liberty be restricted."

This objection recurs in all forms. They say, for instance, "If we clothe ourselves with English cloth, if we make our plowshares with English iron, if we cut our bread with English knives, if we wipe our hands with English napkins, what will become of the French workmen--what will become of the _national labor_?"

Tell me, workmen, if a man stood on the pier at Boulogne, and said to every Englishman who landed: If you will give me those English boots, I will give you this French hat; or, if you will let me have this English horse, I will let you have this French carriage; or, Are you willing to exchange this Birmingham machine for this Paris clock? or, again, Does it suit you to barter your Newcastle coal for this Champagne wine? I ask you whether, supposing this man makes his proposals with average judgment, it can be said that our _national labor_, taken as a whole, would be harmed by it?

Would it be more so if there were twenty of these people offering to exchange services at Boulogne instead of one; if a million barters were made instead of four; and if the intervention of merchants and money was called on to facilitate them and multiply them indefinitely?

Now, let one country buy of another at wholesale to sell again at retail, or at retail to sell again at wholesale, it will always be found, if the matter is followed out to the end, that _commerce consists of mutual barter of products for products, of services for services_. If, then, _one barter_ does not injure the _national labor_, since it implies as much _national labor given_ as _foreign labor received_, a hundred million of them cannot hurt the country.

But, you will say, where is the advantage? The advantage consists in making a better use of the resources of each country, so that the same amount of labor gives more satisfaction and well-being everywhere.

There are some who employ singular tactics against you. They begin by admitting the superiority of freedom over the prohibitive system, doubtless in order that they may not have to defend themselves on that ground.

Next they remark that in going from one system to another there will be some _displacement_ of labor.

Then they dilate upon the sufferings which, according to themselves, this _displacement_ must cause. They exaggerate and amplify them; they make of them the principal subject of discussion; they present them as the exclusive and definite result of reform, and thus try to enlist you under the standard of monopoly.

These tactics have been employed in the service of all abuses, and I must frankly admit one thing, that it always embarrasses even the friends of those reforms which are most useful to the people. You will understand why.

When an abuse exists, everything arranges itself upon it.

Human existences connect themselves with it, others with these, then still others, and this forms a great edifice.

Do you raise your hand against it? Each one protests; and notice this particularly, those persons who protest always seem at the first glance to be right, because it is easier to show the disorder which must accompany the reform than the order which will follow it.

The friends of the abuse cite particular instances; they name the persons and their workmen who will be disturbed, while the poor devil of a reformer can only refer to the _general good_, which must insensibly diffuse itself among the masses. This does not have the effect which the other has.

Thus, supposing it is a question of abolishing slavery. "Unhappy people," they say to the colored men, "who will feed you? The master distributes floggings, but he also distributes rations."

It is not seen that it is not the master who feeds the slave, but his own labor which feeds both himself and master.

When the convents of Spain were reformed, they said to the beggars, "Where will you find broth and clothing? The Abbot is your providence. Is it not very convenient to apply to him?"

And the beggars said: "That is true. If the Abbot goes, we see what we lose, but we do not see what will come in its place."

They do not notice that if the convents gave alms they lived on alms, so that the people had to give them more than they could receive back.

Thus, workmen, a monopoly imperceptibly puts taxes on your shoulders, and then furnishes you work with the proceeds.

Your false friends say to you: If there was no monopoly, who would furnish you work?

You answer: This is true, this is true. The labor which the monopolists procure us is certain. The promises of liberty are uncertain.

For you do not see that they first take money from you, and then give you back a _part_ of it for your labor.

Do you ask who will furnish you work? Why, you will give each other work. With the money which will no longer be taken from you, the shoemaker will dress better, and will make work for the tailor. The tailor will have new shoes oftener, and keep the shoemaker employed. So it will be with all occupations.

They say that with freedom there will be fewer workmen in the mines and the mills.

I do not believe it. But if this does happen, it is _necessarily_ because there will be more labor freely in the open air.

For if, as they say, these mines and spinning mills can be sustained only by the aid of taxes imposed on _everybody_ for their benefit, these taxes once abolished, _everybody_ will be more comfortably off, and it is the comfort of all which feeds the labor of each one.

Excuse me if I linger at this demonstration. I have so great a desire to see you on the side of liberty.

In France, capital invested in manufactures yields, I suppose, five per cent. profit. But here is Mondor, who has one hundred thousand francs invested in a manufactory, on which he loses five per cent. The difference between the loss and gain is ten thousand francs. What do they do? They assess upon you a little tax of ten thousand francs, which is given to Mondor, and you do not notice it, for it is very skillfully disguised. It is not the tax gatherer who comes to ask you your part of the tax, but you pay it to Mondor, the manufacturer, every time you buy your hatchets, your trowels, and your planes. Then they say to you: If you do not pay this tax, Mondor can work no longer, and his employes, John and James, will be without labor. If this tax was remitted, would you not get work yourselves, and on your own account too?

And, then, be easy, when Mondor has no longer this soft method of obtaining his profit by a tax, he will use his wits to turn his loss into a gain, and John and James will not be dismissed. Then all will be profit _for all_.

You will persist, perhaps, saying: "We understand that after the reform there will be in general more work than before, but in the meanwhile John and James will be on the street."

To which I answer:

First. When employment changes its place only to increase, the man who has two arms and a heart is not long on the street.

Second. There is nothing to hinder the State from reserving some of its funds to avoid stoppages of labor in the transition, which I do not myself believe will occur.

Third. Finally, if to get out of a rut and get into a condition which is better for all, and which is certainly more just, it is absolutely necessary to brave a few painful moments, the workmen are ready, or I know them ill. God grant that it may be the same with employers.

Well, because you are workmen, are you not intelligent and moral? It seems that your pretended friends forget it. It is surprising that they discuss such a subject before you, speaking of wages and interests, without once pronouncing the word _justice_. They know, however, full well that the situation is _unjust_. Why, then, have they not the courage to tell you so, and say, "Workmen, an iniquity prevails in the country, but it is of advantage to you and it must be sustained." Why? Because they know that you would answer, No.

But it is not true that this iniquity is profitable to you. Give me your attention for a few moments and judge for yourselves.

What do they protect in France? Articles made by great manufacturers in great establishments, iron, cloth and silks, and they tell you that this is done not in the interest of the employer, but in your interest, in order to insure you wages.

But every time that foreign labor presents itself in the market in such a form that it may hurt _you_, but not the great manufacturers, do they not allow it to come in?

Are there not in Paris thirty thousand Germans who make clothes and shoes? Why are they allowed to establish themselves at your side when cloth is driven away? Because the cloth is made in great mills owned by manufacturing legislators. But clothes are made by workmen in their rooms.

These gentlemen want no competition in the turning of wool into cloth, because that is _their_ business; but when it comes to converting cloth into clothes, they admit competition, because that is _your_ trade.

When they made railroads they excluded English rails, but they imported English workmen to make them. Why? It is very simple; because English rails compete with the great rolling mills, and English muscles compete only with yours.

We do not ask them to keep out German tailors and English laborers. We ask that cloth and rails may be allowed to come in. We ask justice for all, equality before the law for all.

It is a mockery to tell us that these Custom House restrictions have _your_ advantage in view. Tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, millers, masons, blacksmiths, merchants, grocers, jewelers, butchers, bakers and dressmakers, I challenge you to show me a single instance in which restriction profits you, and if you wish, I will point out four where it hurts you.

And after all, just see how much of the appearance of truth this self-denial, which your journals attribute to the monopolists, has.

I believe that we can call that the _natural rate of wages_ which would establish itself _naturally_ if there were freedom of trade. Then, when they tell you that restriction is for your benefit, it is as if they told you that it added a _surplus_ to your _natural_ wages. Now, an _extra natural_ surplus of wages must be taken from somewhere; it does not fall from the moon; it must be taken from those who pay it.

You are then brought to this conclusion, that, according to your pretended friends, the protective system has been created and brought into the world in order that capitalists might be sacrificed to laborers!

Tell me, is that probable?

Where is your place in the Chamber of Peers? When did you sit at the Palais Bourbon? Who has consulted you? Whence came this idea of establishing the protective system?

I hear your answer: _We_ did not establish it. We are neither Peers nor Deputies, nor Counselors of State. The capitalists have done it.

By heavens, they were in a delectable mood that day. What! the capitalists made this law; _they_ established the prohibitive system, so that you laborers should make profits at their expense!

But here is something stranger still.

How is it that your pretended friends who speak to you now of the goodness, generosity and self-denial of capitalists, constantly express regret that you do not enjoy your political rights? From their point of view, what could you do with them? The capitalists have the monopoly of legislation, it is true. Thanks to this monopoly, they have granted themselves the monopoly of iron, cloth, coal, wood and meat, which is also true. But now your pretended friends say that the capitalists, in acting thus, have stripped themselves, without being obliged to do it, to enrich you without your being entitled to it. Surely, if you were electors and deputies, you could not manage your affairs better; you would not even manage them as well.

If the industrial organization which rules us is made in your interest, it is a perfidy to demand political rights for you; for these democrats of a new species can never get out of this dilemma; the law, made by the present law-makers, gives you _more_, or gives you _less_, than your natural wages. If it gives you _less_, they deceive you in inviting you to support it. If it gives you _more_, they deceive you again by calling on you to claim political rights, when those who now exercise them, make sacrifices for you which you, in your honesty, could not yourselves vote.

Workingmen, God forbid that the effect of this article should be to cast in your hearts the germs of irritation against the rich. If mistaken _interests_ still support monopoly, let us not forget that it has its root in _errors_, which are common to capitalists and workmen. Then, far from laboring to excite them against one another, let us strive to bring them together. What must be done to accomplish this? If it is true that the natural social tendencies aid in effacing inequality among men, all we have to do to let those tendencies act is to remove the artificial obstructions which interfere with their operation, and allow the relations of different classes to establish themselves on the principle of _justice_, which, to my mind, is the principle of FREEDOM.

VII.

A CHINESE STORY.

They exclaim against the greed and the selfishness of the age!

Open the thousand books, the thousand papers, the thousand pamphlets, which the Parisian presses throw out every day on the country; is not all this the work of little saints?

What spirit in the painting of the vices of the time! What touching tenderness for the masses! With what liberality they invite the rich to divide with the poor, or the poor to divide with the rich! How many plans of social reform, social improvement, and social organization! Does not even the weakest writer devote himself to the well-being of the laboring classes? All that is required is to advance them a little money to give them time to attend to their humanitarian pursuits.

There is nothing which does not assume to aid in the well-being and moral advancement of the people--nothing, not even the Custom House. You believe that it is a tax machine, like a duty or a toll at the end of a bridge? Not at all. It is an essentially civilizing, fraternizing and equalizing institution. What would you have? It is the fashion. It is necessary to put or affect to put feeling or sentimentality everywhere, even in the cure of all troubles.

But it must be admitted that the Custom House organization has a singular way of going to work to realize these philanthropic aspirations.

It puts on foot an army of collectors, assistant collectors, inspectors, assistant inspectors, cashiers, accountants, receivers, clerks, supernumeraries, tide-waiters, and all this in order to exercise on the industry of the people that negative action which is summed up in the word _to prevent_.

Observe that I do not say _to tax_, but really _to prevent_.

And _to prevent_, not acts reproved by morality, or opposed to public order, but transactions which are innocent, and which they have even admitted are favorable to the peace and harmony of nations.

However, humanity is so flexible and supple that, in one way or another, it always overcomes these attempts at prevention.

It is for the purpose of increasing labor. If people are kept from getting their food from abroad they produce it at home. It is more laborious, but they must live. If they are kept from passing along the valley, they must climb the mountains. It is longer, but the point of destination must be reached.

This is sad, but amusing. When the law has thus created a certain amount of obstacles, and when, to overcome them, humanity has diverted a corresponding amount of labor, you are no longer allowed to call for the reform of the law; for, if you point out the _obstacle_, they show you the labor which it brings into play; and if you say this is not labor created but _diverted_, they answer you as does the _Esprit Public_--"The impoverishing only is certain and immediate; as for the enriching, it is more than problematical."

This recalls to me a Chinese story, which I will tell you.

There were in China two great cities, Tchin and Tchan. A magnificent canal connected them. The Emperor thought fit to have immense masses of rock thrown into it, to make it useless.

Seeing this, Kouang, his first Mandarin, said to him: "Son of Heaven, you make a mistake." To which the Emperor replied: "Kouang, you are foolish."

You understand, of course, that I give but the substance of the dialogue.

At the end of three moons the Celestial Emperor had the Mandarin brought, and said to him: "Kouang, look."

And Kouang, opening his eyes, looked.

He saw at a certain distance from the canal a multitude of men _laboring_. Some excavated, some filled up, some leveled, and some laid pavement, and the Mandarin, who was very learned, thought to himself: They are making a road.

At the end of three more moons, the Emperor, having called Kouang, said to him: "Look."

And Kouang looked.

And he saw that the road was made; and he noticed that at various points, inns were building. A medley of foot passengers, carriages and palanquins went and came, and innumerable Chinese, oppressed by fatigue, carried back and forth heavy burdens from Tchin to Tchan, and from Tchan to Tchin, and Kouang said: It is the destruction of the canal which has given labor to these poor people. But it did not occur to him that this labor was _diverted_ from other employments.

Then more moons passed, and the Emperor said to Kouang: "Look."

And Kouang looked.

He saw that the inns were always full of travelers, and that they being hungry, there had sprung up, near by, the shops of butchers, bakers, charcoal dealers, and bird's nest sellers. Since these worthy men could not go naked, tailors, shoemakers and umbrella and fan dealers had settled there, and as they do not sleep in the open air, even in the Celestial Empire, carpenters, masons and thatchers congregated there. Then came police officers, judges and fakirs; in a word, around each stopping place there grew up a city with its suburbs.

Said the Emperor to Kouang: "What do you think of this?"

And Kouang replied: "I could never have believed that the destruction of a canal could create so much labor for the people." For he did not think that it was not labor created, but _diverted_; that travelers ate when they went by the canal just as much as they did when they were forced to go by the road.

However, to the great astonishment of the Chinese, the Emperor died, and this Son of Heaven was committed to earth.

His successor sent for Kouang, and said to him: "Clean out the canal."

And Kouang said to the new Emperor: "Son of Heaven, you are doing wrong."

And the Emperor replied: "Kouang, you are foolish."

But Kouang persisted and said: "My Lord, what is your object?"

"My object," said the Emperor, "is to facilitate the movement of men and things between Tchin and Tchan; to make transportation less expensive, so that the people may have tea and clothes more cheaply."

But Kouang was in readiness. He had received, the evening before, some numbers of the _Moniteur Industriel_, a Chinese paper. Knowing his lesson by heart, he asked permission to answer, and, having obtained it, after striking his forehead nine times against the floor, he said: "My Lord, you try, by facilitating transportation, to reduce the price of articles of consumption, in order to bring them within the reach of the people; and to do this you begin by making them lose all the labor which was created by the destruction of the canal. Sire, in political economy, absolute cheapness"--

The Emperor. "I believe that you are reciting something."

Kouang. "That is true, and it would be more convenient for me to read."

Having unfolded the _Esprit Public_, he read: "In political economy the absolute cheapness of articles of consumption is but a secondary question. The problem lies in the equilibrium of the price of labor and that of the articles necessary to existence. The abundance of labor is the wealth of nations, and the best economic system is that which furnishes them the greatest possible amount of labor. Do not ask whether it is better to pay four or eight cents cash for a cup of tea, or five or ten shillings for a shirt. These are puerilities unworthy of a serious mind. No one denies your proposition. The question is, whether it is better to pay more for an article, and to have, through the abundance and price of labor, more means of acquiring it, or whether it is better to impoverish the sources of labor, to diminish the mass of national production, and to transport articles of consumption by canals, more cheaply it is true, but, at the same time, to deprive a portion of our laborers of the power to buy them, even at these reduced prices."

The Emperor not being altogether convinced, Kouang said to him: "My Lord, be pleased to wait. I have the _Moniteur Industriel_ to quote from."

But the Emperor said: "I do not need your Chinese newspapers to tell me that to create _obstacles_ is to turn labor in that direction. Yet that is not my mission. Come, let us clear out the canal, and then we will reform the tariff."

Kouang went away plucking out his beard, and crying: Oh, Fo! Oh, Pe! Oh, Le! and all the monosyllabic and circumflex gods of Cathay, take pity on your people; for, there has come to us an Emperor of the _English school_, and I see very plainly that, in a little while, we shall be in want of everything, since it will not be necessary for us to do anything!

VIII.

POST HOC, ERGO PROPTER HOC.

"After this, therefore on account of this." The most common and the most false of arguments.

Real suffering exists in England.

This occurrence follows two others:

First. The reduction of the tariff.

Second. The loss of two consecutive harvests.

To which of these last two circumstances is the first to be attributed?

The protectionists do not fail to exclaim: "It is this cursed freedom which does all the mischief. It promised us wonders and marvels; we welcomed it, and now the manufactories stop and the people suffer."

Commercial freedom distributes, in the most uniform and equitable manner, the fruits which Providence grants to the labor of man. If these fruits are partially destroyed by any misfortune, it none the less looks after the fair distribution of what remains. Men are not as well provided for, of course, but shall we blame freedom or the bad harvest?

Freedom rests on the same principle as insurance. When a loss happens, it divides, among a great many people, and a great number of years, evils which without it would accumulate on one nation and one season. But have they ever thought of saying that fire was no longer a scourge, since there were insurance companies?

In 1842, '43 and '44, the reduction of taxes began in England. At the same time the harvests were very abundant, and we can justly believe that these two circumstances had much to do with the wonderful prosperity shown by that country during that period.

In 1845 the harvest was bad, and in 1846 it was still worse. Breadstuffs grew dear, the people spent their money for food, and used less of other articles. There was a diminished demand for clothing; the manufactories were not so busy, and wages showed a declining tendency. Happily, in the same year, the restrictive barriers were again lowered, and an enormous quantity of food was enabled to reach the English market. If it had not been for this, it is almost certain that a terrible revolution would now fill Great Britain with blood.

Yet they make freedom chargeable with disasters, which it prevents and remedies, at least in part.

A poor leper lived in solitude. No one would touch what he had contaminated. Compelled to do everything for himself, he dragged out a miserable existence. A great physician cured him. Here was our hermit in full possession of the _freedom of exchange_. What a beautiful prospect opened before him! He took pleasure in calculating the advantages, which, thanks to his connection with other men, he could draw from his vigorous arms. Unluckily, he broke both of them. Alas! his fate was most miserable. The journalists of that country, witnessing his misfortune, said: "See to what misery this ability to exchange has reduced him! Really, he was less to be pitied when he lived alone."

"What!" said the physician; "do not you consider his two broken arms? Do not they form a part of his sad destiny? His misfortune is to have lost his arms, and not to have been cured of leprosy. He would be much more to be pitied if he was both maimed and a leper."

_Post hoc, ergo propter hoc_; do not trust this sophism.

IX.

ROBBERY BY BOUNTIES.

They find my little book of _Sophisms_ too theoretical, scientific, and metaphysical. Very well. Let us try a trivial, commonplace, and, if necessary, coarse style. Convinced that the public is _duped_ in the matter of protection, I have desired to prove it. But the public wishes to be shouted at. Then let us cry out:

"Midas, King Midas, has asses' ears!"

An outburst of frankness often accomplishes more than the politest circumlocution.

To tell the truth, my good people, _they are robbing you_. It is harsh, but it is true.

The words _robbery_, _to rob_, _robber_, will seem in very bad taste to many people. I say to them as Harpagon did to Elise, Is it the _word_ or the _thing_ that alarms you?

Whoever has fraudulently taken that which does not belong to him, is guilty of robbery. (_Penal Code, Art. 379._)

_To rob_: To take furtively, or by force. (_Dictionary of the Academy._)

_Robber_: He who takes more than his due. (_The same._)

Now, does not the monopolist, who, by a law of his own making, obliges me to pay him twenty francs for an article which I can get elsewhere for fifteen, take from me fraudulently five francs, which belong to me?

Does he not take it furtively, or by force?

Does he not require of me more than his due?

He carries off, he takes, he demands, they will say, but not _furtively_ or _by force_, which are the characteristics of robbery.

When our tax levy is burdened with five francs for the bounty which this monopolist carries off, takes, or demands, what can be more _furtive_, since so few of us suspect it? And for those who are not deceived, what can be more _forced_, since, at the first refusal to pay, the officer is at our doors?

Still, let the monopolists reassure themselves. These robberies, by means of bounties or tariffs, even if they do violate equity as much as robbery, do not break the law; on the contrary, they are perpetrated through the law. They are all the worse for this, but they have nothing to do with _criminal justice_.

Besides, willy-nilly, we are all _robbers_ and _robbed_ in the business. Though the author of this book cries _stop thief_, when he buys, others can cry the same after him, when he sells. If he differs from many of his countrymen, it is only in this: he knows that he loses by this game more than he gains, and they do not; if they did know it, the game would soon cease.

Nor do I boast of having first given this thing its true name. More than sixty years ago, Adam Smith said:

"When manufacturers meet it may be expected that a conspiracy will be planned against the pockets of the public." Can we be astonished at this when the public pay no attention to it?

An assembly of manufacturers deliberate officially under the name of _Industrial League_. What goes on there, and what is decided upon?

I give a very brief summary of the proceedings of one meeting:

"A Ship-builder. Our mercantile marine is at the last gasp (warlike digression). It is not surprising. I cannot build without iron. I can get it at ten francs _in the world's market_; but, through the law, the managers of the French forges compel me to pay them fifteen francs. Thus they take five francs from me. I ask freedom to buy where I please.

"An Iron Manufacturer. _In the world's market_ I can obtain transportation for twenty francs. The ship-builder, through the law, requires thirty. Thus he _takes_ ten francs from me. He plunders me; I plunder him. It is all for the best.

"A Public Official. The conclusion of the ship-builder's argument is highly imprudent. Oh, let us cultivate the touching union which makes our strength; if we relax an iota from the theory of protection, good-bye to the whole of it.

"The Ship-builder. But, for us, protection is a failure. I repeat that the shipping is nearly gone.

"A Sailor. Very well, let us raise the discriminating duties against goods imported in foreign bottoms, and let the ship-builder, who now takes thirty francs from the public, hereafter take forty.

"A Minister. The government will push to its extreme limits the admirable mechanism of these discriminating duties, but I fear that it will not answer the purpose.

"A Government Employe. You seem to be bothered about a very little matter. Is there any safety but in the bounty? If the consumer is willing, the tax-payer is no less so. Let us pile on the taxes, and let the ship-builder be satisfied. I propose a bounty of five francs, to be taken from the public revenues, to be paid to the ship-builder for each quintal of iron that he uses.

"Several Voices. Seconded, seconded.

"A Farmer. I want a bounty of three francs for each bushel of wheat.

"A Weaver. And I two francs for each yard of cloth.

"The Presiding Officer. That is understood. Our meeting will have originated the system of _drawbacks_, and it will be its eternal glory. What branch of manufacturing can lose hereafter, when we have two so simple means of turning losses into gains--the _tariff_ and _drawbacks_. The meeting is adjourned."

Some supernatural vision must have shown me in a dream the coming appearance of the _bounty_ (who knows if I did not suggest the thought to M. Dupin?), when some months ago I wrote the following words:

"It seems evident to me that protection, without changing its nature or effects, might take the form of a direct tax levied by the State, and distributed in indemnifying bounties to privileged manufacturers."

And after having compared protective duties with the bounty:

"I frankly avow my preference for the latter system; it seems to me more just, more economical, and more truthful. More just, because if society wishes to give gratuities to some of its members, all should contribute; more economical, because it would save much of the expense of collection, and do away with many obstacles; and, finally, more truthful, because the public could see the operation plainly, and would know what was done."

Since the opportunity is so kindly offered us, let us study this _robbery by bounties_. What is said of it will also apply to _robbery by tariff_, and as it is a little better disguised, the direct will enable us to understand the indirect, cheating. Thus the mind proceeds from the simple to the complex.

But is there no simpler variety of robbery? Certainly, there is _highway robbery_, and all it needs is to be legalized, or, as they say now-a-days, _organized_.

I once read the following in somebody's travels:

"When we reached the Kingdom of A---- we found all industrial pursuits suffering. Agriculture groaned, manufactures complained, commerce murmured, the navy growled, and the government did not know whom to listen to. At first it thought of taxing all the discontented, and of dividing among them the proceeds of these taxes after having taken its share; which would have been like the method of managing lotteries in our dear Spain. There are a thousand of you; the State takes a dollar from each one, cunningly steals two hundred and fifty, and then divides up seven hundred and fifty, in greater or smaller sums, among the players. The worthy Hidalgo, who has received three-quarters of a dollar, forgetting that he has spent a whole one, is wild with joy, and runs to spend his shillings at the tavern. Something like this once happened in France. Barbarous as the country of A---- was, however, the government did not trust the stupidity of the inhabitants enough to make them accept such singular protection, and hence this was what it devised:

"The country was intersected with roads. The government had them measured, exactly, and then said to the farmers, 'All that you can steal from travelers between these boundaries is yours; let it serve you as a _bounty_, a protection, and an encouragement.' It afterwards assigned to each manufacturer and each ship-builder, a bit of road to work up, according to this formula:

Dono tibi et concedo, Virtutem et puissantiam, Robbandi, Pillageandi, Stealandi, Cheatandi, Et Swindlandi, Impune per totam istam, Viam.

"Now it has come to pass that the natives of the Kingdom of A---- are so familiarized with this regime, and so accustomed to think only of what they steal, and not of what is stolen from them, so habituated to look at pillage but from the pillager's point of view, that they consider the sum of all these private robberies as _national profit_, and refuse to give up a system of protection without which, they say, no branch of industry can live."

Do you say, it is not possible that an entire nation could see an _increase of riches_ where the inhabitants plundered one another?

Why not? We have this belief in France, and every day we organize and practice _reciprocal robbery_ under the name of bounties and protective tariffs.

Let us exaggerate nothing, however; let us concede that as far as the _mode of collection_, and the collateral circumstances, are concerned, the system in the Kingdom of A---- may be worse than ours; but let us say, also, that as far as principles and necessary results are concerned, there is not an atom of difference between these two kinds of robbery legally organized to eke out the profits of industry.

Observe, that if _highway robbery_ presents some difficulties of execution, it has also certain advantages which are not found in the _tariff robbery_.

For instance: An equitable division can be made between all the plunderers. It is not thus with tariffs. They are by nature impotent to protect certain classes of society, such as artizans, merchants, literary men, lawyers, soldiers, etc., etc.

It is true that _bounty robbery_ allows of infinite subdivisions, and in this respect does not yield in perfection to _highway robbery_, but on the other hand it often leads to results which are so odd and foolish, that the natives of the Kingdom of A---- may laugh at it with great reason.

That which the plundered party loses in highway robbery is gained by the robber. The article stolen remains, at least, in the country. But under the dominion of _bounty robbery_, that which the duty takes from the French is often given to the Chinese, the Hottentots, Caffirs, and Algonquins, as follows:

A piece of cloth is worth a _hundred francs_ at Bordeaux. It is impossible to sell it below that without loss. It is impossible to sell it for more than that, for the _competition_ between merchants forbids. Under these circumstances, if a Frenchman desires to buy the cloth, he must pay a _hundred francs_, or do without it. But if an Englishman comes, the government interferes, and says to the merchant: "Sell your cloth, and I will make the tax-payers give you _twenty francs_ (through the operation of the _drawback_)." The merchant, who wants, and can get, but one hundred francs for his cloth, delivers it to the Englishman for eighty francs. This sum added to the twenty francs, the product of the _bounty robbery_, makes up his price. It is then precisely as if the tax-payers had given twenty francs to the Englishman, on condition that he would buy French cloth at twenty francs below the cost of manufacture,--at twenty francs below what it costs us. Then bounty robbery has this peculiarity, that the _robbed_ are inhabitants of the country which allows it, and the _robbers_ are spread over the face of the globe.

It is truly wonderful that they should persist in holding this proposition to have been demonstrated: _All that the individual robs from the mass is a general gain._ Perpetual motion, the philosopher's stone, and the squaring of the circle, are sunk in oblivion; but the theory of _progress by robbery_ is still held in honor. _A priori_, however, one might have supposed that it would be the shortest lived of all these follies.

Some say to us: You are, then, partisans of the _let alone_ policy? economists of the superannuated school of the Smiths and the Says? You do not desire the _organization of labor_? Why, gentlemen, organize labor as much as you please, but we will watch to see that you do not organize _robbery_.

Others say, _bounties_, _tariffs_, all these things may have been overdone. We must use, without abusing them. A wise liberty, combined with moderate protection, is what _serious_ and practical men claim. Let us beware of _absolute principles_. This is exactly what they said in the Kingdom of A----, according to the Spanish traveler. "Highway robbery," said the wise men, "is neither good nor bad in itself; it depends on circumstances. Perhaps too much freedom of pillage has been given; perhaps not enough. Let us see; let us examine; let us balance the accounts of each robber. To those who do not make enough, we will give a little more road to work up. As for those who make too much, we will reduce their share."

Those who spoke thus acquired great fame for moderation, prudence, and wisdom. They never failed to attain the highest offices of the State.

As for those who said, "Let us repress injustice altogether; let us allow neither _robbery_, nor _half robbery_, nor _quarter robbery_," they passed for theorists, dreamers, bores--always parroting the same thing. The people also found their reasoning too easy to understand. How can that be true which is so very simple?

X.

THE TAX COLLECTOR.

JACQUES BONHOMME, Vine-grower. M. LASOUCHE, Tax Collector.

L. You have secured twenty hogsheads of wine?

J. Yes, with much care and sweat.

--Be so kind as to give me six of the best.

--Six hogsheads out of twenty! Good heavens! You want to ruin me. If you please, what do you propose to do with them?

--The first will be given to the creditors of the State. When one has debts, the least one can do is to pay the interest.

--Where did the principal go?

--It would take too long to tell. A part of it was once upon a time put in cartridges, which made the finest smoke in the world; with another part men were hired who were maimed on foreign ground, after having ravaged it. Then, when these expenses brought the enemy upon us, he would not leave without taking money with him, which we had to borrow.

--What good do I get from it now?

--The satisfaction of saying:

How proud am I of being a Frenchman When I behold the triumphal column,

And the humiliation of leaving to my heirs an estate burdened with a perpetual rent. Still one must pay what he owes, no matter how foolish a use may have been made of the money. That accounts for one hogshead, but the five others?

--One is required to pay for public services, the civil list, the judges who decree the restitution of the bit of land your neighbor wants to appropriate, the policemen who drive away robbers while you sleep, the men who repair the road leading to the city, the priest who baptizes your children, the teacher who educates them, and myself, your servant, who does not work for nothing.

--Certainly, service for service. There is nothing to say against that. I had rather make a bargain directly with my priest, but I do not insist on this. So much for the second hogshead. This leaves four, however.

--Do you believe that two would be too much for your share of the army and navy expenses?

--Alas, it is little compared with what they have cost me already. They have taken from me two sons whom I tenderly loved.

--The balance of power in Europe must be maintained.

--Well, my God! the balance of power would be the same if these forces were every where reduced a half or three-quarters. We should save our children and our money. All that is needed is to understand it.

--Yes, but they do not understand it.

--That is what amazes me. For every one suffers from it.

--You wished it so, Jacques Bonhomme.

--You are jesting, my dear Mr. Collector; have I a vote in the legislative halls?

--Whom did you support for Deputy?

--An excellent General, who will be a Marshal presently, if God spares his life.

--On what does this excellent General live?

--My hogsheads, I presume.

--And what would happen were he to vote for a reduction of the army and your military establishment?

--Instead of being made a Marshal, he would be retired.

--Do you now understand that yourself?

--Let us pass to the fifth hogshead, I beg of you.

--That goes to Algeria.

--To Algeria! And they tell me that all Mussulmans are temperance people, the barbarians! What services will they give me in exchange for this ambrosia, which has cost me so much labor?

--None at all; it is not intended for Mussulmans, but for good Christians who spend their days in Barbary.

--What can they do there which will be of service to me?

--Undertake and undergo raids; kill and be killed; get dysenteries and come home to be doctored; dig harbors, make roads, build villages and people them with Maltese, Italians, Spaniards and Swiss, who live on your hogshead, and many others which I shall come in the future to ask of you.

--Mercy! This is too much, and I flatly refuse you my hogshead. They would send a wine-grower who did such foolish acts to the mad-house. Make roads in the Atlas Mountains, when I cannot get out of my own house! Dig ports in Barbary when the Garonne fills up with sand every day! Take from me my children whom I love, in order to torment Arabs! Make me pay for the houses, grain and horses, given to the Greeks and Maltese, when there are so many poor around us!

--The poor! Exactly; they free the country of this _superfluity_.

--Oh, yes, by sending after them to Algeria the money which would enable them to live here.

--But then you lay the basis of a _great empire_, you carry _civilization_ into Africa, and you crown your country with immortal glory.

--You are a poet, my dear Collector; but I am a vine-grower, and I refuse.

--Think that in a few thousand years you will get back your advances a hundred-fold. All those who have charge of the enterprise say so.

--At first they asked me for one barrel of wine to meet expenses, then two, then three, and now I am taxed a hogshead. I persist in my refusal.

--It is too late. Your _representative_ has agreed that you shall give a hogshead.

--That is but too true. Cursed weakness! It seems to me that I was unwise in making him my agent; for what is there in common between the General of an army and the poor owner of a vineyard?

--You see well that there is something in common between you, were it only the wine you make, and which, in your name, he votes to himself.

--Laugh at me; I deserve it, my dear Collector. But be reasonable, and leave me the sixth hogshead at least. The interest of the debt is paid, the civil list provided for, the public service assured, and the war in Africa perpetuated. What more do you want?

--The bargain is not made with me. You must tell your desires to the General. _He_ has disposed of your vintage.

--But what do you propose to do with this poor hogshead, the flower of my flock? Come, taste this wine. How mellow, delicate, velvety it is!

--Excellent, delicious! It will suit D----, the cloth manufacturer, admirably.

--D----, the manufacturer! What do you mean?

--That he will make a good bargain out of it.

--How? What is that? I do not understand you.

--Do you not know that D---- has started a magnificent establishment very useful to the country, but which loses much money every year?

--I am very sorry. But what can I do to help him?

--The Legislature saw that if things went on thus, D---- would either have to do a better business or close his manufactory.

--But what connection is there between D----'s bad speculations and my hogshead?

--The Chamber thought that if it gave D---- a little wine from your cellar, a few bushels of grain taken from your neighbors, and a few pennies cut from the wages of the workingmen, his losses would change into profits.

--This recipe is as infallible as it is ingenious. But it is shockingly unjust. What! is D---- to cover his losses by taking my wine?

--Not exactly the wine, but the proceeds of it; That is what we call a _bounty for encouragement_. But you look amazed! Do not you see what a great service you render to the country?

--You mean to say to D----?

--To the country. D---- asserts that, thanks to this arrangement, his business prospers, and thus it is, says he, that the country grows rich. That is what he recently said in the Chamber of which he is a member.

--It is a damnable fraud! What! A fool goes into a silly enterprise, he spends his money, and if he extorts from me wine or grain enough to make good his losses, and even to make him a profit, he calls it a general gain!

--Your _representative_ having come to that conclusion, all you have to do is to give me the six hogsheads of wine, and sell the fourteen that I leave you for as much as possible.

--That is my business.

--For, you see, it would be very annoying if you did not get a good price for them.

--I will think of it.

--For there are many things which the money you receive must procure.

--I know it, sir. I know it.

--In the first place, if you buy iron to renew your spades and plowshares, a law declares that you must pay the iron-master twice what it was worth.

--Ah, yes; does not the same thing happen in the Black Forest?

--Then, if you need oil, meat, cloth, coal, wool and sugar, each one by the law will cost you twice what it is worth.

--But this is horrible, frightful, abominable.

--What is the use of these hard words? You yourself, through your _authorized_ agent----

--Leave me alone with my authorized agent. I made a very strange disposition of my vote, it is true. But they shall deceive me no more, and I will be represented by some good and honest countryman.

--Bah, you will re-elect the worthy General.

--I? I re-elect the General to give away my wine to Africans and manufacturers?

--You will re-elect him, I say.

--That is a little _too much_. I will not re-elect him, if I do not want to.

--But you will want to, and you will re-elect him.

--Let him come here and try. He will see who he will have to settle with.

--We shall see. Good bye. I take away your six hogsheads, and will proceed to divide them as the General has directed.

XI.

UTOPIAN IDEAS.

If I were His Majesty's Minister!

--Well, what would you do?

--I should begin by--by--upon my word, by being very much embarrassed. For I should be Minister only because I had the majority, and I should have that only because I had made it, and I could only have made it, honestly at least, by governing according to its ideas. So if I undertake to carry out my ideas and to run counter to its ideas, I shall not have the majority, and if I do not, I cannot be His Majesty's Minister.

--Just imagine that you are so, and that consequently the majority is not opposed to you, what would you do?

--I would look to see on which side _justice_ is.

--And then?

--I would seek to find where _utility_ was.

--What next?

--I would see whether they agreed, or were in conflict with one another.

--And if you found they did not agree?

--I would say to the King, take back your portfolio.

--But suppose you see that _justice_ and _utility_ are one?

--Then I will go straight ahead.

--Very well, but to realize utility by justice, a third thing is necessary.

--What is that?

--Possibility.

--You conceded that.

--When?

--Just now.

--How?

--By giving me the majority.

--It seems to me that the concession was rather hazardous, for it implies that the majority clearly sees what is just, clearly sees what is useful, and clearly sees that these things are in perfect accord.

--And if it sees this clearly, the good will, so to speak, do itself.

--This is the point to which you are constantly bringing me--to see a possibility of reform only in the progress of the general intelligence.

--By this progress all reform is infallible.

--Certainly. But this preliminary progress takes time. Let us suppose it accomplished. What will you do? for I am eager to see you at work, doing, practicing.

--I should begin by reducing letter postage to ten centimes.

--I heard you speak of five, once.

--Yes; but as I have other reforms in view, I must move with prudence, to avoid a deficit in the revenues.

--Prudence? This leaves you with a deficit of thirty millions.

--Then I will reduce the salt tax to ten francs.

--Good! Here is another deficit of thirty millions. Doubtless you have invented some new tax.

--Heaven forbid! Besides, I do not flatter myself that I have an inventive mind.

--It is necessary, however. Oh, I have it. What was I thinking of? You are simply going to diminish the expense. I did not think of that.

--You are not the only one. I shall come to that; but I do not count on it at present.

--What! you diminish the receipts, without lessening expenses, and you avoid a deficit?

--Yes, by diminishing other taxes at the same time.

(Here the interlocutor, putting the index finger of his right hand on his forehead, shook his head, which may be translated thus: He is rambling terribly.)

--Well, upon my word, this is ingenious. I pay the Treasury a hundred francs; you relieve me of five francs on salt, five on postage; and in order that the Treasury may nevertheless receive one hundred francs, you relieve me of ten on some other tax?

--Precisely; you understand me.

--How can it be true? I am not even sure that I have heard you.

--I repeat that I balance one remission of taxes by another.

--I have a little time to give, and I should like to hear you expound this paradox.

--Here is the whole mystery: I know a tax which costs you twenty francs, not a sou of which gets to the Treasury. I relieve you of half of it, and make the other half take its proper destination.

--You are an unequaled financier. There is but one difficulty. What tax, if you please, do I pay, which does not go to the Treasury?

--How much does this suit of clothes cost you?

--A hundred francs.

--How much would it have cost you if you had gotten the cloth from Belgium?

--Eighty francs.

--Then why did you not get it there?

--Because it is prohibited.

--Why?

--So that the suit may cost me one hundred francs instead of eighty.

--This denial, then, costs you twenty francs?

--Undoubtedly.

--And where do these twenty francs go?

--Where do they go? To the manufacturer of the cloth.

--Well, give me ten francs for the Treasury, and I will remove the restriction, and you will gain ten francs.

--Oh, I begin to see. The treasury account shows that it loses five francs on postage and five on salt, and gains ten on cloth. That is even.

--Your account is--you gain five francs on salt, five on postage, and ten on cloth.

--Total, twenty francs. This is satisfactory enough. But what becomes of the poor cloth manufacturer?

--Oh, I have thought of him. I have secured compensation for him by means of the tax reductions which are so profitable to the Treasury. What I have done for you as regards cloth, I do for him in regard to wool, coal, machinery, etc., so that he can lower his price without loss.

--But are you sure that will be an equivalent?

--The balance will be in his favor. The twenty francs that you gain on the cloth will be multiplied by those which I will save for you on grain, meat, fuel, etc. This will amount to a large sum, and each one of your 35,000,000 fellow-citizens will save the same way. There will be enough to consume the cloths of both Belgium and France. The nation will be better clothed; that is all.

--I will think on this, for it is somewhat confused in my head.

--After all, as far as clothes go, the main thing is to be clothed. Your limbs are your own, and not the manufacturer's. To shield them from cold is your business and not his. If the law takes sides for him against you, the law is unjust, and you allowed me to reason on the hypothesis that what is unjust is hurtful.

--Perhaps I admitted too much; but go on and explain your financial plan.

--Then I will make a tariff.

--In two folio volumes?

--No, in two sections.

--Then they will no longer say that this famous axiom "No one is supposed to be ignorant of the law" is a fiction. Let us see your tariff.

--Here it is: Section First. All imports shall pay an _ad valorem_ tax of five per cent.

--Even _raw materials_?

--Unless they are _worthless_.

--But they all have value, much or little.

--Then they will pay much or little.

--How can our manufactories compete with foreign ones which have these _raw materials_ free?

--The expenses of the State being certain, if we close this source of revenue, we must open another; this will not diminish the relative inferiority of our manufactories, and there will be one bureau more to organize and pay.

--That is true; I reasoned as if the tax was to be annulled, not changed. I will reflect on this. What is your second section?

--Section Second. All exports shall pay an _ad valorem_ tax of five per cent.

--Merciful Heavens, Mr. Utopist! You will certainly be stoned, and, if it comes to that, I will throw the first one.

--We agreed that the majority were enlightened.

--Enlightened! Can you claim that an export duty is not onerous?

--All taxes are onerous, but this is less so than others.

--The carnival justifies many eccentricities. Be so kind as to make this new paradox appear specious, if you can.

--How much did you pay for this wine?

--A franc per quart.

--How much would you have paid outside the city gates?

--Fifty centimes.

--Why this difference?

--Ask the _octroi_[14] which added ten sous to it.

--Who established the _octroi_?

--The municipality of Paris, in order to pave and light the streets.

--This is, then, an import duty. But if the neighboring country districts had established this _octroi_ for their profit, what would happen?

--I should none the less pay a franc for wine worth only fifty centimes, and the other fifty centimes would pave and light Montmartre and the Batignolles.

--So that really it is the consumer who pays the tax?

--There is no doubt of that.

--Then by taxing exports you make foreigners help pay your expenses.[15]

--I find you at fault, this is not _justice_.

--Why not? In order to secure the production of any one thing, there must be instruction, security, roads, and other costly things in the country. Why shall not the foreigner who is to consume this product, bear the charges its production necessitates?

--This is contrary to received ideas.

--Not the least in the world. The last purchaser must repay all the direct and indirect expenses of production.

--No matter what you say, it is plain that such a measure would paralyze commerce; and cut off all exports.

--That is an illusion. If you were to pay this tax besides all the others, you would be right. But, if the hundred millions raised in this way, relieve you of other taxes to the same amount, you go into foreign markets with all your advantages, and even with more, if this duty has occasioned less embarrassment and expense.

--I will reflect on this. So now the salt, postage and customs are regulated. Is all ended there?

--I am just beginning.

--Pray, initiate me in your Utopian ideas.

--I have lost sixty millions on salt and postage. I shall regain them through the customs; which also gives me something more precious.

--What, pray?

--International relations founded on justice, and a probability of peace which is equivalent to a certainty. I will disband the army.

--The whole army?

--Except special branches, which will be voluntarily recruited, like all other professions. You see, conscription is abolished.

--Sir, you should say recruiting.

--Ah, I forgot, I cannot help admiring the ease with which, in certain countries, the most unpopular things are perpetuated by giving them other names.

--Like _consolidated duties_, which have become _indirect contributions_.

--And the _gendarmes_, who have taken the name of _municipal guards_.

--In short, trusting to Utopia, you disarm the country.

--I said that I would muster out the army, not that I would disarm the country. I intend, on the contrary, to give it invincible power.

--How do you harmonize this mass of contradictions?

--I call all the citizens to service.

--Is it worth while to relieve a portion from service in order to call out everybody?

--You did not make me Minister in order that I should leave things as they are. Thus, on my advent to power, I shall say with Richelieu, "the State maxims are changed." My first maxim, the one which will serve as a basis for my administration, is this: Every citizen must know two things--How to earn his own living, and defend his country.

--It seems to me, at the first glance, that there is a spark of good sense in this.

--Consequently, I base the national defense on a law consisting of two sections.

Section First. Every able-bodied citizen, without exception, shall be under arms for four years, from his twenty-first to his twenty-fifth year, in order to receive military instruction.--

--This is pretty economy! You send home four hundred thousand soldiers and call out ten millions.

--Listen to my second section:

SEC. 2. _Unless_ he proves, at the age of twenty-one, that he knows the school of the soldier perfectly.

--I did not expect this turn. It is certain that to avoid four years' service, there will be a great emulation among our youth, to learn _by the right flank_ and _double quick, march_. The idea is odd.

--It is better than that. For without grieving families and offending equality, does it not assure the country, in a simple and inexpensive manner, of ten million defenders, capable of defying a coalition of all the standing armies of the globe?

--Truly, if I were not on my guard, I should end in getting interested in your fancies.

_The Utopist, getting excited:_ Thank Heaven, my estimates are relieved of a hundred millions! I suppress the _octroi_. I refund indirect contributions. I--

_Getting more and more excited:_ I will proclaim religious freedom and free instruction. There shall be new resources. I will buy the railroads, pay off the public debt, and starve out the stock gamblers.

--My dear Utopist!

--Freed from too numerous cares, I will concentrate all the resources of the government on the repression of fraud, the administration of prompt and even-handed justice. I--

--My dear Utopist, you attempt too much. The nation will not follow you.

--You gave me the majority.

--I take it back.

--Very well; then I am no longer Minister; but my plans remain what they are--Utopian ideas.

[Footnote 14: The entrance duty levied at the gates of French towns.]

[Footnote 15: I understand M. Bastiat to mean merely that export duties are not necessarily more onerous than import duties. The statement that all taxes are paid by the consumer, is liable to important modifications. An export duty may be laid in such way, and on such articles, that it will be paid wholly by the foreign consumer, without loss to the producing country, but it is only when the additional cost does not lessen the demand, or induce the foreigner to produce the same article. _Translator._]

XII.

SALT, POSTAGE, AND CUSTOMS.

[This chapter is an amusing dialogue relating principally to English Postal Reform. Being inapplicable to any condition of things existing in the United States, it is omitted.--_Translator._]

XIII.

THE THREE ALDERMEN.

A DEMONSTRATION IN FOUR TABLEAUX.

_First Tableau._

[The scene is in the hotel of Alderman Pierre. The window looks out on a fine park; three persons are seated near a good fire.]

_Pierre._ Upon my word, a fire is very comfortable when the stomach is satisfied. It must be agreed that it is a pleasant thing. But, alas! how many worthy people like the King of Yvetot,

"Blow on their fingers for want of wood."

Unhappy creatures, Heaven inspires me with a charitable thought. You see these fine trees. I will cut them down and distribute the wood among the poor.

_Paul and Jean._ What! gratis?

_Pierre._ Not exactly. There would soon be an end of my good works if I scattered my property thus. I think that my park is worth twenty thousand livres; by cutting it down I shall get much more for it.

_Paul._ A mistake. Your wood as it stands is worth more than that in the neighboring forests, for it renders services which that cannot give. When cut down it will, like that, be good for burning only, and will not be worth a sou more per cord.

_Pierre._ Oh! Mr. Theorist, you forget that I am a practical man. I supposed that my reputation as a speculator was well enough established to put me above any charge of stupidity. Do you think that I shall amuse myself by selling my wood at the price of other wood?

_Paul._ You must.

_Pierre._ Simpleton!--Suppose I prevent the bringing of any wood to Paris?

_Paul._ That will alter the case. But how will you manage it?

_Pierre._ This is the whole secret. You know that wood pays an entrance duty of ten sous per cord. To-morrow I will induce the Aldermen to raise this duty to one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred livres, so high as to keep out every fagot. Well, do you see? If the good people do not want to die of cold, they must come to my wood-yard. They will fight for my wood; I shall sell it for its weight in gold, and this well-regulated deed of charity will enable me to do others of the same sort.

_Paul._ This is a fine idea, and it suggests an equally good one to me.

_Jean._ Well, what is it?

_Paul._ How do you find this Normandy butter?

_Jean._ Excellent.

_Paul_. Well, it seemed passable a moment ago. But do you not think it is a little strong? I want to make a better article at Paris. I will have four or five hundred cows, and I will distribute milk, butter and cheese to the poor people.

_Pierre and Jean._ What! as a charity?

_Paul._ Bah, let us always put charity in the foreground. It is such a fine thing that its counterfeit even is an excellent card. I will give my butter to the people and they will give me their money. Is that called selling?

_Jean._ No, according to the _Bourgeois Gentilhomme_; but call it what you please, you ruin yourself. Can Paris compete with Normandy in raising cows?

_Paul._ I shall save the cost of transportation.

_Jean._ Very well; but the Normans are able to _beat_ the Parisians, even if they do have to pay for transportation.

_Paul._ Do you call it _beating_ any one to furnish him things at a low price?

_Jean._ It is the time-honored word. You will always be beaten.

_Paul._ Yes; like Don Quixote. The blows will fall on Sancho. Jean, my friend, you forgot the _octroi_.

_Jean._ The _octroi_! What has that to do with your butter?

_Paul._ To-morrow I will demand _protection_, and I will induce the Council to prohibit the butter of Normandy and Brittany. The people must do without butter, or buy mine, and that at my price, too.

_Jean._ Gentlemen, your philanthropy carries me along with it. "In time one learns to howl with the wolves." It shall not be said that I am an unworthy Alderman. Pierre, this sparkling fire has illumined your soul; Paul, this butter has given an impulse to your understanding, and I perceive that this piece of salt pork stimulates my intelligence. To-morrow I will vote myself, and make others vote, for the exclusion of hogs, dead or alive; this done, I will build superb stock-yards in the middle of Paris "for the unclean animal forbidden to the Hebrews." I will become swineherd and pork-seller, and we shall see how the good people of Lutetia can help getting their food at my shop.

_Pierre._ Gently, my friends; if you thus run up the price of butter and salt meat, you diminish the profit which I expected from my wood.

_Paul._ Nor is my speculation so wonderful, if you ruin me with your fuel and your hams.

_Jean._ What shall I gain by making you pay an extra price for my sausages, if you overcharge me for pastry and fagots?

_Pierre._ Do you not see that we are getting into a quarrel? Let us rather unite. Let us make _reciprocal concessions_. Besides, it is not well to listen only to miserable self-interest. _Humanity_ is concerned, and must not the warming of the people be secured?

_Paul._ That it is true, and people must have butter to spread on their bread.

_Jean._ Certainly. And they must have a bit of pork for their soup.

_All Together._ Forward, charity! Long live philanthropy! To-morrow, to-morrow, we will take the octroi by assault.

_Pierre._ Ah, I forgot. One word more which is important. My friends, in this selfish age people are suspicious, and the purest intentions are often misconstrued. Paul, you plead for _wood_; Jean, defend _butter_; and I will devote myself to domestic _swine_. It is best to head off invidious suspicions. _Paul and Jean_ (leaving). Upon my word, what a clever fellow!

SECOND TABLEAU.

_The Common Council._

_Paul._ My dear colleagues, every day great quantities of wood come into Paris, and draw out of it large sums of money. If this goes on, we shall all be ruined in three years, and what will become of the poor people? [Bravo.] Let us prohibit foreign wood. I am not speaking for myself, for you could not make a tooth-pick out of all the wood I own. I am, therefore, perfectly disinterested. [Good, good.] But here is Pierre, who has a park, and he will keep our fellow-citizens from freezing. They will no longer be in a state of _dependence_ on the charcoal dealers of the Yonne. Have you ever thought of the risk we run of dying of cold, if the proprietors of these foreign forests should take it into their heads not to bring any more wood to Paris? Let us, therefore, prohibit wood. By this means we shall stop the drain of specie, we shall start the wood-chopping business, and open to our workmen a new source of labor and wages. [Applause.]

_Jean._ I second the motion of the Honorable member--a proposition so philanthropic and so disinterested, as he remarked. It is time that we should stop this intolerable _freedom of entry_, which has brought a ruinous competition upon our market, so that there is not a province tolerably well situated for producing some one article which does not inundate us with it, sell it to us at a low price, and depress Parisian labor. It is the business of the State to _equalize the conditions of production_ by wisely graduated duties; to allow the entrance from without of whatever is dearer there than at Paris, and thus relieve us from an unequal _contest_. How, for instance, can they expect us to make milk and butter in Paris as against Brittany and Normandy? Think, gentlemen; the Bretons have land cheaper, feed more convenient, and labor more abundant. Does not common sense say that the conditions must be equalized by a protecting duty? I ask that the duty on milk and butter be raised to a thousand per cent., and more, if necessary. The breakfasts of the people will cost a little more, but wages will rise! We shall see the building of stables and dairies, a good trade in churns, and the foundation of new industries laid. I, myself, have not the least interest in this plan. I am not a cowherd, nor do I desire to become one. I am moved by the single desire to be useful to the laboring classes. [Expressions of approbation.]

_Pierre._ I am happy to see in this assembly statesmen so pure, enlightened, and devoted to the interests of the people. [Cheers.] I admire their self-denial, and cannot do better than follow such noble examples. I support their motion, and I also make one to exclude Poitou hogs. It is not that I want to become a swineherd or pork dealer, in which case my conscience would forbid my making this motion; but is it not shameful, gentlemen, that we should be paying tribute to these poor Poitevin peasants who have the audacity to come into our own market, take possession of a business that we could have carried on ourselves, and, after having inundated us with sausages and hams, take from us, perhaps, nothing in return? Anyhow, who says that the balance of trade is not in their favor, and that we are not compelled to pay them a tribute in money? Is it not plain that if this Poitevin industry were planted in Paris, it would open new fields to Parisian labor? Moreover, gentlemen, is it not very likely, as Mr. Lestiboudois said, that we buy these Poitevin salted meats, not with our income, but our capital? Where will this land us? Let us not allow greedy, avaricious and perfidious rivals to come here and sell things cheaply, thus making it impossible for us to produce them ourselves. Aldermen, Paris has given us its confidence, and we must show ourselves worthy of it. The people are without labor, and we must create it, and if salted meat costs them a little more, we shall, at least, have the consciousness that we have sacrificed our interests to those of the masses, as every good Alderman ought to do. [Thunders of applause.]

_A Voice._ I hear much said of the poor people; but, under the pretext of giving them labor, you begin by taking away from them that which is worth more than labor itself--wood, butter, and soup.

_Pierre, Paul and Jean._ Vote, vote. Away with your theorists and generalizers! Let us vote. [The three motions are carried.]

THIRD TABLEAU.

_Twenty Years After._

_Son._ Father, decide; we must leave Paris. Work is slack, and everything is dear.

_Father._ My son, you do not know how hard it is to leave the place where we were born.

_Son._ The worst of all things is to die there of misery.

_Father._ Go, my son, and seek a more hospitable country. For myself, I will not leave the grave where your mother, sisters and brothers lie. I am eager to find, at last, near them, the rest which is denied me in this city of desolation.

_Son._ Courage, dear father, we will find work elsewhere--in Poitou, Normandy or Brittany. They say that the industry of Paris is gradually transferring itself to those distant countries.

_Father._ It is very natural. Unable to sell us wood and food, they stopped producing more than they needed for themselves, and they devoted their spare time and capital to making those things which we formerly furnished them.

_Son._ Just as at Paris, they quit making handsome furniture and fine clothes, in order to plant trees, and raise hogs and cows. Though quite young, I have seen vast storehouses, sumptuous buildings, and quays thronged with life on those banks of the Seine which are now given up to meadows and forests.

_Father._ While the provinces are filling up with cities, Paris becomes country. What a frightful revolution! Three mistaken Aldermen, aided by public ignorance, have brought down on us this terrible calamity.

_Son._ Tell me this story, my father.

_Father._ It is very simple. Under the pretext of establishing three new trades at Paris, and of thus supplying labor to the workmen, these men secured the prohibition of wood, butter, and meats. They assumed the right of supplying their fellow-citizens with them. These articles rose immediately to an exorbitant price. Nobody made enough to buy them, and the few who could procure them by using up all they made were unable to buy anything else; consequently all branches of industry stopped at once--all the more so because the provinces no longer offered a market. Misery, death, and emigration began to depopulate Paris.

_Son._ When will this stop?

_Father._ When Paris has become a meadow and a forest.

_Son._ The three Aldermen must have made a great fortune.

_Father._ At first they made immense profits, but at length they were involved in the common misery.

_Son._ How was that possible?

_Father._ You see this ruin; it was a magnificent house, surrounded by a fine park. If Paris had kept on advancing, Master Pierre would have got more rent from it annually than the whole thing is now worth to him.

_Son._ How can that be, since he got rid of competition?

_Father._ Competition in selling has disappeared; but competition in buying also disappears every day, and will keep on disappearing until Paris is an open field, and Master Pierre's woodland will be worth no more than an equal number of acres in the forest of Bondy. Thus, a monopoly, like every species of injustice, brings its own punishment upon itself.

_Son._ This does not seem very plain to me, but the decay of Paris is undeniable. Is there, then, no means of repealing this unjust measure that Pierre and his colleagues adopted twenty years ago?

_Father._ I will confide my secret to you. I will remain at Paris for this purpose; I will call the people to my aid. It depends on them whether they will replace the _octroi_ on its old basis, and dismiss from it this fatal principle, which is grafted on it, and has grown there like a parasite fungus.

_Son._ You ought to succeed on the very first day.

_Father._ No; on the contrary, the work is a difficult and laborious one. Pierre, Paul and Jean understand one another perfectly. They are ready to do anything rather than allow the entrance of wood, butter and meat into Paris. They even have on their side the people, who clearly see the labor which these three protected branches of business give, who know how many wood-choppers and cow-drivers it gives employment to, but who cannot obtain so clear an idea of the labor that would spring up in the free air of liberty.

_Son._ If this is all that is needed, you will enlighten them.

_Father._ My child, at your age, one doubts at nothing. If I wrote, the people would not read; for all their time is occupied in supporting a wretched existence. If I speak, the Aldermen will shut my mouth. The people will, therefore, remain long in their fatal error; political parties, which build their hopes on their passions, attempt to play upon their prejudices, rather than to dispel them. I shall then have to deal with the powers that be--the people and the parties. I see that a storm will burst on the head of the audacious person who dares to rise against an iniquity which is so firmly rooted in the country.

_Son._ You will have justice and truth on your side.

_Father._ And they will have force and calumny. If I were only young! But age and suffering have exhausted my strength.

_Son._ Well, father, devote all that you have left to the service of the country. Begin this work of emancipation, and leave to me for an inheritance the task of finishing it.

FOURTH TABLEAU.

_The Agitation._

_Jacques Bonhomme._ Parisians, let us demand the reform of the _octroi_; let it be put back to what it was. Let every citizen be FREE to buy wood, butter and meat where it seems good to him.

_The People._ Hurrah for LIBERTY!

_Pierre._ Parisians, do not allow yourselves to be seduced by these words. Of what avail is the freedom of purchasing, if you have not the means? and how can you have the means, if labor is wanting? Can Paris produce wood as cheaply as the forest of Bondy, or meat at as low price as Poitou, or butter as easily as Normandy? If you open the doors to these rival products, what will become of the wood cutters, pork dealers, and cattle drivers? They cannot do without protection.

_The People._. Hurrah for PROTECTION!

_Jacques._ Protection! But do they protect you, workmen? Do not you compete with one another? Let the wood dealers then suffer competition in their turn. They have no right to raise the price of their wood by law, unless they, also, by law, raise wages. Do you not still love equality?

_The People._ Hurrah for EQUALITY!

_Pierre._ Do not listen to this factious fellow. We have raised the price of wood, meat, and butter, it is true; but it is in order that we may give good wages to the workmen. We are moved by charity.

_The People._ Hurrah for CHARITY!

_Jacques._ Use the _octroi_, if you can, to raise wages, or do not use it to raise the price of commodities. The Parisians do not ask for charity, but justice.

_The People._ Hurrah for JUSTICE!

_Pierre._ It is precisely the dearness of products which will, by reflex action, raise wages.

_The People._ Hurrah for DEARNESS!

_Jacques._ If butter is dear, it is not because you pay workmen well; it is not even that you may make great profits; it is only because Paris is ill situated for this business, and because you desired that they should do in the city what ought to be done in the country, and in the country what was done in the city. The people have no _more_ labor, only they labor at something else. They get no _more_ wages, but they do not buy things as cheaply.

_The People._ Hurrah for CHEAPNESS!

_Pierre._ This person seduces you with his fine words. Let us state the question plainly. Is it not true that if we admit butter, wood, and meat, we shall be inundated with them, and die of a plethora? There is, then, no other way in which we can preserve ourselves from this new inundation, than to shut the door, and we can keep up the price of things only by causing scarcity artificially.

_A Very Few Voices._ Hurrah for SCARCITY!

_Jacques._ Let us state the question as it is. Among all the Parisians we can divide only what is in Paris; the less wood, butter and meat there is, the smaller each one's share will be. There will be less if we exclude than if we admit. Parisians, individual abundance can exist only where there is general abundance.

_The People._ Hurrah for ABUNDANCE!

_Pierre._ No matter what this man says, he cannot prove to you that it is to your interest to submit to unbridled competition.

_The People._ Down with COMPETITION!

_Jacques._ Despite all this man's declamation, he cannot make you _enjoy_ the sweets of restriction.

_The People._ Down with RESTRICTION!

_Pierre._ I declare to you that if the poor dealers in cattle and hogs are deprived of their livelihood, if they are sacrificed to theories, I will not be answerable for public order. Workmen, distrust this man. He is an agent of perfidious Normandy; he is under the pay of foreigners. He is a traitor, and must be hanged. [The people keep silent.]

_Jacques._ Parisians, all that I say now, I said to you twenty years ago, when it occurred to Pierre to use the _octroi_ for his gain and your loss. I am not an agent of Normandy. Hang me if you will, but this will not prevent oppression from being oppression. Friends, you must kill neither Jacques nor Pierre, but liberty if it frightens you, or restriction if it hurts you.

_The People._ Let us hang nobody, but let us emancipate everybody.

XIV.

SOMETHING ELSE.

--What is restriction?

--A partial prohibition.

--What is prohibition?

--An absolute restriction.

--So that what is said of one is true of the other?

--Yes, comparatively. They bear the same relation to each other that the arc of the circle does to the circle.

--Then if prohibition is bad, restriction cannot be good.

--No more than the arc can be straight if the circle is curved.

--What is the common name for restriction and prohibition?

--Protection.

--What is the definite effect of protection?

--To require from men _harder labor for the same result_.

--Why are men so attached to the protective system?

--Because, since liberty would accomplish the same result _with less labor_, this apparent diminution of labor frightens them.

--Why do you say _apparent_?

--Because all labor economized can be devoted to _something else_.

--What?

--That cannot and need not be determined.

--Why?

--Because, if the total of the comforts of France could be gained with a diminution of one-tenth on the total of its labor, no one could determine what comforts it would procure with the labor remaining at its disposal. One person would prefer to be better clothed, another better fed, another better taught, and another more amused.

--Explain the workings and effect of protection.

--It is not an easy matter. Before taking hold of a complicated instance, it must be studied in the simplest one.

--Take the simplest you choose.

--Do you recollect how Robinson Crusoe, having no saw, set to work to make a plank?

--Yes. He cut down a tree, and then with his ax hewed the trunk on both sides until he got it down to the thickness of a board.

--And that gave him an abundance of work?

--Fifteen full days.

--What did he live on during this time?

--His provisions.

--What happened to the ax?

--It was all blunted.

--Very good; but there is one thing which, perhaps, you do not know. At the moment that Robinson gave the first blow with his ax, he saw a plank which the waves had cast up on the shore.

--Oh, the lucky accident! He ran to pick it up?

--It was his first impulse; but he checked himself, reasoning thus:

"If I go after this plank, it will cost me but the labor of carrying it and the time spent in going to and returning from the shore.

"But if I make a plank with my ax, I shall in the first place obtain work for fifteen days, then I shall wear out my ax, which will give me an opportunity of repairing it, and I shall consume my provisions, which will be a third source of labor, since they must be replaced. Now, _labor is wealth_. It is plain that I will ruin myself if I pick up this stranded board. It is important to protect my _personal labor_, and now that I think of it, I can create myself additional labor by kicking this board back into the sea."

--But this reasoning was absurd!

--Certainly. Nevertheless it is that adopted by every nation which _protects_ itself by prohibition. It rejects the plank which is offered it in exchange for a little labor, in order to give itself more labor. It sees a gain even in the labor of the custom house officer. This answers to the trouble which Robinson took to give back to the waves the present they wished to make him. Consider the nation a collective being, and you will not find an atom of difference between its reasoning and that of Robinson.

--Did not Robinson see that he could use the time saved in doing _something else_?

--What '_something else_'?

--So long as one has wants and time, one has always _something_ to do. I am not bound to specify the labor that he could undertake.

--I can specify very easily that which he would have avoided.

--I assert, that Robinson, with incredible blindness, confounded labor with its result, the end with the means, and I will prove it to you.

--It is not necessary. But this is the restrictive or prohibitory system in its simplest form. If it appears absurd to you, thus stated, it is because the two qualities of producer and consumer are here united in the same person.

--Let us pass, then, to a more complicated instance.

--Willingly. Some time after all this, Robinson having met Friday, they united, and began to work in common. They hunted for six hours each morning and brought home four hampers of game. They worked in the garden for six hours each afternoon, and obtained four baskets of vegetables.

One day a canoe touched at the Island of Despair. A good-looking stranger landed, and was allowed to dine with our two hermits. He tasted, and praised the products of the garden, and before taking leave of his hosts, said to them:

"Generous Islanders, I dwell in a country much richer in game than this, but where horticulture is unknown. It would be easy for me to bring you every evening four hampers of game if you would give me only two baskets of vegetables."

At these words Robinson and Friday stepped on one side, to have a consultation, and the debate which followed is too interesting not to be given _in extenso_:

_Friday._ Friend, what do you think of it?

_Robinson._ If we accept we are ruined.

_Friday._ Is that certain? Calculate!

_Robinson._ It is all calculated. Hunting, crushed out by competition, will be a lost branch of industry for us.

_Friday._ What difference does that make, if we have the game?

_Robinson._ Theory! It will not be the product of our labor.

_Friday._ Yes, it will, since we will have to give vegetables to get it.

_Robinson._ Then what shall we make?

_Friday._ The four hampers of game cost us six hours' labor. The stranger gives them to us for two baskets of vegetables, which take us but three hours. Thus three hours remain at our disposal.

_Robinson._ Say rather that they are taken from our activity. There is our loss. _Labor is wealth_, and if we lose a fourth of our time we are one-fourth poorer.

_Friday._ Friend, you make an enormous mistake. The same amount of game and vegetables and three free hours to boot make progress, or there is none in the world.

_Robinson._ Mere generalities. What will we do with these three hours?

_Friday._ We will do _something else_.

_Robinson._ Ah, now I have you. You can specify nothing. It is very easy to say _something else--something else_.

_Friday._ We will fish. We will adorn our houses. We will read the Bible.

_Robinson._ Utopia! Is it certain that we will do this rather than that?

_Friday._ Well, if we have no wants, we will rest. Is rest nothing?

_Robinson._ When one rests one dies of hunger.

_Friday._ Friend, you are in a vicious circle. I speak of a rest which diminishes neither our gains nor our vegetables. You always forget that by means of our commerce with this stranger, nine hours of labor will give us as much food as twelve now do.

_Robinson._ It is easy to see that you were not reared in Europe. Perhaps you have never read the _Moniteur Industriel_? It would have taught you this: "All time saved is a dear loss. Eating is not the important matter, but working. Nothing which we consume counts, if it is not the product of our labor. Do you wish to know whether you are rich? Do not look at your comforts, but at your trouble." This is what the _Moniteur Industriel_ would have taught you. I, who am not a theorist, see but the loss of our hunting.

_Friday._ What a strange perversion of ideas. But--

_Robinson._ No _buts_. Besides, there are political reasons for rejecting the interested offers of this perfidious stranger.

_Friday._ Political reasons!

_Robinson._ Yes. In the first place he makes these offers only because they are for his advantage.

_Friday._ So much the better, since they are for ours also.

_Robinson._ Then by these exchanges we shall become dependent on him.

_Friday._ And he on us. We need his game, he our vegetables, and we will live in good friendship.

_Robinson._ Fancy! Do you want I should leave you without an answer?

_Friday._ Let us see; I am still waiting a good reason.

_Robinson._ Supposing that the stranger learns to cultivate a garden, and that his island is more fertile than ours. Do you see the consequences?

_Friday._ Yes. Our relations with the stranger will stop. He will take no more vegetables from us, since he can get them at home with less trouble. He will bring us no more game, since we will have nothing to give in exchange, and we will be then just where you want us to be now.

_Robinson._ Short-sighted savage! You do not see that after having destroyed our hunting, by inundating us with game, he will kill our gardening by overwhelming us with vegetables.

_Friday._ But he will do that only so long as we give him _something else_; that is to say, so long as we find _something else_ to produce, which will economize our labor.

_Robinson._ _Something else--something else!_ You always come back to that. You are very vague, friend Friday; there is nothing practical in your views.

The contest lasted a long time, and, as often happens, left each one convinced that he was right. However, Robinson having great influence over Friday, his views prevailed, and when the stranger came for an answer, Robinson said to him:

"Stranger, in order that your proposition may be accepted, we must be quite sure of two things:

"The first is, that your island is not richer in game than ours, for we will struggle but with _equal arms_.

"The second is, that you will lose by the bargain. For, as in every exchange there is necessarily a gainer and a loser, we would be cheated, if you were not. What have you to say?".

"Nothing, nothing," replied the stranger, who burst out laughing, and returned to his canoe.

--The story would not be bad if Robinson was not so foolish.

--He is no more so than the committee in Hauteville street.

--Oh, there is a great difference. You suppose one solitary man, or, what comes to the same thing, two men living together. This is not our world; the diversity of occupations, and the intervention of merchants and money, change the question materially.

--All this complicates transactions, but does not change their nature.

--What! Do you propose to compare modern commerce to mere exchanges?

--Commerce is but a multitude of exchanges; the real nature of the exchange is identical with the real nature of commerce, as small labor is of the same nature with great, and as the gravitation which impels an atom is of the same nature as that which attracts a world.

--Thus, according to you, these arguments, which in Robinson's mouth are so false, are no less so in the mouths of our protectionists?

--Yes; only error is hidden better under the complication of circumstances.

--Well, now, select some instance from what has actually occurred.

--Very well; in France, in view of custom and the exigencies of the climate, cloth is an useful article. Is it the essential thing _to make it, or to have it_?

--A pretty question! To have it, we must make it.

--That is not necessary. It is certain that to have it some one must make it; but it is not necessary that the person or country using it should make it. You did not produce that which clothes you so well, nor France the coffee it uses for breakfast.

--But I purchased my cloth, and France its coffee.

--Exactly, and with what?

--With specie.

--But you did not make the specie, nor did France.

--We bought it.

--With what?

--With our products which went to Peru.

--Then it is in reality your labor that you exchange for cloth, and French labor that is exchanged for coffee?

--Certainly.

--Then it is not absolutely necessary to make what one consumes?

--No, if one makes _something else_, and gives it in exchange.

--In other words, France has two ways of procuring a given quantity of cloth. The first is to make it, and the second is to make _something else_, and exchange _that something else_ abroad for cloth. Of these two ways, which is the best?

--I do not know.

--Is it not that which, _for a fixed amount of labor, gives the greatest quantity of cloth_?

--It seems so.

--Which is best for a nation, to have the choice of these two ways, or to have the law forbid its using one of them at the risk of rejecting the best?

--It seems to me that it would be best for the nation to have the choice, since in these matters it always makes a good selection.

--The law which prohibits the introduction of foreign cloth, decides, then, that if France wants cloth, it must make it at home, and that it is forbidden to make that _something else_ with which it could purchase foreign cloth?

--That is true.

--And as it is obliged to make cloth, and forbidden to make _something else_, just because the other thing would require less labor (without which France would have no occasion to do anything with it), the law virtually decrees, that for a certain amount of labor, France shall have but one yard of cloth, making it itself, when, for the same amount of labor, it could have had two yards, by making _something else_.

--But what other thing?

--No matter what. Being free to choose, it will make _something else_ only so long as there is _something else_ to make.

--That is possible; but I cannot rid myself of the idea that the foreigners may send us cloth and not take something else, in which case we shall be prettily caught. Under all circumstances, this is the objection, even from your own point of view. You admit that France will make this _something else_, which is to be exchanged for cloth, with less labor than if it had made the cloth itself?

--Doubtless.

--Then a certain quantity of its labor will become inert?

--Yes; but people will be no worse clothed--a little circumstance which causes the whole misunderstanding. Robinson lost sight of it, and our protectionists do not see it, or pretend not to. The stranded plank thus paralyzed for fifteen days Robinson's labor, so far as it was applied to the making of a plank, but it did not deprive him of it. Distinguish, then, between these two kinds of diminution of labor, one resulting in _privation_, and the other in _comfort_. These two things are very different, and if you assimilate them, you reason like Robinson. In the most complicated, as in the most simple instances, the sophism consists in this: _Judging of the utility of labor by its duration and intensity, and not by its results_, which leads to this economic policy, _a reduction of the results of labor, in order to increase its duration and intensity_.

XV.

THE LITTLE ARSENAL OF THE FREE TRADER.

--If they say to you: There are no absolute principles; prohibition may be bad, and restriction good--

Reply: Restriction _prohibits_ all that it keeps from coming in.

--If they say to you: Agriculture is the nursing mother of the country--

Reply: That which feeds a country is not exactly agriculture, but _grain_.

--If they say to you: The basis of the sustenance of the people is agriculture--

Reply: The basis of the sustenance of the people is _grain_. Thus a law which causes _two_ bushels of grain to be obtained by agricultural labor at the expense of four bushels, which the same labor would have produced but for it, far from being a law of sustenance, is a law of starvation.

--If they say to you: A restriction on the admission of foreign grain leads to more cultivation, and, consequently, to a greater home production--

Reply: It leads to sowing on the rocks of the mountains and the sands of the sea. To milk and steadily milk, a cow gives more milk; for who can tell the moment when not a drop more can be obtained? But the drop costs dear.

--If they say to you: Let bread be dear, and the wealthy farmer will enrich the artisans--

Reply: Bread is dear when there is little of it, a thing which can make but poor, or, if you please, rich people who are starving.

--If they insist on it, saying: When food is dear, wages rise--

Reply by showing that in April, 1847, five-sixths of the workingmen were beggars.

--If they say to you: The profits of the workingmen must rise with the dearness of food--

Reply: This is equivalent to saying that in an unprovisioned vessel everybody has the same number of biscuits whether he has any or not.

--If they say to you: A good price must be secured for those who sell grain--

Reply: Certainly; but good wages must be secured to those who buy it.

--If they say to you: The land owners, who make the law, have raised the price of food without troubling themselves about wages, because they know that when food becomes dear, wages _naturally_ rise--

Reply: On this principle, when workingmen come to make the law, do not blame them if they fix a high rate of wages without troubling themselves to protect grain, for they know that if wages are raised, articles of food will _naturally_ rise in price.

--If they say to you: What, then, is to be done?

Reply: Be just to everybody.

--If they say to you: It is essential that a great country should manufacture iron--

Reply: The most essential thing is that this great country _should have iron_.

--If they say to you: It is necessary that a great country should manufacture cloth.

Reply: It is more necessary that the citizens of this great country _should have cloth_.

--If they say to you: Labor is wealth--

Reply: It is false.

And, by way of developing this, add: A bleeding is not health, and the proof of it is, that it is done to restore health.

--If they say to you: To compel men to work over rocks and get an ounce of iron from a ton of ore, is to increase their labor, and, consequently, their wealth--

Reply: To compel men to dig wells, by denying them the use of river water, is to add to their _useless_ labor, but not their wealth.

--If they say to you: The sun gives his heat and light without requiring remuneration--

Reply: So much the better for me, since it costs me nothing to see distinctly.

--And if they reply to you: Industry in general loses what you would have paid for lights--

Retort: No, for having paid nothing to the sun, I use that which it saves me in paying for clothes, furniture and candles.

--So, if they say to you: These English rascals have capital which pays them nothing--

Reply: So much the better for us; they will not make us pay interest.

--If they say to you: These perfidious Englishmen find iron and coal at the same spot--

Reply: So much the better for us; they will not make us pay anything for bringing them together.

--If they say to you: The Swiss have rich pastures which cost little--

Reply: The advantage is on our side, for they will ask for a lesser quantity of our labor to furnish our farmers oxen and our stomachs food.

--If they say to you: The lands in the Crimea are worth nothing, and pay no taxes--

Reply: The gain is on our side, since we buy grain free from those charges.

--If they say to you: The serfs of Poland work without wages--

Reply: The loss is theirs and the gain is ours, since their labor is deducted from the price of the grain which their masters sell us.

--Then, if they say to you: Other nations have many advantages over us--

Reply: By exchange, they are forced to let us share in them.

--If they say to you: With liberty we shall be swamped with bread, beef _a la mode_, coal, and coats--

Reply: We shall be neither cold nor hungry.

--If they say to you: With what shall we pay?

Reply: Do not be troubled about that. If we are to be inundated, it will be because we are able to pay. If we cannot pay we will not be inundated.

--If they say to you: I would allow free trade, if a stranger, in bringing us one thing, took away another; but he will carry off our specie--

Reply: Neither specie nor coffee grow in the fields of Beauce or come out of the manufactories of Elbeuf. For us to pay a foreigner with specie is like paying him with coffee.

--If they say to you: Eat meat--

Reply: Let it come in.

--If they say to you, like the _Presse_: When you have not the money to buy bread with, buy beef--

Reply: This advice is as wise as that of Vautour to his tenant, "If a person has not money to pay his rent with, he ought to have a house of his own."

--If they say to you, like the _Presse_: The State ought to teach the people why and how it should eat meat--

Reply: Only let the State allow the meat free entrance, and the most civilized people in the world are old enough to learn to eat it without any teacher.

--If they say to you: The State ought to know everything, and foresee everything, to guide the people, and the people have only to let themselves be guided--

Reply: Is there a State outside of the people, and a human foresight outside of humanity? Archimedes might have repeated all the days of his life, "With a lever and a fulcrum I will move the world," but he could not have moved it, for want of those two things. The fulcrum of the State is the nation, and nothing is madder than to build so many hopes on the State; that is to say, to assume a collective science and foresight, after having established individual folly and short-sightedness.

--If they say to you: My God! I ask no favors, but only a duty on grain and meat, which may compensate for the heavy taxes to which France is subjected; a mere little duty, equal to what these taxes add to the cost of my grain--

Reply: A thousand pardons, but I, too, pay taxes. If, then, the protection which you vote yourself results in burdening for me, your grain with your proportion of the taxes, your insinuating demand aims at nothing less than the establishment between us of the following arrangement, thus worded by yourself: "Since the public burdens are heavy, I, who sell grain, will pay nothing at all; and you, my neighbor, the buyer, shall pay two parts, to wit, your share and mine." My neighbor, the grain dealer, you may have power on your side, but not reason.

--If they say to you: It is, however, very hard for me, a tax payer, to compete in my own market with foreigners who pay none--

Reply: First, This is not _your_ market, but _our_ market. I who live on grain, and pay for it, must be counted for something.

Secondly. Few foreigners at this time are free from taxes.

Thirdly. If the tax which you vote repays to you, in roads, canals and safety, more than it costs you, you are not justified in driving away, at my expense, the competition of foreigners who do not pay the tax but who do not have the safety, roads and canals. It is the same as saying: I want a compensating duty, because I have fine clothes, stronger horses and better plows than the Russian laborer.

Fourthly. If the tax does not repay what it costs, do not vote it.

Fifthly. If, after you have voted a tax, it is your pleasure to escape its operation, invent a system which will throw it on foreigners. But the tariff only throws your proportion on me, when I already have enough of my own.

--If they say to you: Freedom of commerce is necessary among the Russians _that they may exchange their products with advantage_ (opinion of M. Thiers, April, 1847)--

Reply: This freedom is necessary everywhere, and for the same reason.

--If they say to you: Each country has its wants; it is according to that that _it must act_ (M. Thiers)--

Reply: It is according to that that _it acts of itself_ when no one hinders it.

--If they say to you: Since we have no sheet iron, its admission must be allowed (M. Thiers)--

Reply: Thank you, kindly.

--If they say to you: Our merchant marine must have freight; owing to the lack of return cargoes our vessels cannot compete with foreign ones--

Reply: When you want to do everything at home, you can have cargoes neither going nor coming. It is as absurd to wish for a navy under a prohibitory system as to wish for carts where all transportation is forbidden.

--If they say to you: Supposing that protection is unjust, everything is founded on it; there are moneys invested, and rights acquired, and it cannot be abandoned without suffering--

Reply: Every injustice profits some one (except, perhaps, restriction, which in the long run profits no one), and to use as an argument the disturbance which the cessation of the injustice causes to the person profiting by it, is to say that an injustice, only because it has existed for a moment, should be eternal.

XVI.

THE RIGHT AND THE LEFT HAND.

[_Report to the King._]

SIRE--When we see these men of the _Libre Echange_ audaciously disseminating their doctrines, and maintaining that the right of buying and selling is implied by that of ownership (a piece of insolence that M. Billault has criticised like a true lawyer), we may be allowed to entertain serious fears as to the destiny of _national labor_; for what will Frenchmen do with their arms and intelligences when they are free?

The Ministry which you have honored with your confidence has naturally paid great attention to so serious a subject, and has sought in its wisdom for a _protection_ which might be substituted for that which appears compromised. It proposes to you to forbid your faithful subjects the use of the right hand.

Sire, do not wrong us so far as to think that we lightly adopted a measure which, at the first glance, may appear odd. Deep study of the _protective system_ has revealed to us this syllogism, on which it entirely rests:

The more one labors, the richer one is.

The more difficulties one has to conquer, the more one labors.

_Ergo_, the more difficulties one has to conquer, the richer one is.

What is _protection_, really, but an ingenious application of this formal reasoning, which is so compact that it would resist the subtlety of M. Billault himself?

Let us personify the country. Let us look on it as a collective being, with thirty million mouths, and, consequently, sixty million arms. This being makes a clock, which he proposes to exchange in Belgium for ten quintals of iron. "But," we say to him, "make the iron yourself." "I cannot," says he; "it would take me too much time, and I could not make five quintals while I can make one clock." "Utopist!" we reply; "for this very reason we forbid your making the clock, and order you to make the iron. Do not you see that we create you labor?"

Sire, it will not have escaped your sagacity, that it is just as if we said to the country, _Labor with the left hand, and not with the right_.

The creation of obstacles to furnish labor an opportunity to develop itself, is the principle of the _restriction_ which is dying. It is also the principle of the _restriction_ which is about to be created. Sire, to make such regulations is not to innovate, but to preserve.

The efficacy of the measure is incontestable. It is difficult--much more difficult than one thinks--to do with the left hand what one was accustomed to do with the right. You will convince yourself of it, Sire, if you will condescend to try our system on something which is familiar to you,--like shuffling cards, for instance. We can then flatter ourselves that we have opened an illimitable career to labor.

When workmen of all kinds are reduced to their left hands, consider, Sire, the immense number that will be required to meet the present consumption, supposing it to be invariable, which we always do when we compare differing systems of production. So prodigious a demand for manual labor cannot fail to bring about a considerable increase in wages; and pauperism will disappear from the country as if by enchantment.

Sire, your paternal heart will rejoice at the thought that the benefits of this regulation will extend over that interesting portion of the great family whose fate excites your liveliest solicitude.

What is the destiny of women in France? That sex which is the boldest and most hardened to fatigue, is, insensibly, driving them from all fields of labor.

Formerly they found a refuge in the lottery offices. These have been closed by a pitiless philanthropy; and under what pretext? "To save," said they, "the money of the poor." Alas! has a poor man ever obtained from a piece of money enjoyments as sweet and innocent as those which the mysterious urn of fortune contained for him? Cut off from all the sweets of life, how many delicious hours did he introduce into the bosom of his family when, every two weeks, he put the value of a day's labor on a _quatern_. Hope had always her place at the domestic hearth. The garret was peopled with illusions; the wife promised herself that she would eclipse her neighbors with the splendor of her attire; the son saw himself drum-major, and the daughter felt herself carried toward the altar in the arms of her betrothed. To have a beautiful dream is certainly something.

The lottery was the poetry of the poor, and we have allowed it to escape them.

The lottery dead, what means have we of providing for our _proteges_?--tobacco, and the postal service.

Tobacco, certainly; it progresses, thanks to Heaven, and the distinguished habits which august examples have been enabled to introduce among our elegant youth.

But the postal service! We will say nothing of that, but make it the subject of a special report.

Then what is left to your female subjects except tobacco? Nothing, except embroidery, knitting, and sewing, pitiful resources, which are more and more restricted by that barbarous science, mechanics.

But as soon as your ordinance has appeared, as soon as the right hands are cut off or tied up, everything will change face. Twenty, thirty times more embroiderers, washers and ironers, seamstresses and shirt-makers, would not meet the consumption (_honi soit qui mal y pense_) of the kingdom; always assuming that it is invariable, according to our way of reasoning.

It is true that this supposition might be denied by cold-blooded theorists, for dresses and shirts would be dearer. But they say the same thing of the iron which France gets from our mines, compared to the vintage it could get on our hillsides. This argument can, therefore, be no more entertained against _left-handedness_ than against _protection_; for this very dearness is the result and the sign of the excess of efforts and of labors, which is precisely the basis on which, in one case, as in the other, we claim to found the prosperity of the working classes.

Yes, we make a touching picture of the prosperity of the sewing business. What movement! What activity! What life! Each dress will busy a hundred fingers instead of ten. No longer will there be an idle young girl, and we need not, Sire, point out to your perspicacity the moral results of this great revolution. Not only will there be more women employed, but each one of them will earn more, for they cannot meet the demand, and if competition still shows itself, it will no longer be among the workingwomen who make the dresses, but the beautiful ladies who wear them.

You see, Sire, that our proposition is not only conformable to the economic traditions of the government, but it is also essentially moral and democratic.

To appreciate its effect, let us suppose it realized; let us transport ourselves in thought into the future; let us imagine the system in action for twenty years. Idleness is banished from the country; ease and concord, contentment and morality, have entered all families together with labor; there is no more misery and no more prostitution. The left hand being very clumsy at its work, there is a superabundance of labor, and the pay is satisfactory. Everything is based on this, and, as a consequence, the workshops are filled. Is it not true, Sire, that if Utopians were to suddenly demand the freedom of the right hand, they would spread alarm throughout the country? Is it not true that this pretended reform would overthrow all existences? Then our system is good, since it cannot be overthrown without causing great distress.

However, we have a sad presentiment that some day (so great is the perversity of man) an association will be organized to secure the liberty of right hands.

It seems to us that we already hear these free-right-handers speak as follows in the Salle Montesquieu:

"People, you believe yourselves richer because they have taken from you one hand; you see but the increase of labor which results to you from it. But look also at the dearness it causes, and the forced decrease in the consumption of all articles. This measure has not made capital, which is the source of wages, more abundant. The waters which flow from this great reservoir are directed into other channels; the quantity is not increased, and the definite result is, for the nation, as a whole, a loss of comfort equal to the excess of the production of several millions of right hands, over several millions of left hands. Then let us form a league, and, at the expense of some inevitable disturbances, let us conquer the right of working with both hands."

Happily, Sire, there will be organized an _association for the defense of left-handed labor_, and the _Sinistrists_ will have no trouble in reducing to nothing all these generalities and realities, suppositions and abstractions, reveries and Utopias. They need only to exhume the _Moniteur Industriel_ of 1846, and they will find, ready-made, arguments against _free trade_, which destroy so admirably this _liberty of the right hand_, that all that is required is to substitute one word for another.

"The Parisian _Free Trade_ League never doubted but that it would have the assistance of the workingmen. But the workingmen can no longer be led by the nose. They have their eyes open, and they know political economy better than our diplomaed professors. _Free trade_, they replied, will take from us our labor, and labor is our real, great, sovereign property; _with labor, with much labor, the price of articles of merchandise is never beyond reach_. But without labor, even if bread should cost but a penny a pound, the workingman is compelled to die of hunger. Now, your doctrines, instead of increasing the amount of labor in France, diminish it; that is to say, you reduce us to misery." (Number of October 13, 1846.)

"It is true, that when there are too many manufactured articles to sell, their price falls; but as wages decrease when these articles sink in value, the result is, that, instead of being able to buy them, we can buy nothing. Thus, when they are cheapest, the workingman is most unhappy." (Gauthier de Rumilly, _Moniteur Industriel_ of November 17.)

It would not be ill for the Sinistrists to mingle some threats with their beautiful theories. This is a sample:

"What! to desire to substitute the labor of the right hand for that of the left, and thus to cause a forced reduction, if not an annihilation of wages, the sole resource of almost the entire nation!

"And this at the moment when poor harvests already impose painful sacrifices on the workingman, disquiet him as to his future, and make him more accessible to bad counsels and ready to abandon the wise course of conduct he had hitherto adhered to!"

We are confident, Sire, that thanks to such wise reasonings, if a struggle takes place, the left hand will come out of it victorious.

Perhaps, also, an association will be formed in order to ascertain whether the right and the left hand are not both wrong, and if there is not a third hand between them, in order to conciliate all.

After having described the _Dexterists_ as seduced by the _apparent liberality of a principle, the correctness of which has not yet been verified by experience_, and the _Sinistrists_ as encamping in the positions they have gained, it will say:

"And yet they deny that there is a third course to pursue in the midst of the conflict; and they do not see that the working classes have to defend themselves, at the same moment, against those who wish to change nothing in the present situation, because they find their advantage in it, and against those who dream of an economic revolution of which they have calculated neither the extent nor the significance." (_National_ of October 16.)

We do not desire, however, to hide from your Majesty the fact that our plan has a vulnerable side. They may say to us: In twenty years all left hands will be as skilled as right ones are now, and you can no longer count on _left-handedness_ to increase the national labor.

We reply to this, that, according to learned physicians, the left side of the body has a natural weakness, which is very reassuring for the future of labor.

Finally, Sire, consent to sign the law, and a great principle will have prevailed: _All wealth comes from the intensity of labor._ It will be easy for us to extend it, and vary its application. We will declare, for instance, that it shall be allowable to work only with the feet. This is no more impossible (for there have been instances) than to extract iron from the mud of the Seine. There have even been men who wrote with their backs. You see, Sire, that we do not lack means of increasing national labor. If they do begin to fail us, there remains the boundless resource of amputation.

If this report, Sire, was not intended for publication, we would call your attention to the great influence which systems analogous to the one we submit to you, are capable of giving to men in power. But this is a subject which we reserve for consideration in private counsel.

XVII.

SUPREMACY BY LABOR.

"As in a time of war, supremacy is attained by superiority in arms, can, in a time of peace, supremacy be secured by superiority in labor?"

This question is of the greatest interest at a time when no one seems to doubt that in the field of industry, as on that of battle, _the stronger crushes the weaker_.

This must result from the discovery of some sad and discouraging analogy between labor, which exercises itself on things, and violence, which exercises itself on men; for how could these two things be identical in their effects, if they were opposed in their nature?

And if it is true that in manufacturing as in war, supremacy is the necessary result of superiority, why need we occupy ourselves with progress or social economy, since we are in a world where all has been so arranged by Providence that one and the same result, oppression, necessarily flows from the most antagonistic principles?

Referring to the new policy toward which commercial freedom is drawing England, many persons make this objection, which, I admit, occupies the sincerest minds. "Is England doing anything more than pursuing the same end by different means? Does she not constantly aspire to universal supremacy? Sure of the superiority of her capital and labor, does she not call in free competition to stifle the industry of the continent, reign as a sovereign, and conquer the privilege of feeding and clothing the ruined peoples?"

It would be easy for me to demonstrate that these alarms are chimerical; that our pretended inferiority is greatly exaggerated; that all our great branches of industry not only resist foreign competition, but develop themselves under its influence, and that its infallible effect is to bring about an increase in general consumption capable of absorbing both foreign and domestic products.

To-day I desire to attack this objection directly, leaving it all its power and the advantage of the ground it has chosen. Putting English and French on one side, I will try to find out in a general way, if, even though by superiority in one branch of industry, one nation has crushed out similar industrial pursuits in another one, this nation has made a step toward supremacy, and that one toward dependence; in other words, if both do not gain by the operation, and if the conquered do not gain the most by it.

If we see in any product but a cause of labor, it is certain that the alarm of the protectionists is well founded. If we consider iron, for instance, only in connection with the masters of forges, it might be feared that the competition of a country where iron was a gratuitous gift of nature, would extinguish the furnaces of another country, where ore and fuel were scarce.

But is this a complete view of the subject? Are there relations only between iron and those who make it? Has it none with those who use it? Is its definite and only destination to be produced? And if it is useful, not on account of the labor which it causes, but on account of the qualities which it possesses, and the numerous services for which its hardness and malleability fit it, does it not follow that foreigners cannot reduce its price, even so far as to prevent its production among us, without doing us more good, under the last statement of the case, than it injures us, under the first?

Please consider well that there are many things which foreigners, owing to the natural advantages which surround them, hinder us from producing directly, and in regard to which we are placed, _in reality_, in the hypothetical position which we examined relative to iron. We produce at home neither tea, coffee, gold nor silver. Does it follow that our labor, as a whole, is thereby diminished? No; only to create the equivalent of these things, to acquire them by way of exchange, we detach from our general labor a _smaller_ portion than we would require to produce them ourselves. More remains to us to use for other things. We are so much the richer and stronger. All that external rivalry can do, even in cases where it absolutely keeps us from any certain form of labor, is to encourage our labor, and increase our productive power. Is that the road to _supremacy_, for foreigners?

If a mine of gold were to be discovered in France, it does not follow that it would be for our interests to work it. It is even certain that the enterprise ought to be neglected, if each ounce of gold absorbed more of our labor than an ounce of gold bought in Mexico with cloth. In this case, it would be better to keep on seeing our mines in our manufactories. What is true of gold is true of iron.

The illusion comes from the fact that one thing is not seen. That is, that foreign superiority prevents national labor, only under some certain form, and makes it superfluous under this form, but by putting at our disposal the very result of the labor thus annihilated. If men lived in diving-bells, under the water, and had to provide themselves with air by the use of pumps, there would be an immense source of labor. To destroy this labor, _leaving men in this condition_, would be to do them a terrible injury. But if labor ceases, because the necessity for it has gone; because men are placed in another position, where air reaches their lungs without an effort, then the loss of this labor is not to be regretted, except in the eyes of those who appreciate in labor, only the labor itself.

It is exactly this sort of labor which machines, commercial freedom, and progress of all sorts, gradually annihilate; not useful labor, but labor which has become superfluous, supernumerary, objectless, and without result. On the other hand, protection restores it to activity; it replaces us under the water, so as to give us an opportunity of pumping; it forces us to ask for gold from the inaccessible national mine, rather than from our national manufactories. All its effect is summed up in this phrase--_loss of power_.

It must be understood that I speak here of general effects, and not of the temporary disturbances occasioned by the transition from a bad to a good system. A momentary disarrangement necessarily accompanies all progress. This may be a reason for making the transition a gentle one, but not for systematically interdicting all progress, and still less for misunderstanding it.

They represent industry to us as a conflict. This is not true; or is true only when you confine yourself to considering each branch of industry in its effects on some similar branch--in isolating both, in the mind, from the rest of humanity. But there is something else; there are its effects on consumption, and the general well-being.

This is the reason why it is not allowable to assimilate labor to war as they do.

In war, _the strongest overwhelms the weakest_.

In labor, _the strongest gives strength to the weakest_. This radically destroys the analogy.

Though the English are strong and skilled; possess immense invested capital, and have at their disposal the two great powers of production, iron and fire, all this is converted into the _cheapness_ of the product; and who gains by the cheapness of the product?--he who buys it.

It is not in their power to absolutely annihilate any portion of our labor. All that they can do is to make it superfluous through some result acquired--to give air at the same time that they suppress the pump; to increase thus the force at our disposal, and, which is a remarkable thing, to render their pretended supremacy more impossible, as their superiority becomes more undeniable.

Thus, by a rigorous and consoling demonstration, we reach this conclusion: That _labor_ and _violence_, so opposed in their nature, are, whatever socialists and protectionists may say, no less so in their effects.

All we required, to do that, was to distinguish between _annihilated_ labor and _economized_ labor.

Having less iron _because_ one works less, or having more iron _although_ one works less, are things which are more than different,--they are opposites. The protectionists confound them; we do not. That is all.

Be convinced of one thing. If the English bring into play much activity, labor, capital, intelligence, and natural force, it is not for the love of us. It is to give themselves many comforts in exchange for their products. They certainly desire to receive at least as much as they give, and _they make at home the payment for that which they buy elsewhere_. If then, they inundate us with their products, it is because they expect to be inundated with ours. In this case, the best way to have much for ourselves is to be free to choose between these two methods of production: direct production or indirect production. All the British Machiavelism cannot lead us to make a bad choice.

Let us then stop assimilating industrial competition with war; a false assimilation, which is specious only when two rival branches of industry are isolated, in order to judge of the effects of competition. As soon as the effect produced on the general well-being is taken into consideration, the analogy disappears.

In a battle, he who is killed is thoroughly killed, and the army is weakened just that much. In manufactures, one manufactory succumbs only so far as the total of national labor replaces what it produced, _with an excess_. Imagine a state of affairs where for one man, stretched on the plain, two spring up full of force and vigor. If there is a planet where such things happen, it must be admitted that war is carried on there under conditions so different from those which obtain here below, that it does not even deserve that name.

Now, this is the distinguishing character of what they have so inappropriately called an _industrial war_.

Let the Belgians and English reduce the price of their iron, if they can, and keep on reducing it, until they bring it down to nothing. They may thereby put out one of our furnaces--kill one of our soldiers; but I defy them to hinder a thousand other industries, more profitable than the disabled one, immediately, and, as a necessary consequence of this very cheapness, resuscitating and developing themselves.

Let us decide that supremacy by labor is impossible and contradictory, since all superiority which manifests itself among a people is converted into cheapness, and results only in giving force to all others. Let us, then, banish from political economy all these expressions borrowed from the vocabulary of battles: _to struggle with equal arms, to conquer, to crush out, to stifle, to be beaten, invasion, tribute_. What do these words mean? Squeeze them, and nothing comes out of them. We are mistaken; there come from them absurd errors and fatal prejudices. These are the words which stop the blending of peoples, their peaceful, universal, indissoluble alliance, and the progress of humanity.