Sophisms of the Protectionists Part 34

--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 quant.i.ty 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 quant.i.ty 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 quant.i.ty of its labor will become inert?

--Yes; but people will be no worse clothed--a little circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.similate 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 a.r.s.eNAL 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_.