Sophisms of the Protectionists — 11 - Second Series Part 2

TWO SYSTEMS OF MORALS.

Arrived at the end of the preceding chapter, if he gets so far, I imagine I hear the reader say: "Well, now, was I wrong in accusing political economists of being dry and cold?

What a picture of humanity!

Spoliation is a fatal power, almost normal, assuming every form, practiced under every pretext, against law and according to law, abusing the most sacred things, alternately playing upon the feebleness and the credulity of the masses, and ever growing by what it feeds on.

Could a more mournful picture of the world be imagined than this?"

The problem is, not to find whether the picture is mournful, but whether it is true.

And for that we have the testimony of history.

It is singular that those who decry political economy, because it investigates men and the world as it finds them, are more gloomy than political economy itself, at least as regards the past and the present.

Look into their books and their journals.

What do you find?

Bitterness and hatred of society.

The very word _civilization_ is for them a synonym for injustice, disorder and anarchy.

They have even come to curse _liberty_, so little confidence have they in the development of the human race, the result of its natural organization.

Liberty, according to them, is something which will bring humanity nearer and nearer to destruction.

It is true that they are optimists as regards the future.

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

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

Political economy has not taken upon itself the mission of finding out the probable condition of society had it pleased God to make men different from what they are.

It may be unfortunate that Providence, at the beginning, neglected to call to his counsels a few of our modern reformers.

And, as the celestial mechanism would have been entirely different had the Creator consulted _Alphonso the Wise_, society, also, had He not neglected the advice of Fourier, would have been very different from that in which we are compelled to live, and move, and breathe.

But, since we are here, our duty is to study and to understand His laws, especially if the amelioration of our condition essentially depends upon such knowledge.

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

We cannot satisfy these desires except by labor.

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

Since man has such characteristics, we cannot prevent the existence of a constant tendency among men to obtain their part of the enjoyments of life while throwing upon others, by force or by trickery, the burdens of labor.

It is not for us to belie universal history, to silence the voice of the past, which attests that this has been the condition of things since the beginning of the world.

We cannot deny that war, slavery, superstition, the abuses of government, privileges, frauds of every nature, and monopolies, have been the incontestable and terrible manifestations of these two sentiments united in the heart of man: _desire for enjoyment; repugnance to labor_.

"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread!"

But every one wants as much bread and as little sweat as possible.

This is the conclusion of history.

Thank Heaven, history also teaches that the division of blessings and burdens tends to a more exact equality among men.

Unless one is prepared to deny the light of the sun, it must be admitted that, in this respect at least, society has made some progress.

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

We say that this force exists in society, and that God has placed it there.

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

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

Every maleficent act necessarily has two terms--the point of beginning and the point of ending; the man who performs the act and the man upon whom it is performed; or, in the language of the schools, the active and the passive agent.

There are, then, two means by which the maleficent act can be prevented: by the voluntary absence of the active, or by the resistance of the passive agent.

Whence two systems of morals arise, not antagonistic but concurrent; religious or philosophical morality, and the morality to which I permit myself to apply the name economical (utilitarian).

Religious morality, to abolish and extirpate the maleficent act, appeals to its author, to man in his capacity of active agent.

It says to him: "Reform yourself; purify yourself; cease to do evil; learn to do well;

conquer your passions; sacrifice your interests; do not oppress your neighbor, to succor and relieve whom is your duty; be first just, then generous."

This morality will always be the most beautiful, the most touching, that which will exhibit the human race in all its majesty;

which will the best lend itself to the offices of eloquence, and will most excite the sympathy and admiration of mankind.

Utilitarian morality works to the same end, but especially addresses itself to man in his capacity of passive agent.

It points out to him the consequences of human actions, and, by this simple exhibition, stimulates him to struggle against those which injure, and to honor those which are useful to him.

It aims to extend among the oppressed masses enough good sense, enlightenment and just defiance, to render oppression both difficult and dangerous.

It may also be remarked that utilitarian morality is not without its influence upon the oppressor.

An act of spoliation causes good and evil--evil for him who suffers it, good for him in whose favor it is exercised--else the act would not have been performed.

But the good by no means compensates the evil.

The evil always, and necessarily, predominates over the good, because the very fact of oppression occasions a loss of force, creates dangers, provokes reprisals, and requires costly precautions.

The simple exhibition of these effects is not then limited to retaliation of the oppressed; it places all, whose hearts are not perverted, on the side of justice, and alarms the security of the oppressors themselves.

But it is easy to understand that this morality which is simply a scientific demonstration, and would even lose its efficiency if it changed its character; which addresses itself not to the heart but to the intelligence; which seeks not to persuade but to convince; which gives proofs not counsels; whose mission is not to move but to enlighten, and which obtains over vice no other victory than to deprive it of its booty--it is easy to understand, I say, how this morality has been accused of being dry and prosaic.

The reproach is true without being just.

It is equivalent to saying that political economy is not everything, does not comprehend everything, is not the universal solvent.

But who has ever made such an exorbitant pretension in its name?

The accusation would not be well founded unless political economy presented its processes as final, and denied to philosophy and religion the use of their direct and proper means of elevating humanity.

Look at the concurrent action of morality, properly so called, and of political economy--the one inveighing against spoliation by an exposure of its moral ugliness, the other bringing it into discredit in our judgment, by showing its evil consequences.

Concede that the triumph of the religious moralist, when realized, is more beautiful, more consoling and more radical; at the same time it is not easy to deny that the triumph of economical science is more facile and more certain.

In a few lines, more valuable than many volumes, J. B.

Say has already remarked that there are two ways of removing the disorder introduced by hypocrisy into an honorable family; to reform Tartuffe, or sharpen the wits of Orgon.

Moliere, that great painter of human life, seems constantly to have had in view the second process as the more efficient.

Such is the case on the world's stage.

Tell me what Cæsar did, and I will tell you what were the Romans of his day.

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

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

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

M.

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

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

Let religious morality then, if it can, touch the heart of the Tartuffes, the Cæsars, the conquerors of Algeria, the sinecurists, the monopolists, etc. The mission of political economy is to enlighten their dupes.

Of these two processes, which is the more efficient aid to social progress?

I believe it is the second.

I believe that humanity cannot escape the necessity of first learning a _defensive morality_.

I have read, observed, and made diligent inquiry, and have been unable to find any abuse, practiced to any considerable extent, that has perished by voluntary renunciation on the part of those who profited by it.

On the contrary, I have seen many that have yielded to the manly resistance of those who suffered by them.

To describe the consequences of abuses, is the most efficient way of destroying the abuses themselves.

And this is true particularly in regard to abuses which, like the protective system, while inflicting real evil upon the masses, are to those who seem to profit by them only an illusion and a deception.

Well, then, does this species of morality realize all the social perfection which the sympathetic nature of the human heart and its noblest faculties cause us to hope for?

This I by no means pretend.

Admit the general diffusion of this defensive morality--which, after all, is only a knowledge that the best understood interests are in accord with general utility and justice.

A society, although very well regulated, might not be very attractive, where there were no knaves, only because there were no fools; where vice, always latent, and, so to speak, overcome by famine, would only stand in need of available plunder in order to be restored to vigor; where the prudence of the individual would be guarded by the vigilance of the mass, and, finally, where reforms, regulating external acts, would not have penetrated to the consciences of men.

Such a state of society we sometimes see typified in one of those exact, rigorous and just men who is ever ready to resent the slightest infringement of his rights, and shrewd in avoiding impositions.

You esteem him--possibly you admire him.

You may make him your deputy, but you would not necessarily choose him for a friend.

Let, then, the two moral systems, instead of criminating each other, act in concert, and attack vice at its opposite poles.

While the economists perform their task in uprooting prejudice, stimulating just and necessary opposition, studying and exposing the real nature of actions and things, let the religious moralist, on his part, perform his more attractive, but more difficult, labor; let him attack the very body of iniquity, follow it to its most vital parts, paint the charms of beneficence, self-denial and devotion, open the fountains of virtue where we can only choke the sources of vice--this is his duty.

It is noble and beautiful.

But why does he dispute the utility of that which belongs to us?

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

Habit, it has been said, is a second nature.

A country where the individual had become unaccustomed to injustice, simply by the force of an enlightened public opinion, might, indeed, be pitiable; but it seems to me it would be well prepared to receive an education more elevated and more pure.

To be disaccustomed to evil is a great step towards becoming good.

Men cannot remain stationary.

Turned aside from the paths of vice which would lead only to infamy, they appreciate better the attractions of virtue.

Possibly it may be necessary for society to pass through this prosaic state, where men practice virtue by calculation, to be thence elevated to that more poetic region where they will no longer have need of such an exercise.

III. THE TWO HATCHETS.

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

_ MR.

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

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

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

For indeed, if you make cloths, I make roofs.

Both by different means protect our patrons from cold and rain.

But I have to run after customers while business seeks you.

You know how to manage this by obtaining a monopoly, while my business is open to any one who chooses to engage in it.

What is there astonishing in this?

Mr. Cunin, the Cabinet Minister, has not forgotten Mr. Cunin, the manufacturer, as was very natural.

But unfortunately, my humble occupation has not given a Minister to France, although it has given a Saviour to the world.

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

Look, then, at my position.

I earn thirty cents every day, excepts Sundays and holidays.

If I apply to you for work at the same time with a Flemish workman, you give him the preference.

But I need clothing.

If a Belgian weaver puts his cloth beside yours, you drive both him and his cloth out of the country.

Consequently, forced to buy at your shop, where it is dearest, my poor thirty cents are really worth only twenty-eight.

What did I say?

They are worth only twenty-six.

For, instead of driving the Belgian weaver away at _your own expense_ (which would be the least you could do) you compel me to pay those who, in your interest, force him out of the market.

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

Possibly, you may answer that those few pennies which pass thus, without compensation, from my pocket to yours, support a number of people about your _chateau_, and at the same time assist you in keeping up your establishment.

To which, if you would permit me, I would reply, they would likewise support a number of persons in my cottage.

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

To this, doubtless you will interpose some objections.

"Friend," you will say, "I would be glad to protect you and your colleagues; but how can I confer such favors upon the labor of carpenters?

Shall I prohibit the importation of houses by land and by sea?"

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

This wonderful way is to prohibit the use of sharp hatchets in France.

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

Why do you drive away the Belgians?

Because they sell cheaper than you do.

And why do they sell cheaper than you do?

Because they are in some way or another your superiors as manufacturers.

Between you and the Belgians, then, there is exactly the same difference that there is between a dull hatchet and a sharp one.

And you compel me, a carpenter, to buy the workmanship of your dull hatchet!

Consider France a laborer, obliged to live by his daily toil, and desiring, among other things, to purchase cloth.

There are two means of doing this.

The first is to card the wool and weave the cloth himself;

the second is to manufacture clocks, or wines, or wall-paper, or something of the sort, and exchange them in Belgium for cloth.

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

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

Now, then, be consistent, if you will not be just, and treat the poor carpenters as well as you treat yourself.

Make a law which shall read: "It is forbidden to use beams or shingles which have not been fashioned by dull hatchets."

And you will immediately perceive the result.

Where we now strike an hundred blows with the ax, we shall be obliged to give three hundred.

What a powerful encouragement to industry!

Apprentices, journeymen and masters, we should suffer no more.

We should be greatly sought after, and go away well paid.

Whoever wishes to enjoy a roof must leave us to make his tariff, just as buyers of cloth are now obliged to submit to you.

As for those free trade theorists, should they ever venture to call the utility of this system in question we should know where to go for an unanswerable argument.

Your investigation of 1834 is at our service.

We should fight them with that, for there you have admirably pleaded the cause of prohibition, and of dull hatchets, which are both the same.

IV. INFERIOR COUNCIL OF LABOR.

"What!

You have the assurance to demand for every citizen the right to buy, sell, trade, exchange, and to render service for service according to his own discretion, on the sole condition that he will conduct himself honestly, and not defraud the revenue?

Would you rob the workingman of his labor, his wages and his bread?"

This is what is said to us.

I know what the general opinion is; but I have desired to know what the laborers themselves think.

I have had an excellent opportunity of finding out.

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

No, they were workmen "to the manor born," real, practical laborers, such as joiners, carpenters, masons, tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, grocers, etc. , etc. , who had established in my village a _Mutual Aid Society_.

Upon my own private authority I transformed it into an _Inferior Council of Labor_ (People's Committee for Revising the Tariff), and I obtained a report which is as good as any other, although unencumbered by figures, and not distended to the proportions of a quarto volume and printed at the expense of the State.

The subject of my inquiry was the real or supposed influence of the protective system upon these poor people.

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

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

However, after much hesitation, he made the question the order of the day.

The assembly was divided into as many sub-committees as there were different trades represented.

A blank was handed to each sub-committee, which, after fifteen days' discussion, was to be filled and returned.

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

The first presented was that of the tailors.

Here it is, as accurately as if it had been photographed: RESULTS OF PROTECTION--REPORT OF THE TAILORS.

_Disadvantages.

_ |_Advantages.

_ | 1. On account of the protective tariff, we pay | None.

more for our own bread, meat, sugar, thread, | etc. , which is equivalent to a considerable | 1. We have examined diminution of our wages.

| the question in | every light, and 2. On account of the protective tariff, our patrons | have been unable to are also obliged to pay more for everything, and | perceive a single have less to spend for clothes, consequently we | point in regard to have less work and smaller profits.

| which the protective | system is 3. On account of the protective tariff, clothes | advantageous to are expensive, and people make them wear longer, | our trade.

which results in a loss of work, and compels us to | offer our services at greatly reduced rates.

| Here is another report: EFFECTS OF PROTECTION--REPORT OF THE BLACKSMITHS.

_Disadvantages.

_ | _Advantages.

_ | 1. The protective system imposes a tax (which does | not get into the Treasury) every time we eat, drink, | warm, or clothe ourselves.

| | 2. It imposes a similar tax upon our neighbors, and | hence, having less money, most of them use wooden | pegs, instead of buying nails, which deprives us of | labor.

| | 3. It keeps the price of iron so high that it can | None.

no longer be used in the country for plows, or gates,| or house fixtures, and our trade, which might give | work to so many who have none, does not even give | ourselves enough to do.

| | 4. The deficit occasioned in the Treasury by those | goods _which do not enter_ is made up by taxes | on our salt.

| The other reports, with which I will not trouble the reader, told the same story.

Gardeners, carpenters, shoemakers, boatmen, all complained of the same grievances.

I am sorry there were no day laborers in our association.

Their report would certainly have been exceedingly instructive.

But, unfortunately, the poor laborers of our province, all _protected_ as they are, have not a cent, and, after having taken care of their cattle, cannot go themselves to the _Mutual Aid Society_.

The pretended favors of protection do not prevent them from being the pariahs of modern society.

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

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

And possibly some men, who are fascinated by a very little protection, the agriculturists, for instance, would voluntarily renounce it if they noticed this side of the question.

Possibly, they might say to themselves: "It is better to support one's self surrounded by well-to-do neighbors, than to be protected in the midst of poverty."

For to seek to encourage every branch of industry by successively creating a void around them, is as vain as to attempt to jump away from one's shadow.

V.