 Section 14 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 14 10. The Tax Collector Jacques Bonham, Vine Grower. M. LaSalle, 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 putting 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 in a state 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 civilist, the judges who decree the restitution of the bit of land your neighbor wants to appropriate. The policeman 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, too, 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 who my 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 everywhere 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 everyone 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 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 Muslims are temperance people, the barbarians. What services will they give me in exchange for this ambrosia which has cost me so much labor? Not at all. It is not intended for Muslims, 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 dysentery and come home to be doctored, dig harbours, 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 madhouse. Make roads in the Atlas Mountains when I cannot get out of my own house. Dig ports in Barbary when the Garand 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 bases 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 folds although 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 where it is 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 six 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 his 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 hogs heads 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 agents. 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 countrymen. Bah, you will reelect the worthy general. Aye, I reelect the general to give away my wine to Africans and manufacturers. You will reelect him, I say. That is a little too much. I will not reelect him if I do not want to. But you will want to, and you will reelect him. Let him come here and try. He will see who he will have to settle with. We shall see, goodbye. I take away your six hogsheads and will proceed to divide them as the general has directed. 11. 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, 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, the 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 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 son teams. I heard you speak of five ones. 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 30 millions. Then I will reduce the salt tax to ten francs. Good. Here is another deficit of 30 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 paid 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 hundred francs 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 zoo 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 say for you on grain, meat, fuel, etc. This will amount to a large sum and each one of your 35 million fellow citizens will save the same way. There will be enough to consume the claws 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 manufacturers. 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. First section. All imports shall pay in ad valorem tax 05%. 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 manufacturers 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 manufacturers 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 in ad valorem tax of 5%. Merciful heavens Mr. Utopist you will certainly be stoned and if it comes to that I will throw the first one. We agree 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 work 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? 50 centimes. Why this difference? Ask the octroy which added Tensu to it. Who established the octroy? 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 octroy for their profit what would happen? I should nonetheless pay a franc for wine worth only 50 centimes and the other 50 centimes would pave and light the monomarch and the battignol. 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. 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 all fall 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 60 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 accept 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 massive contradictions? I call all the citizens to service. Is it worthwhile 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 21st to his 25th year, in order to receive military instruction. This is pretty economy. You send home 400,000 soldiers and call out 10 millions. Listen to my second section. Section two. Unless he proves, at the age of 21, 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 defending equality, does it not assure the country in a simple and inexpensive manner of 10 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. Thank heaven. My estimates are relieved of 100 millions. I suppress the octroy. 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. 12. 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. End of section 14. Recording by Katie Riley May 2010 Section 15 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 15 13. The Three Aldermen A demonstration in four tableaux. First tableaux. The scene is in the hotel of Aldermen 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 Yav To 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 livers. 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 zoo more per cord. Pierre. Oh, Mr. Theorist. You forget that I am a practical man. I suppose 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. Simple ten. 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 zoo per cord. Tomorrow I will induce the alderman to raise this duty to one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred livers, so high as to keep out every facet. Well, do you see, if the good people do not want to die of colds, they must come to my woodyard. 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. Paul. 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 gentelhum. 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, but they do have to pay for transportation. Paul. Do you call it beating anyone to furnish him things at a low price? Jean. It is the time-honored word. You will always be beaten. Paul. Yes, like Don Cutie. The blows will fall on Sancho. Jean, my friend, you forgot the octroy. Jean. What has that to do with your butter? Paul. Tomorrow 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 by mine, and 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 a man. 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. Tomorrow I will vote myself and make others vote for the exclusion of hogs, dead or alive. This done, I will build superb stockyards in the middle of Paris for the unclean animal who will become swine-hurt and pork-seller. And we shall see how the good people of Loutia 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 packets? 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 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. Tomorrow, tomorrow we will take the octroy by assault. Pierre. Ah, I forgot. One more word 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 in video suspicions. Paul and Jean, leaving. Upon my word what a clever fellow. Second taboo. 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 toothpick 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 Lyon. 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 labour and wages. Applause. Gene. I second the motion of the honourable 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 oppress Parisian labour. 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 labour 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 percent 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 insurance 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 labouring classes. I am happy to see in this assembly statesmen so pure and 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 lots of hogs. It is not that I want to become a 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, Poitavin 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 is not in their favour and that we are not compelled to pay them a tribute in money? Is it not plain that if this Poitavin industry were planted in Paris it would open new fields to Parisian labour? Moreover, gentlemen, is it not very likely, as Mr. Le Staibatois said, that we buy these Poitavin salted meats not with our income but with 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 labour 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 Aldermen ought to do. Thunders of applause. A voice. I hear much said of the poor people, but under the pretext of giving them labour, you begin by taking away from them that which is worth more than labour itself. Wood, butter, and soup. Pierre, Paul, and Jean. Vote, vote. Away with your theories and generalisers. Let us vote. Let us vote. The three motions are carried. Third tabloo. 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 has denied me in this city of desolation. Son. Courage, dear father, we will find work elsewhere in Porteux, Normandy, or Brittany. Let us 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 in capital to making those things which we formerly furnished them. Son. Just as at Paris, they quit making handsome furniture and raised hogs and cows. Though quite young, I have seen vast doorhouses, sumptuous buildings, and quays thronged with life on those banks of the sign 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, 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 woodlands will be worth no more than an equal number of acres in the forest of Bondi. 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 octroy 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 want 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 parents. 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 woodchoppers 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 alderman 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 in Columny. 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 Tablo. The agitation. Jacques Bonham. Parisians let us demand the reform of the octroy. 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 Bondi or meat at as low price as Poitot or butter as easily as Normandy? If you open the door to these rival products, what will become of the woodcutters, park 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 facetious fellow. We have raised the price of wood, meat, and butter. It is true. But it is an order that we may give good wages to the workmen. We are moved by charity. The people. Hurrah for charity. Jacques. Use the octroy 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 labour. Only they labour 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 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 there 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. 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 poor dealers and Catalan 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 octroy 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. End of section 15 Recording by Katie Riley May 2010 Section 16 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 16 14. Something else What is restriction? A partial prohibition. What is prohibition? An absolute restriction. So 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 of the total of its labor no one could determine what comforts it would procure with the labor remaining at its disposal. One 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 axe 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 axe? 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 axe he saw a plank which the waves had cast up on the shore. Oh, a 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 axe I shall in the first place obtain work for fifteen days. Then I shall wear out my axe 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 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 answer 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 once in 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 results in 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 for 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 for 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 extent so. Friday Friend what do you think of it? Robinson Except 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 Well 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 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 Friday Well if we have no ones 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 his stranger nine hours of labor will give us as much food as twelve now do. Robinson It is easy to see that you are not reared in Europe. Perhaps you have never read the Moneture Industrial. 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 This is what the Moneture Industrial 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 are 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 can 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 your 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 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 a 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 someone must make it but it is not necessary that the person or country using it should make it you did not produce that which close 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 species but you did not make the species 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 is it 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 the best for a nation to have the choice of these two ways or to have the law forbid it's 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 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 and 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 a home 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 distinguished then between these two kinds of diminution of labor one resulting in probation 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 to increase its duration and intensity fifteen 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 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 could be obtained what costs deer if they say to you let bread be deer and the wealthy farmer will enrich the artisans reply bread is deer when there is little need 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 deer wages rise reply by showing that in April 1847 five-sixth of the working men were beggars if they say to you the profits of the working men 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 landowners who make the law have raised the price of food without troubling themselves about wages because they know that when food becomes deer wages naturally rise reply on this principle when working men 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 praise 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 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 to their wealth if they say to you it gives his heat and light without requiring remuneration reply so much the better for me since it cost me nothing to see distinctly and if they reply to you industry in general loses what you would have paid for lights reply 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 we 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, ala 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 abuse or come out of the manufactories of albu for us to pay a foreigner with specie is like paying him with coffee if they say to you eat meat reply if they say to you like the presser when you have not the money to buy bread with buy beef reply this advice is as wise as that of volunteer 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 presser the state ought to teach the people why and how it should eat meat reply 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 our committees 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 one of those two things the fulcrum of the state is the nation and nothing is matter 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 but 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 it 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 taxpayer 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 pays to you in roads canals and safety more than it costs to 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 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 for an advantage opinion of M. Thierre April 1847 reply this freedom is necessary everywhere and for the same reason if they say to you each country has its once it is according to that that it must act M. Thierre reply it is according to that that it acts of itself if they say to you since we have no sheet iron its admission must be allowed M. Thierre reply thank you kindly if they say to you our merchant marine must have freight only 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 monies invested and rights acquired and it cannot be abandoned without suffering reply every injustice profits someone except perhaps restriction 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 end of section 16 recording by Katie Riley May 2010 section 17 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 17 16 the right and the left hand report to the king Sire when we see these men of the Libra exchange 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. Billaw has criticized 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 Erko 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. Billot himself let us personify the country let us look on it as a collective being with 30 million mouths and consequently 60 million arms this being makes a clock which he proposes to exchange in Belgium for 10 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 5 quintals while I can make 1 clock you topist 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 your 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 and 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 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 a 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 populism will disappear from the country as if by enchantment Sire your paternal heart will rejoice at the thoughts 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 all from 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 in joyments as sweet and innocent as those which the mysterious earn 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 base labor on a quatern hope had always replaced at the domestic heart the Garrett was peopled with illusions the wife promised herself that she would eclipse her neighbors with a splendor of her attire the son saw himself drum major and the daughter felt herself carried towards 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 are providing for our protege is 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 make it a 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 phase 20 30 times more embroiderers, washers and ironers seamstresses and shirt makers would not meet the consumption Honnaisoyki Mal-Y-Pence 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 minds 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 labours 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 working women 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 mystery and no more prostitution the left hand being very clumsy at its work there is a super abundance 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 presentment that someday so great is the perversity of man creation 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 sal 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 the 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 Montesquieu industrial of 1846 and they will find ready-made arguments against free trade which destroys 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 working men but the working men can no longer be led by the nose they have their eyes open and they know political economy better than our diplomat 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 working men is compelled to die of hunger now your doctrines instead of increasing the amount of labor the working men's 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 working men is most unhappy Gautier de Rumelais Monachère industrielle 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 working men disquiet him as to his future and make him more accessible to bad councils 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 position 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 labor 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 20 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 to sign 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 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 in 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 comarical that our pretended inferiority is greatly exaggerated that's 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 today i desire to attack this objection directly leaving it to 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 is crushed out similar industrial pursuits in another one this nation has made a step towards supremacy and that one towards 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 oil 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 it's 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 then it enters 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 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, supernumery objectless and without result on the other hand due to the lack of maternity and therefore the lack of labor of labor we know that labor may not be a factor but labor is not the cause of work but that labor could be the cause of labor them. 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? 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 Machiavellism 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 manufacturers, one manufacturer 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 plane, 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 the 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 avers and fatal prejudices. These are the words which stop the blending of peoples, their peaceful, universal, indissoluble alliance, and the progress of humanity. Section 17. Recording by Katie Riley. May 2010.