 Section 11 of Sophisms of the Protectionists This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to balance here, please visit LibriVox.org Sophisms of the Protectionists By Frédéric Bastia Translated by Horace White Section 11 2. Two Systems of Morals Arranged 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! Spoilation 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 in 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 there 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 councils a few of our modern reformers. And, as the celestial mechanism would have been entirely different, had the creator consulted Alfonso 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 labour. We cannot deny the fact that man has as much repugnance for labour 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 parts of the enjoyments of life while throwing upon others, by force or by trickery, the burdens of labour. 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 labour. In the sweat of thy face thou shalt eat thy bread, but everyone 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 fundamental change in the physical and moral constitution of man. Or rather we should consider that search, idle in 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 spoilation, 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. Once 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 suffer and relieve whom is your duty, be first just, then generous. This morality will 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 spoilation 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, overvise 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 solvents, 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 in vain against spoilation by an exposure of its moral ugliness, the other bringing it into discredit in our judgment by showing its evil consequences. Conceit 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. Molière, 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 Caesar 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 milleards 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.Gizot 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 Tartiffs, the Caesars, the conquerors of Algeria, the Sinucurists, the Monopolists, etc. The mission of political economy is to enlighten their dupes, of these 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 in illusion and 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 can 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 foals, 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. Probably 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, acting 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 has 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 in 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. 3. The Two Hatchets Petition of Jacques Bonham Carpenter, 2M Cunin Gredain 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 manufacturing. For indeed, if you make clothes, I make roofs. Both my 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 anyone 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 savior to the world. And this savior 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, except 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, honorable minister-manufacturer, knowing that I should meet with a cold reception, where 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 favours upon the labour 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 granted, 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 labourer, 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 wallpaper, 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 a hundred blows with the axe, 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 the 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. Four. 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 working man of his labor, his wages, and his bread? This is what he 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 shipbuilders 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 manner 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 laborer, 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 quarter 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 subcommittees as there were different trades represented. A blank was handed to each subcommittee, 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. One. On account of the protective tariff, we pay more for our own bread, meat, sugar, thread, etc., which is equivalent to a considerable diminution of our wages. Two. On account of the protective tariff, our patrons are also obliged to pay more for everything and have less to spend for clothes. Consequently, we have less work and smaller profits. Three. On account of the protective tariff, clothes are expensive and people make them wear longer, which results in a loss of work and compels us to offer our services at greatly reduced rates. Advantages. None. One. We have examined the question in every light and have been unable to perceive a single point in regard to which the protective system is advantageous to our trade. Here is another report. Effects of protection. Report of the blacksmiths. Disadvantages. One. The protective system imposes attacks, which does not get into the treasury, every time we eat, drink, warm, or clothe ourselves. Two. 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. Three. It keeps the price of iron so high that it can 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. Four. The deficit occasioned in the treasury by those goods which do not enter is made up by taxes on our salt. Advantages. None. 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 sense, 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 Moneture Industrielle do not understand. And possibly some men, who are fascinated by a very little protection, the agriculturalists, 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 oneself, 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. 5. 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 subtle, but whether subtle 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 cherishes 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 points, 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 22% 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 great 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 is evidently a misunderstanding and 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 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 always 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. 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 the 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 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 price 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 a crisis because he is protected by law from foreign competition. He is as poor as Job. No matter he will nonetheless 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 an opportune 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. but 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 in as much 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 anyone 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 favours 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 favoured by it. Appendix. We published an article entitled Dearness, Cheapness, which gained for us the two following letters. We published them with the answers. Dear Mr. Editor, you upset all my ideas. I preached in favour 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 favour 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 the 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. Dear Mr. 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 general 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-miticatrix, 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 has always been, and always will be, disagreeable to those who are affected by it. Thus we see 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 hairdresser, 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 it will 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 worlds. Six. Two 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 you. 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 Bentonik and the British aristocracy. We borrow from Profidius Albion, the doctrine of liberty. Do not they borrow from her the sophisms of protection. We follow the commercial impulse of Bordeaux in the south. Do not they serve the greed of Lily 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, they say to 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 appet is your providence. Is it not very convenient to apply to him? And the beggar 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 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 monopolist procures 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 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 benefits, 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 manufacturers yields, I suppose, 5% profit. But here is Mander, who has 100,000 francs invested in a manufacturing, on which he loses 5%. The difference between the loss and the gain is 10,000 francs. What do they do? They assess you upon a little tax of 10,000 francs, which is given to Mander, and you do not notice it, it is not the tax-gatherer who comes to ask you your part of the tax, but you pay it to Mander, 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, Mander can work no longer and his employees, John and James, will be without labor. If this tax was remitted, would you not get work when Mander 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 there will be significant 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 for 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 why then have they not the courage to tell you so and say workmen and 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 is it 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 ensure you wages. But every time that foreign labour 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 30,000 Germans who may close and choose? No. They do not allow it to come in because the cloth is made in great mills owned by manufacturing legislatures 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 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 labourers we ask that cloth and rails may be allowed to come in we ask justice for all equality before the law for all 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 is a tribute to the monopolist's haves 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 all 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 have 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 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 more out of this dilemma the law made by the present lawmakers 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 working men 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 roots 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 a facing 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 end of section 12 recording by K. D. Riley May 2010 section 13 of Sophisms of the Protectionists this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Sophisms of the Protectionists by Frédéric Bastia translated by Horace White section 13 seven 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 labouring classes all that is required is to advance them a little money to give them time to attend pursuits there is nothing which does not assume to age 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 the 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 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 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 that this is not labor created but diverted they answer you as does the spirit 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 Chen and Chen a magnificent canal connected them the emperor thought fits you have immense masses of rocks thrown into it to make it useless seeing this Kuang his first Mandarin said to him son of heaven you make a mistake to which the emperor replied Kuang 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 Kuang look and Kuang opening his eyes looked he saw at a certain distance 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 Kuang said to him look and Kuang looked and the passengers carriages and palanquins went and came and innumerable Chinese oppressed by fatigue carried back and forth heavy burdens from Chen to Chen and from Chen to Chen and Kuang 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 Kuang look and Kuang looked he saw that the inns were always full of travelers and that they being hungry there had sprung up nearby 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 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 Kuang what do you think of this and Kuang 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 Kuang and said to him clean out the canal and Kuang said to the new emperor son of heaven you are doing wrong Kuang you are foolish but Kuang persisted and said my lord what is your object my object said the emperor is to facilitate the movement of men and things between Chen and Chen to make transportation less expensive so that the people may have tea and clothes more cheaply but Kuang was in readiness he had received the evening before some numbers of the emperor 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 the emperor I believe that you are reciting something Kuang that is true and it would be more convenient for me to read having unfolded the asperid 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 purellities unworthy of a serious mind no one denies your position 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 massive 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 reduced prices the emperor not being altogether convinced Kuang said to him my lord, be pleased to wait I have the monetary industrial 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 if that is not my mission come let us clear out the canal and then we will reform the tariff Kuang went away plucking out his beard and crying oh foe, oh pay oh lay lay 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 one of everything since it will not be necessary for us to do anything eight post hoc ergo propter hoc after this therefore on account of this the most common 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 manufacturers 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 nonetheless 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 became 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 manufacturers 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 unable to reach the English market. If it had not been for this it is almost certain that a terrible revolution would now feel 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 you not 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 were both maimed and a leper. Post-hoc Ergo-Proctor Hock. Do not trust this opism. Nine. 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 Harpakin 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 Article 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 20 francs for an article, which I can get elsewhere for 15, takes 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 the 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 shipbuilder. A mercantile marine is at the last gasp, were like 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 shipbuilder 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 shipbuilder's argument is highly impritant. Oh, let us cultivate the touching union, which makes our strength. If we relax an iota from the theory of protection, goodbye to the whole of it. The shipbuilder. 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 shipbuilder, 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 employee. You seem to be bothered about a very little matter. Is there any safety but in the bounty? If the consumer is willing, the taxpayer is no less so. Let us pile on the taxes and let the shipbuilder be satisfied. I propose a bounty of five francs to be taken from the public revenues to be paid to the shipbuilder for each quintile 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 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 nowadays, 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, manufacturers complained, commerce murmured, the Navy growled, and the government did not know whom to listen to. At first it thought of taxing all that is contented 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. Barbers, 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 set 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 shipbuilder a bit of road to work up, according to this formula. Dono Tee-bye at Conceito, Virtutum at Fusiantum, Robbendie, Pillijandie, Steelandie, Cheetendie, at Swindlandie, Impugne per Totem, Istem, 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 Pillij, but from the Pillijers 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 account 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 artisans, merchants, literary men, lawyers, soldiers, etc., etc. It is true that bounty robbery allows of infinite subdivisions, and in this respect does not yield imperfection 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 looses 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 Hattentots, Kaphirs, 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 for bids. 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 taxpayers 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 taxpayer 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. Our 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, boars, 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. End of section 13. Recording by Katie Riley. May 2010.