Sophisms of the Protectionists — 14 - Second Series Part 5

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

--Six hogsheads out of twenty!

Good heavens!

You want to ruin me.

If you please, what do you propose to do with them?

--The first will be given to the creditors of the State.

When one has debts, the least one can do is to pay the interest.

--Where did the principal go?

--It would take too long to tell.

A part of it was once upon a time put in cartridges, which made the finest smoke in the world; with another part men were hired who were maimed on foreign ground, after having ravaged it.

Then, when these expenses brought the enemy upon us, he would not leave without taking money with him, which we had to borrow.

--What good do I get from it now?

--The satisfaction of saying: How proud am I of being a Frenchman When I behold the triumphal column, And the humiliation of leaving to my heirs an estate burdened with a perpetual rent.

Still one must pay what he owes, no matter how foolish a use may have been made of the money.

That accounts for one hogshead, but the five others?

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

--Certainly, service for service.

There is nothing to say against that.

I had rather make a bargain directly with my priest, but I do not insist on this.

So much for the second hogshead.

This leaves four, however.

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

--Alas, it is little compared with what they have cost me already.

They have taken from me two sons whom I tenderly loved.

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

--Well, my God!

the balance of power would be the same if these forces were every where reduced a half or three-quarters.

We should save our children and our money.

All that is needed is to understand it.

--Yes, but they do not understand it.

--That is what amazes me.

For every one suffers from it.

--You wished it so, Jacques Bonhomme.

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

--Whom did you support for Deputy?

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

--On what does this excellent General live?

--My hogsheads, I presume.

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

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

--Do you now understand that yourself?

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

--That goes to Algeria.

--To Algeria!

And they tell me that all Mussulmans are temperance people, the barbarians!

What services will they give me in exchange for this ambrosia, which has cost me so much labor?

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

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

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

--Mercy!

This is too much, and I flatly refuse you my hogshead.

They would send a wine-grower who did such foolish acts to the mad-house.

Make roads in the Atlas Mountains, when I cannot get out of my own house!

Dig ports in Barbary when the Garonne fills up with sand every day!

Take from me my children whom I love, in order to torment Arabs!

Make me pay for the houses, grain and horses, given to the Greeks and Maltese, when there are so many poor around us!

--The poor!

Exactly; they free the country of this _superfluity_.

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

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

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

--Think that in a few thousand years you will get back your advances a hundred-fold.

All those who have charge of the enterprise say so.

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

I persist in my refusal.

--It is too late.

Your _representative_ has agreed that you shall give a hogshead.

--That is but too true.

Cursed weakness!

It seems to me that I was unwise in making him my agent; for what is there in common between the General of an army and the poor owner of a vineyard?

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

--Laugh at me; I deserve it, my dear Collector.

But be reasonable, and leave me the sixth hogshead at least.

The interest of the debt is paid, the civil list provided for, the public service assured, and the war in Africa perpetuated.

What more do you want?

--The bargain is not made with me.

You must tell your desires to the General.

_He_ has disposed of your vintage.

--But what do you propose to do with this poor hogshead, the flower of my flock?

Come, taste this wine.

How mellow, delicate, velvety it is!

--Excellent, delicious!

It will suit D----, the cloth manufacturer, admirably.

--D----, the manufacturer!

What do you mean?

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

--How?

What is that?

I do not understand you.

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

--I am very sorry.

But what can I do to help him?

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

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

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

--This recipe is as infallible as it is ingenious.

But it is shockingly unjust.

What!

is D---- to cover his losses by taking my wine?

--Not exactly the wine, but the proceeds of it; That is what we call a _bounty for encouragement_.

But you look amazed!

Do not you see what a great service you render to the country?

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

--To the country.

D---- asserts that, thanks to this arrangement, his business prospers, and thus it is, says he, that the country grows rich.

That is what he recently said in the Chamber of which he is a member.

--It is a damnable fraud!

What!

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

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

--That is my business.

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

--I will think of it.

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

--I know it, sir.

I know it.

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

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

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

--But this is horrible, frightful, abominable.

--What is the use of these hard words?

You yourself, through your _authorized_ agent---- --Leave me alone with my authorized agent.

I made a very strange disposition of my vote, it is true.

But they shall deceive me no more, and I will be represented by some good and honest countryman.

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

--I?

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

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

--That is a little _too much_.

I will not re-elect him, if I do not want to.

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

--Let him come here and try.

He will see who he will have to settle with.

--We shall see.

Good bye.

I take away your six hogsheads, and will proceed to divide them as the General has directed.

XI. UTOPIAN IDEAS.

If I were His Majesty's Minister!

--Well, what would you do?

--I should begin by--by--upon my word, by being very much embarrassed.

For I should be Minister only because I had the majority, and I should have that only because I had made it, and I could only have made it, honestly at least, by governing according to its ideas.

So if I undertake to carry out my ideas and to run counter to its ideas, I shall not have the majority, and if I do not, I cannot be His Majesty's Minister.

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

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

--And then?

--I would seek to find where _utility_ was.

--What next?

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

--And if you found they did not agree?

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

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

--Then I will go straight ahead.

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

--What is that?

--Possibility.

--You conceded that.

--When?

--Just now.

--How?

--By giving me the majority.

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

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

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

--By this progress all reform is infallible.

--Certainly.

But this preliminary progress takes time.

Let us suppose it accomplished.

What will you do?

for I am eager to see you at work, doing, practicing.

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

--I heard you speak of five, once.

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

--Prudence?

This leaves you with a deficit of thirty millions.

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

--Good!

Here is another deficit of thirty millions.

Doubtless you have invented some new tax.

--Heaven forbid!

Besides, I do not flatter myself that I have an inventive mind.

--It is necessary, however.

Oh, I have it.

What was I thinking of?

You are simply going to diminish the expense.

I did not think of that.

--You are not the only one.

I shall come to that; but I do not count on it at present.

--What!

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

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

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

) --Well, upon my word, this is ingenious.

I pay the Treasury a hundred francs; you relieve me of five francs on salt, five on postage; and in order that the Treasury may nevertheless receive one hundred francs, you relieve me of ten on some other tax?

--Precisely; you understand me.

--How can it be true?

I am not even sure that I have heard you.

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

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

--Here is the whole mystery: I know a tax which costs you twenty francs, not a sou of which gets to the Treasury.

I relieve you of half of it, and make the other half take its proper destination.

--You are an unequaled financier.

There is but one difficulty.

What tax, if you please, do I pay, which does not go to the Treasury?

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

--A hundred francs.

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

--Eighty francs.

--Then why did you not get it there?

--Because it is prohibited.

--Why?

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

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

--Undoubtedly.

--And where do these twenty francs go?

--Where do they go?

To the manufacturer of the cloth.

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

--Oh, I begin to see.

The treasury account shows that it loses five francs on postage and five on salt, and gains ten on cloth.

That is even.

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

--Total, twenty francs.

This is satisfactory enough.

But what becomes of the poor cloth manufacturer?

--Oh, I have thought of him.

I have secured compensation for him by means of the tax reductions which are so profitable to the Treasury.

What I have done for you as regards cloth, I do for him in regard to wool, coal, machinery, etc. , so that he can lower his price without loss.

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

--The balance will be in his favor.

The twenty francs that you gain on the cloth will be multiplied by those which I will save for you on grain, meat, fuel, etc. This will amount to a large sum, and each one of your 35,000,000 fellow-citizens will save the same way.

There will be enough to consume the cloths of both Belgium and France.

The nation will be better clothed; that is all.

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

--After all, as far as clothes go, the main thing is to be clothed.

Your limbs are your own, and not the manufacturer's. To shield them from cold is your business and not his.

If the law takes sides for him against you, the law is unjust, and you allowed me to reason on the hypothesis that what is unjust is hurtful.

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

--Then I will make a tariff.

--In two folio volumes?

--No, in two sections.

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

Let us see your tariff.

--Here it is: Section First.

All imports shall pay an _ad valorem_ tax of five per cent.

--Even _raw materials_?

--Unless they are _worthless_.

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

--Then they will pay much or little.

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

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

--That is true; I reasoned as if the tax was to be annulled, not changed.

I will reflect on this.

What is your second section?

--Section Second.

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

--Merciful Heavens, Mr. Utopist!

You will certainly be stoned, and, if it comes to that, I will throw the first one.

--We agreed that the majority were enlightened.

--Enlightened!

Can you claim that an export duty is not onerous?

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

--The carnival justifies many eccentricities.

Be so kind as to make this new paradox appear specious, if you can.

--How much did you pay for this wine?

--A franc per quart.

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

--Fifty centimes.

--Why this difference?

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

--Who established the _octroi_?

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

--This is, then, an import duty.

But if the neighboring country districts had established this _octroi_ for their profit, what would happen?

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

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

--There is no doubt of that.

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

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

--Why not?

In order to secure the production of any one thing, there must be instruction, security, roads, and other costly things in the country.

Why shall not the foreigner who is to consume this product, bear the charges its production necessitates?

--This is contrary to received ideas.

--Not the least in the world.

The last purchaser must repay all the direct and indirect expenses of production.

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

--That is an illusion.

If you were to pay this tax besides all the others, you would be right.

But, if the hundred millions raised in this way, relieve you of other taxes to the same amount, you go into foreign markets with all your advantages, and even with more, if this duty has occasioned less embarrassment and expense.

--I will reflect on this.

So now the salt, postage and customs are regulated.

Is all ended there?

--I am just beginning.

--Pray, initiate me in your Utopian ideas.

--I have lost sixty millions on salt and postage.

I shall regain them through the customs; which also gives me something more precious.

--What, pray?

--International relations founded on justice, and a probability of peace which is equivalent to a certainty.

I will disband the army.

--The whole army?

--Except special branches, which will be voluntarily recruited, like all other professions.