Sophisms of the Protectionists — 16 - Second Series Part 7

--An absolute restriction.

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

--Yes, comparatively.

They bear the same relation to each other that the arc of the circle does to the circle.

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

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

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

--Protection.

--What is the definite effect of protection?

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

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

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

--Why do you say _apparent_?

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

--What?

--That cannot and need not be determined.

--Why?

--Because, if the total of the comforts of France could be gained with a diminution of one-tenth on the total of its labor, no one could determine what comforts it would procure with the labor remaining at its disposal.

One person would prefer to be better clothed, another better fed, another better taught, and another more amused.

--Explain the workings and effect of protection.

--It is not an easy matter.

Before taking hold of a complicated instance, it must be studied in the simplest one.

--Take the simplest you choose.

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

--Yes.

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

--And that gave him an abundance of work?

--Fifteen full days.

--What did he live on during this time?

--His provisions.

--What happened to the ax?

--It was all blunted.

--Very good; but there is one thing which, perhaps, you do not know.

At the moment that Robinson gave the first blow with his ax, he saw a plank which the waves had cast up on the shore.

--Oh, the lucky accident!

He ran to pick it up?

--It was his first impulse; but he checked himself, reasoning thus: "If I go after this plank, it will cost me but the labor of carrying it and the time spent in going to and returning from the shore.

"But if I make a plank with my ax, I shall in the first place obtain work for fifteen days, then I shall wear out my ax, which will give me an opportunity of repairing it, and I shall consume my provisions, which will be a third source of labor, since they must be replaced.

Now, _labor is wealth_.

It is plain that I will ruin myself if I pick up this stranded board.

It is important to protect my _personal labor_, and now that I think of it, I can create myself additional labor by kicking this board back into the sea."

--But this reasoning was absurd!

--Certainly.

Nevertheless it is that adopted by every nation which _protects_ itself by prohibition.

It rejects the plank which is offered it in exchange for a little labor, in order to give itself more labor.

It sees a gain even in the labor of the custom house officer.

This answers to the trouble which Robinson took to give back to the waves the present they wished to make him.

Consider the nation a collective being, and you will not find an atom of difference between its reasoning and that of Robinson.

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

--What '_something else_'?

--So long as one has wants and time, one has always _something_ to do.

I

am not bound to specify the labor that he could undertake.

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

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

--It is not necessary.

But this is the restrictive or prohibitory system in its simplest form.

If it appears absurd to you, thus stated, it is because the two qualities of producer and consumer are here united in the same person.

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

--Willingly.

Some time after all this, Robinson having met Friday, they united, and began to work in common.

They hunted for six hours each morning and brought home four hampers of game.

They worked in the garden for six hours each afternoon, and obtained four baskets of vegetables.

One day a canoe touched at the Island of Despair.

A good-looking stranger landed, and was allowed to dine with our two hermits.

He tasted, and praised the products of the garden, and before taking leave of his hosts, said to them: "Generous Islanders, I dwell in a country much richer in game than this, but where horticulture is unknown.

It would be easy for me to bring you every evening four hampers of game if you would give me only two baskets of vegetables."

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

_ Friend, what do you think of it?

_Robinson.

_ If we accept we are ruined.

_Friday.

_ Is that certain?

Calculate!

_Robinson.

_ It is all calculated.

Hunting, crushed out by competition, will be a lost branch of industry for us.

_Friday.

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

_Robinson.

_ Theory!

It will not be the product of our labor.

_Friday.

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

_Robinson.

_ Then what shall we make?

_Friday.

_ The four hampers of game cost us six hours' labor.

The stranger gives them to us for two baskets of vegetables, which take us but three hours.

Thus three hours remain at our disposal.

_Robinson.

_ Say rather that they are taken from our activity.

There is our loss.

_Labor is wealth_, and if we lose a fourth of our time we are one-fourth poorer.

_Friday.

_ Friend, you make an enormous mistake.

The same amount of game and vegetables and three free hours to boot make progress, or there is none in the world.

_Robinson.

_ Mere generalities.

What will we do with these three hours?

_Friday.

_ We will do _something else_.

_Robinson.

_ Ah, now I have you.

You can specify nothing.

It is very easy to say _something else--something else_.

_Friday.

_ We will fish.

We will adorn our houses.

We will read the Bible.

_Robinson.

_ Utopia!

Is it certain that we will do this rather than that?

_Friday.

_ Well, if we have no wants, we will rest.

Is rest nothing?

_Robinson.

_ When one rests one dies of hunger.

_Friday.

_ Friend, you are in a vicious circle.

I speak of a rest which diminishes neither our gains nor our vegetables.

You always forget that by means of our commerce with this stranger, nine hours of labor will give us as much food as twelve now do.

_Robinson.

_ It is easy to see that you were not reared in Europe.

Perhaps you have never read the _Moniteur Industriel_?

It would have taught you this: "All time saved is a dear loss.

Eating is not the important matter, but working.

Nothing which we consume counts, if it is not the product of our labor.

Do you wish to know whether you are rich?

Do not look at your comforts, but at your trouble."

This is what the _Moniteur Industriel_ would have taught you.

I, who am not a theorist, see but the loss of our hunting.

_Friday.

_ What a strange perversion of ideas.

But-- _Robinson.

_ No _buts_.

Besides, there are political reasons for rejecting the interested offers of this perfidious stranger.

_Friday.

_ Political reasons!

_Robinson.

_ Yes.

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

_Friday.

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

_Robinson.

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

_Friday.

_ And he on us.

We need his game, he our vegetables, and we will live in good friendship.

_Robinson.

_ Fancy!

Do you want I should leave you without an answer?

_Friday.

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

_Robinson.

_ Supposing that the stranger learns to cultivate a garden, and that his island is more fertile than ours.

Do you see the consequences?

_Friday.

_ Yes.

Our relations with the stranger will stop.

He will take no more vegetables from us, since he can get them at home with less trouble.

He will bring us no more game, since we will have nothing to give in exchange, and we will be then just where you want us to be now.

_Robinson.

_ Short-sighted savage!

You do not see that after having destroyed our hunting, by inundating us with game, he will kill our gardening by overwhelming us with vegetables.

_Friday.

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

_Robinson.

_ _Something else--something else!

_ You always come back to that.

You are very vague, friend Friday; there is nothing practical in your views.

The contest lasted a long time, and, as often happens, left each one convinced that he was right.

However, Robinson having great influence over Friday, his views prevailed, and when the stranger came for an answer, Robinson said to him: "Stranger, in order that your proposition may be accepted, we must be quite sure of two things: "The first is, that your island is not richer in game than ours, for we will struggle but with _equal arms_.

"The second is, that you will lose by the bargain.

For, as in every exchange there is necessarily a gainer and a loser, we would be cheated, if you were not.

What have you to say?"

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

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

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

--Oh, there is a great difference.

You suppose one solitary man, or, what comes to the same thing, two men living together.

This is not our world; the diversity of occupations, and the intervention of merchants and money, change the question materially.

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

--What!

Do you propose to compare modern commerce to mere exchanges?

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

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

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

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

--Very well; in France, in view of custom and the exigencies of the climate, cloth is an useful article.

Is it the essential thing _to make it, or to have it_?

--A pretty question!

To have it, we must make it.

--That is not necessary.

It is certain that to have it some one must make it; but it is not necessary that the person or country using it should make it.

You did not produce that which clothes you so well, nor France the coffee it uses for breakfast.

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

--Exactly, and with what?

--With specie.

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

--We bought it.

--With what?

--With our products which went to Peru.

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

--Certainly.

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

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

--In other words, France has two ways of procuring a given quantity of cloth.

The first is to make it, and the second is to make _something else_, and exchange _that something else_ abroad for cloth.

Of these two ways, which is the best?

--I do not know.

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

--It seems so.

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

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

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

--That is true.

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

--But what other thing?

--No matter what.

Being free to choose, it will make _something else_ only so long as there is _something else_ to make.

--That is possible; but I cannot rid myself of the idea that the foreigners may send us cloth and not take something else, in which case we shall be prettily caught.

Under all circumstances, this is the objection, even from your own point of view.

You admit that France will make this _something else_, which is to be exchanged for cloth, with less labor than if it had made the cloth itself?

--Doubtless.

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

--Yes; but people will be no worse clothed--a little circumstance which causes the whole misunderstanding.

Robinson lost sight of it, and our protectionists do not see it, or pretend not to.

The stranded plank thus paralyzed for fifteen days Robinson's labor, so far as it was applied to the making of a plank, but it did not deprive him of it.

Distinguish, then, between these two kinds of diminution of labor, one resulting in _privation_, and the other in _comfort_.

These two things are very different, and if you assimilate them, you reason like Robinson.

In the most complicated, as in the most simple instances, the sophism consists in this: _Judging of the utility of labor by its duration and intensity, and not by its results_, which leads to this economic policy, _a reduction of the results of labor, in order to increase its duration and intensity_.

XV. THE LITTLE ARSENAL OF THE FREE TRADER.

--If they say to you: There are no absolute principles; prohibition may be bad, and restriction good-- Reply: Restriction _prohibits_ all that it keeps from coming in.

--If they say to you: Agriculture is the nursing mother of the country-- Reply: That which feeds a country is not exactly agriculture, but _grain_.

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

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

--If they say to you: A restriction on the admission of foreign grain leads to more cultivation, and, consequently, to a greater home production-- Reply: It leads to sowing on the rocks of the mountains and the sands of the sea.

To milk and steadily milk, a cow gives more milk; for who can tell the moment when not a drop more can be obtained?

But the drop costs dear.

--If they say to you: Let bread be dear, and the wealthy farmer will enrich the artisans-- Reply: Bread is dear when there is little of it, a thing which can make but poor, or, if you please, rich people who are starving.

--If they insist on it, saying: When food is dear, wages rise-- Reply by showing that in April, 1847, five-sixths of the workingmen were beggars.

--If they say to you: The profits of the workingmen must rise with the dearness of food-- Reply: This is equivalent to saying that in an unprovisioned vessel everybody has the same number of biscuits whether he has any or not.

--If they say to you: A good price must be secured for those who sell grain-- Reply: Certainly; but good wages must be secured to those who buy it.

--If they say to you: The land owners, who make the law, have raised the price of food without troubling themselves about wages, because they know that when food becomes dear, wages _naturally_ rise-- Reply: On this principle, when workingmen come to make the law, do not blame them if they fix a high rate of wages without troubling themselves to protect grain, for they know that if wages are raised, articles of food will _naturally_ rise in price.

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

Reply: Be just to everybody.

--If they say to you: It is essential that a great country should manufacture iron-- Reply: The most essential thing is that this great country _should have iron_.

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

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

--If they say to you: Labor is wealth-- Reply: It is false.

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

--If they say to you: To compel men to work over rocks and get an ounce of iron from a ton of ore, is to increase their labor, and, consequently, their wealth-- Reply: To compel men to dig wells, by denying them the use of river water, is to add to their _useless_ labor, but not their wealth.

--If they say to you: The sun gives his heat and light without requiring remuneration-- Reply: So much the better for me, since it costs me nothing to see distinctly.

--And if they reply to you: Industry in general loses what you would have paid for lights-- Retort: No, for having paid nothing to the sun, I use that which it saves me in paying for clothes, furniture and candles.

--So, if they say to you: These English rascals have capital which pays them nothing-- Reply: So much the better for us; they will not make us pay interest.

--If they say to you: These perfidious Englishmen find iron and coal at the same spot-- Reply: So much the better for us; they will not make us pay anything for bringing them together.

--If they say to you: The Swiss have rich pastures which cost little-- Reply: The advantage is on our side, for they will ask for a lesser quantity of our labor to furnish our farmers oxen and our stomachs food.

--If they say to you: The lands in the Crimea are worth nothing, and pay no taxes-- Reply: The gain is on our side, since we buy grain free from those charges.

--If they say to you: The serfs of Poland work without wages-- Reply: The loss is theirs and the gain is ours, since their labor is deducted from the price of the grain which their masters sell us.

--Then, if they say to you: Other nations have many advantages over us-- Reply: By exchange, they are forced to let us share in them.

--If they say to you: With liberty we shall be swamped with bread, beef _a la mode_, coal, and coats-- Reply: We shall be neither cold nor hungry.

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

Reply: Do not be troubled about that.

If we are to be inundated, it will be because we are able to pay.

If we cannot pay we will not be inundated.

--If they say to you: I would allow free trade, if a stranger, in bringing us one thing, took away another; but he will carry off our specie-- Reply: Neither specie nor coffee grow in the fields of Beauce or come out of the manufactories of Elbeuf.

For us to pay a foreigner with specie is like paying him with coffee.

--If they say to you: Eat meat-- Reply: Let it come in.

--If they say to you, like the _Presse_: When you have not the money to buy bread with, buy beef-- Reply: This advice is as wise as that of Vautour to his tenant, "If a person has not money to pay his rent with, he ought to have a house of his own."

--If they say to you, like the _Presse_: The State ought to teach the people why and how it should eat meat-- Reply: Only let the State allow the meat free entrance, and the most civilized people in the world are old enough to learn to eat it without any teacher.

--If they say to you: The State ought to know everything, and foresee everything, to guide the people, and the people have only to let themselves be guided-- Reply: Is there a State outside of the people, and a human foresight outside of humanity?

Archimedes might have repeated all the days of his life, "With a lever and a fulcrum I will move the world," but he could not have moved it, for want of those two things.

The fulcrum of the State is the nation, and nothing is madder than to build so many hopes on the State; that is to say, to assume a collective science and foresight, after having established individual folly and short-sightedness.

--If they say to you: My God!

I ask no favors, but only a duty on grain and meat, which may compensate for the heavy taxes to which France is subjected; a mere little duty, equal to what these taxes add to the cost of my grain-- Reply: A thousand pardons, but I, too, pay taxes.

If, then, the protection which you vote yourself results in burdening for me, your grain with your proportion of the taxes, your insinuating demand aims at nothing less than the establishment between us of the following arrangement, thus worded by yourself: "Since the public burdens are heavy, I, who sell grain, will pay nothing at all; and you, my neighbor, the buyer, shall pay two parts, to wit, your share and mine."

My neighbor, the grain dealer, you may have power on your side, but not reason.

--If they say to you: It is, however, very hard for me, a tax payer, to compete in my own market with foreigners who pay none-- Reply: First, This is not _your_ market, but _our_ market.

I who live on grain, and pay for it, must be counted for something.

Secondly.

Few foreigners at this time are free from taxes.

Thirdly.

If the tax which you vote repays to you, in roads, canals and safety, more than it costs you, you are not justified in driving away, at my expense, the competition of foreigners who do not pay the tax but who do not have the safety, roads and canals.

It is the same as saying: I want a compensating duty, because I have fine clothes, stronger horses and better plows than the Russian laborer.

Fourthly.

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

Fifthly.

If, after you have voted a tax, it is your pleasure to escape its operation, invent a system which will throw it on foreigners.

But the tariff only throws your proportion on me, when I already have enough of my own.

--If they say to you: Freedom of commerce is necessary among the Russians _that they may exchange their products with advantage_ (opinion of M. Thiers, April, 1847)-- Reply: This freedom is necessary everywhere, and for the same reason.

--If they say to you: Each country has its wants; it is according to that that _it must act_ (M. Thiers)-- Reply: It is according to that that _it acts of itself_ when no one hinders it.

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

--If they say to you: Our merchant marine must have freight; owing to the lack of return cargoes our vessels cannot compete with foreign ones-- Reply: When you want to do everything at home, you can have cargoes neither going nor coming.

It is as absurd to wish for a navy under a prohibitory system as to wish for carts where all transportation is forbidden.

--If they say to you: Supposing that protection is unjust, everything is founded on it; there are moneys invested, and rights acquired, and it cannot be abandoned without suffering-- Reply: Every injustice profits some one (except, perhaps, restriction, which in the long run profits no one), and to use as an argument the disturbance which the cessation of the injustice causes to the person profiting by it, is to say that an injustice, only because it has existed for a moment, should be eternal.