Sophisms of the Protectionists Part 26

--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---- a.s.serts 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 d.a.m.nable 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 embarra.s.sed.

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.