Sophisms of the Protectionists Part 22

But it is not true that this iniquity is profitable to you. Give me your attention for a few moments and judge for yourselves.

What do they protect in France? Articles made by great manufacturers in great establishments, iron, cloth and silks, and they tell you that this is done not in the interest of the employer, but in your interest, in order to insure you wages.

But every time that foreign labor presents itself in the market in such a form that it may hurt _you_, but not the great manufacturers, do they not allow it to come in?

Are there not in Paris thirty thousand Germans who make clothes and shoes? Why are they allowed to establish themselves at your side when cloth is driven away? Because the cloth is made in great mills owned by manufacturing legislators. But clothes are made by workmen in their rooms.

These gentlemen want no compet.i.tion in the turning of wool into cloth, because that is _their_ business; but when it comes to converting cloth into clothes, they admit compet.i.tion, because that is _your_ trade.

When they made railroads they excluded English rails, but they imported English workmen to make them. Why? It is very simple; because English rails compete with the great rolling mills, and English muscles compete only with yours.

We do not ask them to keep out German tailors and English laborers. We ask that cloth and rails may be allowed to come in. We ask justice for all, equality before the law for all.

It is a mockery to tell us that these Custom House restrictions have _your_ advantage in view. Tailors, shoemakers, carpenters, millers, masons, blacksmiths, merchants, grocers, jewelers, butchers, bakers and dressmakers, I challenge you to show me a single instance in which restriction profits you, and if you wish, I will point out four where it hurts you.

And after all, just see how much of the appearance of truth this self-denial, which your journals attribute to the monopolists, has.

I believe that we can call that the _natural rate of wages_ which would establish itself _naturally_ if there were freedom of trade. Then, when they tell you that restriction is for your benefit, it is as if they told you that it added a _surplus_ to your _natural_ wages. Now, an _extra natural_ surplus of wages must be taken from somewhere; it does not fall from the moon; it must be taken from those who pay it.

You are then brought to this conclusion, that, according to your pretended friends, the protective system has been created and brought into the world in order that capitalists might be sacrificed to laborers!

Tell me, is that probable?

Where is your place in the Chamber of Peers? When did you sit at the Palais Bourbon? Who has consulted you? Whence came this idea of establis.h.i.+ng the protective system?

I hear your answer: _We_ did not establish it. We are neither Peers nor Deputies, nor Counselors of State. The capitalists have done it.

By heavens, they were in a delectable mood that day. What! the capitalists made this law; _they_ established the prohibitive system, so that you laborers should make profits at their expense!

But here is something stranger still.

How is it that your pretended friends who speak to you now of the goodness, generosity and self-denial of capitalists, constantly express regret that you do not enjoy your political rights? From their point of view, what could you do with them? The capitalists have the monopoly of legislation, it is true. Thanks to this monopoly, they have granted themselves the monopoly of iron, cloth, coal, wood and meat, which is also true. But now your pretended friends say that the capitalists, in acting thus, have stripped themselves, without being obliged to do it, to enrich you without your being ent.i.tled to it. Surely, if you were electors and deputies, you could not manage your affairs better; you would not even manage them as well.

If the industrial organization which rules us is made in your interest, it is a perfidy to demand political rights for you; for these democrats of a new species can never get out of this dilemma; the law, made by the present law-makers, gives you _more_, or gives you _less_, than your natural wages. If it gives you _less_, they deceive you in inviting you to support it. If it gives you _more_, they deceive you again by calling on you to claim political rights, when those who now exercise them, make sacrifices for you which you, in your honesty, could not yourselves vote.

Workingmen, G.o.d forbid that the effect of this article should be to cast in your hearts the germs of irritation against the rich. If mistaken _interests_ still support monopoly, let us not forget that it has its root in _errors_, which are common to capitalists and workmen. Then, far from laboring to excite them against one another, let us strive to bring them together. What must be done to accomplish this? If it is true that the natural social tendencies aid in effacing inequality among men, all we have to do to let those tendencies act is to remove the artificial obstructions which interfere with their operation, and allow the relations of different cla.s.ses to establish themselves on the principle of _justice_, which, to my mind, is the principle of FREEDOM.

VII.

A CHINESE STORY.

They exclaim against the greed and the selfishness of the age!

Open the thousand books, the thousand papers, the thousand pamphlets, which the Parisian presses throw out every day on the country; is not all this the work of little saints?

What spirit in the painting of the vices of the time! What touching tenderness for the ma.s.ses! With what liberality they invite the rich to divide with the poor, or the poor to divide with the rich! How many plans of social reform, social improvement, and social organization!

Does not even the weakest writer devote himself to the well-being of the laboring cla.s.ses? All that is required is to advance them a little money to give them time to attend to their humanitarian pursuits.

There is nothing which does not a.s.sume to aid in the well-being and moral advancement of the people--nothing, not even the Custom House. You believe that it is a tax machine, like a duty or a toll at the end of a bridge? Not at all. It is an essentially civilizing, fraternizing and equalizing inst.i.tution. What would you have? It is the fas.h.i.+on. It is necessary to put or affect to put feeling or sentimentality everywhere, even in the cure of all troubles.

But it must be admitted that the Custom House organization has a singular way of going to work to realize these philanthropic aspirations.

It puts on foot an army of collectors, a.s.sistant collectors, inspectors, a.s.sistant inspectors, cas.h.i.+ers, accountants, receivers, clerks, supernumeraries, tide-waiters, and all this in order to exercise on the industry of the people that negative action which is summed up in the word _to prevent_.

Observe that I do not say _to tax_, but really _to prevent_.

And _to prevent_, not acts reproved by morality, or opposed to public order, but transactions which are innocent, and which they have even admitted are favorable to the peace and harmony of nations.

However, humanity is so flexible and supple that, in one way or another, it always overcomes these attempts at prevention.

It is for the purpose of increasing labor. If people are kept from getting their food from abroad they produce it at home. It is more laborious, but they must live. If they are kept from pa.s.sing along the valley, they must climb the mountains. It is longer, but the point of destination must be reached.

This is sad, but amusing. When the law has thus created a certain amount of obstacles, and when, to overcome them, humanity has diverted a corresponding amount of labor, you are no longer allowed to call for the reform of the law; for, if you point out the _obstacle_, they show you the labor which it brings into play; and if you say this is not labor created but _diverted_, they answer you as does the _Esprit Public_--"The impoveris.h.i.+ng only is certain and immediate; as for the enriching, it is more than problematical."

This recalls to me a Chinese story, which I will tell you.

There were in China two great cities, Tchin and Tchan. A magnificent ca.n.a.l connected them. The Emperor thought fit to have immense ma.s.ses of rock thrown into it, to make it useless.

Seeing this, Kouang, his first Mandarin, said to him: "Son of Heaven, you make a mistake." To which the Emperor replied: "Kouang, you are foolish."

You understand, of course, that I give but the substance of the dialogue.

At the end of three moons the Celestial Emperor had the Mandarin brought, and said to him: "Kouang, look."

And Kouang, opening his eyes, looked.

He saw at a certain distance from the ca.n.a.l a mult.i.tude of men _laboring_. Some excavated, some filled up, some leveled, and some laid pavement, and the Mandarin, who was very learned, thought to himself: They are making a road.

At the end of three more moons, the Emperor, having called Kouang, said to him: "Look."

And Kouang looked.

And he saw that the road was made; and he noticed that at various points, inns were building. A medley of foot pa.s.sengers, carriages and palanquins went and came, and innumerable Chinese, oppressed by fatigue, carried back and forth heavy burdens from Tchin to Tchan, and from Tchan to Tchin, and Kouang said: It is the destruction of the ca.n.a.l which has given labor to these poor people. But it did not occur to him that this labor was _diverted_ from other employments.

Then more moons pa.s.sed, and the Emperor said to Kouang: "Look."

And Kouang looked.

He saw that the inns were always full of travelers, and that they being hungry, there had sprung up, near by, the shops of butchers, bakers, charcoal dealers, and bird's nest sellers. Since these worthy men could not go naked, tailors, shoemakers and umbrella and fan dealers had settled there, and as they do not sleep in the open air, even in the Celestial Empire, carpenters, masons and thatchers congregated there.

Then came police officers, judges and fakirs; in a word, around each stopping place there grew up a city with its suburbs.

Said the Emperor to Kouang: "What do you think of this?"

And Kouang replied: "I could never have believed that the destruction of a ca.n.a.l could create so much labor for the people." For he did not think that it was not labor created, but _diverted_; that travelers ate when they went by the ca.n.a.l just as much as they did when they were forced to go by the road.