"We come now to offer you an admirable opportunity for the application of your—what shall we say? your theory? no, nothing is more deceiving than theory—your doctrine? your system? your principle? But you do not like doctrines; you hold systems in horror; and, as for principles, you declare that there are no such things in political economy. We will say, then, your practice; your practice without theory, and without principle.

"We are subjected to the intolerable competition of a FOREIGN RIVAL, who enjoys, it would seem, such superior facilities for the production of light, that he is enabled to inundate our national market at so exceedingly reduced a price, that, the moment he makes his appearance, he draws off all custom from us; and thus an important branch of American industry, with all its innumerable ramifications, is suddenly reduced to a state of complete stagnation. This rival, who is no other than the sun, carries on so bitter a war against us, that we have every reason to believe that he has been excited to this course by our perfidious cousins, the Britishers. (Good diplomacy this, for the present time!) In this belief we are confirmed by the fact that in all his transactions with their befogged island, he is much more moderate and careful than with us.

"Our petition is, that it would please your Honorable Body to pass a law whereby shall be directed the shutting up of all windows, dormers, sky-lights, shutters, curtains—in a word, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is used to penetrate into our dwellings, to the prejudice of the profitable manufactures which we flatter ourselves we have been enabled to bestow upon the country; which country cannot, therefore, without ingratitude, leave us now to struggle unprotected through so unequal a contest.

"We pray your Honorable Body not to mistake our petition for a satire, nor to repulse us without at least hearing the reasons which we have to advance in its favor.

"And first, if, by shutting out as much as possible all access to natural light, you thus create the necessity for artificial light, is there in the United States an industrial pursuit which will not, through some connection with this important object, be benefited by it?

"If more tallow be consumed, there will arise a necessity for an increase of cattle and sheep. Thus artificial meadows must be in greater demand; and meat, wool, leather, and above all, manure, this basis of agricultural riches, must become more abundant.

"If more oil be consumed, it will effect a great impetus to our petroleum trade. Pit-Hole, Tack, and Oil Creek stock will go up exceedingly, and an immense revenue will thereby accrue to the numerous possessors of oil lands, who will be able to pay such a large tax that the national debt can be paid off at once. Besides that, the patent hermetical barrel trade, and numerous other industries connected with the oil trade, will prosper at an unprecedented rate, to the great benefit and glory of the country.

"Navigation would equally profit. Thousands of vessels would soon be employed in the whale fisheries, and thence would arise a navy capable of sustaining the honor of the United States, and of responding to the patriotic sentiments of the undersigned petitioners, candle-merchants, &c.

"But what words can express the magnificence which New York will then exhibit! Cast an eye upon the future, and behold the gildings, the bronzes, the magnificent crystal chandeliers, lamps, lusters, and candelabras, which will glitter in the spacious stores, compared to which the splendor of the present day will appear little and insignificant.

"There is none, not even the poor manufacturer of resin in the midst of his pine forests, nor the miserable miner in his dark dwelling, but who would enjoy an increase of salary and of comforts.

"Gentlemen, if you will be pleased to reflect, you cannot fail to be convinced that there is perhaps not one American, from the opulent stockholder of Pit-Hole, down to the poorest vender of matches, who is not interested in the success of our petition.

"We foresee your objections, gentlemen; but there is not one that you can oppose to us which you will not be obliged to gather from the works of the partisans of free trade. We dare challenge you to pronounce one word against our petition, which is not equally opposed to your own practice and the principle which guides your policy.

"If you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, the United States will not gain, because the consumer must pay the price of it, we answer you:

"You have no longer any right to cite the interest of the consumer. For whenever this has been found to compete with that of the producer, you have invariably sacrificed the first. You have done this to encourage labor, to increase the demand for labor. The same reason should now induce you to act in the same manner.

"You have yourselves already answered the objection. When you were told: The consumer is interested in the free introduction of iron, coal, corn, wheat, cloths, &c., your answer was: Yes, but the producer is interested in their exclusion. Thus, also, if the consumer is interested in the admission of light, we, the producers, pray for its interdiction.

"You have also said the producer and the consumer are one. If the manufacturer gains by protection, he will cause the agriculturist to gain also; if agriculture prospers, it opens a market for manufactured goods. Thus we, if you confer upon us the monopoly of furnishing light during the day, will as a first consequence buy large quantities of tallow, coal, oil, resin, kerosene, wax, alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, crystal, for the supply of our business; and then we and our numerous contractors having become rich, our consumption will be great, and will become a means of contributing to the comfort and competency of the workers in every branch of national labor.

"Will you say that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift, and that to repulse gratuitous gifts is to repulse riches under pretence of encouraging the means of obtaining them?

"Take care—you carry the death-blow to your own policy. Remember that hitherto you have always repulsed foreign produce, because it was an approach to a gratuitous gift, and the more in proportion as this approach was more close. You have, in obeying the wishes of other monopolists, acted only from a half-motive; to grant our petition there is a much fuller inducement. To repulse us, precisely for the reason that our case is a more complete one than any which have preceded it, would be to lay down the following equation: + x + = -; in other words, it would be to accumulate absurdity upon absurdity.

"Labor and Nature concur in different proportions, according to country and climate, in every article of production. The portion of Nature is always gratuitous; that of labor alone regulates the price.

"If a Lisbon orange can be sold at one hundredth the price of a New York one, it is because a natural and gratuitous heat does for the one, what the other only obtains from an artificial and consequently expensive one.

"When, therefore, we purchase a Portuguese orange, we may say that we obtain it 99/100 gratuitously and 1/100 by the right of labor; in other words, at a mere song compared to those of New York.

"Now it is precisely on account of this 99/100 gratuity (excuse the phrase) that you argue in favor of exclusion. How, you say, could national labor sustain the competition of foreign labor, when the first has every thing to do, and the last is rid of nearly all the trouble, the sun taking the rest of the business upon himself? If then the 99/100 gratuity can determine you to check competition, on what principle can the entire gratuity be alleged as a reason for admitting it? You are no logicians if, refusing the 99/100 gratuity as hurtful to human labor, you do not a fortiori, and with double zeal, reject the full gratuity.

"Again, when any article, as coal, iron, cheese, or cloth, comes to us from foreign countries with less labor than if we produced it ourselves, the difference in price is a gratuitous gift conferred upon us; and the gift is more or less considerable, according as the difference is greater or less. It is the quarter, the half, or the three-quarters of the value of the produce, in proportion as the foreign merchant requires the three-quarters, the half, or the quarter of the price. It is as complete as possible when the producer offers, as the sun does with light, the whole, in free gift. The question is, and we put it formally, whether you wish for the United States the benefit of gratuitous consumption, or the supposed advantages of laborious production. Choose: but be consistent. And does it not argue the greatest inconsistency to check, as you do, the importation of iron-ware, dry-goods, and other foreign manufactures, merely because, and even in proportion as, their price approaches zero, while at the same time you freely admit, and without limitation, the light of the sun, whose price is during the whole day at zero?"



CHAPTER VIII.

DISCRIMINATING DUTIES.

A poor laborer of Ohio had raised, with the greatest possible care and attention, a nursery of vines, from which, after much labor, he at last succeeded in producing a pipe of Catawba wine, and forgot, in the joy of his success, that each drop of this precious nectar had cost a drop of sweat to his brow.

"I will sell it," said he to his wife, "and with the proceeds I will buy lace, which will serve you to make a present for our daughter."

The honest countryman, arriving in the city of Cincinnati, there met an Englishman and a Yankee.

The Yankee said to him, "Give me your wine, and I in exchange will give you fifteen bundles of Yankee lace."

The Englishman said, "Give it to me, and I will give you twenty bundles of English lace, for we English can spin cheaper than the Yankees."

But a custom-house officer standing by, said to the laborer, "My good fellow, make your exchange, if you choose, with Brother Jonathan, but it is my duty to prevent your doing so with the Englishman."

"What!" exclaimed the countryman, "you wish me to take fifteen bundles of New England lace, when I can have twenty from Manchester!"

"Certainly," replied the custom-house officer; "do you not see that the United States would be a loser if you were to receive twenty bundles instead of fifteen?"

"I can scarcely understand this," said the laborer.

"Nor can I explain it," said the custom-house officer, "but there is no doubt of the fact; for congressmen, ministers, and editors, all agree that a people is impoverished in proportion as it receives a large compensation for any given quantity of its produce."

The countryman was obliged to conclude his bargain with the Yankee. His daughter received but three-fourths of her present; and these good folks are still puzzling themselves to discover how it can happen that people are ruined by receiving four instead of three; and why they are richer with three dozen bundles of lace instead of four.



CHAPTER IX.

A WONDERFUL DISCOVERY.

At this moment, when all minds are occupied in endeavoring to discover the most economical means of transportation; when, to put these means into practice, we are levelling roads, improving rivers, perfecting steamboats, establishing railroads, and attempting various systems of traction, atmospheric, hydraulic, pneumatic, electric, &c.; at this moment, when, I believe, every one is seeking in sincerity and with ardor the solution of this problem—"To bring the price of things in their place of consumption, as near as possible to their price in that of production"—I would believe myself to be acting a culpable part towards my country, towards the age in which I live, and towards myself, if I were longer to keep secret the wonderful discovery which I have just made.

I am well aware that the self-illusions of inventors have become proverbial, but I have, nevertheless, the most complete certainty of having discovered an infallible means of bringing produce from all parts of the world into the United States, and reciprocally to transport ours, with a very important reduction of price.

Infallible! and yet this is but a single one of the advantages of my astonishing invention, which requires neither plans nor devices, neither preparatory studies, nor engineers, nor machinists, nor capital, nor stockholders, nor governmental assistance! There is no danger of shipwrecks, of explosions, of shocks of fire, nor of displacement of rails! It can be put into practice without preparation almost any day we think proper!

Finally: and this will, no doubt, recommend it to the public, it will not increase the Budget one cent; but the contrary. It will not augment the number of office-holders, nor the exigencies of State; but the contrary. It will put in hazard the liberty of no one; but on the contrary, it will secure to each a greater freedom.

I have been led to this discovery, not from accident, but from observation, and I will tell you how.

I had this question to determine:

"Why does any article made, for instance, at Montreal, bear an increased price on its arrival at New York?"

It was immediately evident to me that this was the result of obstacles of various kinds existing between Montreal and New York. First, there is distance, which cannot be overcome without trouble and loss of time; and either we must submit to these troubles and losses in our own person, or pay another for bearing them for us. Then come rivers, hills, accidents, heavy and muddy roads. These are so many difficulties to be overcome; in order to do which, causeways are constructed, bridges built, roads cut and paved, railroads established, &c. But all this is costly, and the article transported must bear its portion of the expense. There are robbers, too, on the roads, sometimes, and this necessitates railway guards, a police force, &c.

Now, among these obstacles, there is one which we ourselves have lately placed, and that at no little expense, between Montreal and New York. This consists of men planted along the frontier, armed to the teeth, whose business it is to place difficulties in the way of the transportation of goods from one country to another. These men are called custom-house officers, and their effect is precisely similar to that of rutted and boggy roads. They retard and put obstacles in the way of transportation, thus contributing to the difference which we have remarked between the price of production and that of consumption; to diminish which difference, as much as possible, is the problem which we are seeking to resolve.

Here, then, we have found its solution. Let our tariff be diminished: we will thus have constructed a Northern railway which will cost us nothing. Nay, more, we will be saved great expenses, and will begin, from the first day, to save capital.

Really, I cannot but ask myself, in surprise, how our brains could have admitted so whimsical a piece of folly as to induce us to pay many millions to destroy the natural obstacles interposed between the United States and other nations, only at the same time to pay so many millions more in order to replace them by artificial obstacles, which have exactly the same effect; so that the obstacle removed and the obstacle created, neutralize each other, things go on as before, and the only result of our trouble is a double expense.

An article of Canadian production is worth, at Montreal, twenty dollars, and, from the expenses of transportation, thirty dollars at New York. A similar article of New York manufacture costs forty dollars. What is our course under these circumstances?

First, we impose a duty of at least ten dollars on the Canadian article, so as to raise its price to a level with that of the New York one—the government, withal, paying numerous officials to attend to the levying of this duty. The article thus pays ten dollars for transportation, and ten for the tax.

This done, we say to ourselves: Transportation between Montreal and New York is very dear; let us spend two or three millions in railways, and we will reduce it one-half. Evidently the result of such a course will be to get the Canadian article at New York for thirty-five dollars, viz.:

20 dollars—price at Montreal. 10 " duty. 5 " transportation by railway. — 35 dollars—total, or market price at New York.

Could we not have attained the same end by lowering the tariff to five dollars? We would then have—

20 dollars—price at Montreal. 5 " duty. 10 " transportation on the common road. — 35 dollars—total, or market price at New York.

And this arrangement would have saved us the $2,000,000 spent upon the railway, besides the expense saved in custom-house surveillance, which would of course diminish in proportion as the temptation to smuggling would become less.

But it is answered: The duty is necessary to protect New York industry. So be it; but do not then destroy the effect of it by your railway. For if you persist in your determination to keep the Canadian article on a par with the New York one at forty dollars, you must raise the duty to fifteen dollars, in order to have:—

20 dollars—price at Montreal. 15 " protective duty. 5 " transportation by railway. — 40 dollars—total, at equalized prices.

And I now ask, of what benefit, under these circumstances, is the railway?

Frankly, is it not humiliating to the nineteenth century, that it should be destined to transmit to future ages the example of such puerilities seriously and gravely practised? To be the dupe of another, is bad enough; but to employ all the forms and ceremonies of representation in order to cheat oneself—to doubly cheat oneself, and that too in a mere numerical account—truly this is calculated to lower a little the pride of this enlightened age.



CHAPTER X.

RECIPROCITY.

We have just seen that all which renders transportation difficult, acts in the same manner as protection; or, if the expression be preferred, that protection tends towards the same result as all obstacles to transportation.

A tariff may be truly spoken of as a swamp, a rut, a steep hill; in a word, an obstacle, whose effect is to augment the difference between the price of consumption and that of production. It is equally incontestable that a swamp, a bog, &c., are veritable protective tariffs.

There are people (few in number, it is true, but such there are) who begin to understand that obstacles are not the less obstacles because they are artificially created, and that our well-being is more advanced by freedom of trade than by protection; precisely as a canal is more desirable than a sandy, hilly, and difficult road.

But they still say, this liberty ought to be reciprocal. If we take off our taxes in favor of Canada, while Canada does not do the same towards us, it is evident that we are duped. Let us, then, make treaties of commerce upon the basis of a just reciprocity; let us yield where we are yielded to; let us make the sacrifice of buying that we may obtain the advantage of selling.

Persons who reason thus, are (I am sorry to say), whether they know it or not, governed by the protectionist principle. They are only a little more inconsistent than the pure protectionists, as these are more inconsistent than the absolute prohibitionists.

I will illustrate this by a fable:

There were, it matters not where, two towns, N*w Y*rk and M*ntr**l, which, at great expense, had a road built, which connected them with each other. Some time after this was done, the inhabitants of N*w Y*rk became uneasy, and said: "M*ntr**l is overwhelming us with its productions; this must be attended to." They established, therefore, a corps of Obstructors, so called, because their business was to place obstacles in the way of the convoys which arrived from M*ntr**l. Soon after, M*ntr**l also established a corps of Obstructors.

After some years, people having become more enlightened, the inhabitants of M*ntr**l began to discover that these reciprocal obstacles might possibly be reciprocal injuries. They sent, therefore, an ambassador to N*w Y*rk, who (passing over the official phraseology) spoke much to this effect: "We have built a road, and now we put obstacles in the way of this road. This is absurd. It would have been far better to have left things in their original position, for then we would not have been put to the expense of building our road, and afterwards of creating difficulties. In the name of M*ntr**l I come to propose to you not to renounce at once our system of mutual obstacles, for this would be acting according to a principle, and we despise principles as much as you do; but to somewhat lighten these obstacles, weighing at the same time carefully our respective sacrifices." The ambassador having thus spoken, the town of N*w Y*rk asked time to reflect; manufacturers, office-seekers, congressmen, and custom-house officers, were consulted; and at last, after some years' deliberation, it was declared that the negotiations were broken off.

At this news, the inhabitants of M*ntr**l held a council. An old man (who it has always been supposed had been secretly bribed by N*w Y*rk) rose and said: "The obstacles raised by N*w Y*rk are injurious to our sales; this is a misfortune. Those which we ourselves create, injure our purchases; this is a second misfortune. We have no power over the first, but the second is entirely dependent upon ourselves. Let us then at least get rid of one, since we cannot be delivered from both. Let us suppress our corps of Obstructors, without waiting for N*w Y*rk to do the same. Some day or other she will learn to better calculate her own interests."

A second counsellor, a man of practice and of facts, uncontrolled by principles and wise in ancestral experience, replied: "We must not listen to this dreamer, this theorist, this innovator, this Utopian, this political economist, this friend to N*w Y*rk. We would be entirely ruined if the embarrassments of the road were not carefully weighed and exactly equalized between N*w Y*rk and M*ntr**l. There would be more difficulty in going than in coming; in exportation than in importation. We would be with regard to N*w Y*rk, in the inferior condition in which Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lisbon, London, Hamburg, and New Orleans, are, in relation to cities placed higher up the rivers Seine, Loire, Garonne, Tagus, Thames, Elbe, and Mississippi; for the difficulties of ascending must always be greater than those of descending rivers."

"(A voice exclaims: 'But the cities near the mouths of rivers have always prospered more than those higher up the stream.')

"This is not possible."

"(The same voice: 'But it is a fact.')

"Well, they have then prospered contrary to rule."

Such conclusive reasoning staggered the assembly. The orator went on to convince them thoroughly and conclusively by speaking of national independence, national honor, national dignity, national labor, overwhelming importation, tributes, ruinous competition. In short, he succeeded in determining the assembly to continue their system of obstacles, and I can now point out a certain country where you may see road-workers and Obstructors working with the best possible understanding, by the decree of the same legislative assembly, paid by the same citizens; the first to improve the road, the last to embarrass it.



CHAPTER XI.

ABSOLUTE PRICES.

If we wish to judge between freedom of trade and protection, to calculate the probable effect of any political phenomenon, we should notice how far its influence tends to the production of abundance or scarcity, and not simply of cheapness or dearness of price. We must beware of trusting to absolute prices: it would lead to inextricable confusion.

Mr. Protectionist, after having established the fact that protection raises prices, adds:

"The augmentation of price increases the expenses of life, and consequently the price of labor, and every one finds in the increase of the price of his produce the same proportion as in the increase of his expenses. Thus, if everybody pays as consumer, everybody receives also as producer."

It is evident that it would be easy to reverse the argument, and say: If everybody receives as producer, everybody must pay as consumer.

Now what does this prove? Nothing whatever, unless it be that protection transfers riches, uselessly and unjustly. Spoliation does the same.

Again, to prove that the complicated arrangements of this system give even simple compensation, it is necessary to adhere to the "consequently" of Mr. Protectionist, and to convince oneself that the price of labor rises with that of the articles protected. This is a question of fact. For my own part I do not believe in it, because I think that the price of labor, like everything else, is governed by the proportion existing between the supply and the demand. Now I can perfectly well understand that restriction will diminish the supply of produce, and consequently raise its price; but I do not as clearly see that it increases the demand for labor, thereby raising the rate of wages. This is the less conceivable to me, because the sum of labor required depends upon the quantity of disposable capital; and protection, while it may change the direction of capital, and transfer it from one business to another, cannot increase it one penny.

This question, which is of the highest interest, we will examine elsewhere. I return to the discussion of absolute prices, and declare that there is no absurdity which cannot be rendered specious by such reasoning as that which is commonly resorted to by protectionists.

Imagine an isolated nation possessing a given quantity of cash, and every year wantonly burning the half of its produce; I will undertake to prove by the protective theory that this nation will not be the less rich in consequence of such a procedure. For, the result of the conflagration must be, that everything would double in price. An inventory made before this event, would offer exactly the same nominal value as one made after it. Who, then, would be the loser? If John buys his cloth dearer, he also sells his corn at a higher price; and if Peter makes a loss on the purchase of his corn, he gains it back by the sale of his cloth. Thus "every one finds in the increase of the price of his produce, the same proportion as in the increase of his expenses: and thus if everybody pays as consumer, everybody also receives as producer."

All this is nonsense, and not science.

The simple truth is, that whether men destroy their corn and cloth by fire, or by use, the effect is the same as regards price, but not as regards riches, for it is precisely in the enjoyment of the use, that riches—in other words, comfort, well-being—exist.

Restriction may in the same way, while it lessens the abundance of things, raise their prices, so as to leave each individual as rich, numerically speaking, as when unembarrassed by it. But because we put down in an inventory three bushels of corn at $1, or four bushels at 75 cents, and sum up the nominal value of each inventory at $3, does it thence follow that they are equally capable of contributing to the necessities of the community?

To this truthful and common-sense view of the phenomenon of consumption it will be my continual endeavor to lead the protectionists; for in this is the end of all my efforts, the solution of every problem. I must continually repeat to them that restriction, by impeding commerce, by limiting the division of labor, by forcing it to combat difficulties of situation and temperature, must in its results diminish the quantity produced by any fixed quantum of labor. And what can it benefit us that the smaller quantity produced under the protective system bears the same nominal value as the greater quantity produced under the free trade system? Man does not live on nominal values, but on real articles of produce; and the more abundant these articles are, no matter what price they may bear, the richer is he.

The following passage occurs in the writings of a French protectionist:

"If fifteen millions of merchandise sold to foreign nations, be taken from our ordinary produce, calculated at fifty millions, the thirty-five millions of merchandise which remain, not being sufficient for the ordinary demand, will increase in price to the value of fifty millions. The revenue of the country will thus represent fifteen millions more in value.... There will then be an increase of fifteen millions in the riches of the country; precisely the amount of the importation of money."

This is droll enough! If a country has made in the course of the year fifty millions of revenue in harvests and merchandise, she need but sell one-quarter to foreign nations, in order to make herself one-quarter richer than before! If then she sold the half, she would increase her riches by one-half; and if the last hair of her wool, the last grain of her wheat, were to be changed for cash, she would thus raise her product to one hundred millions, where before it was but fifty! A singular manner, certainly, of becoming rich. Unlimited price produced by unlimited scarcity!

To sum up our judgment of the two systems, let us contemplate their different effects when pushed to the most exaggerated extreme.

According to the protectionist just quoted, the French would be quite as rich, that is to say, as well provided with everything, if they had but a thousandth part of their annual produce, because this part would then be worth a thousand times its natural value! So much for looking at prices alone.

According to us, the French would be infinitely rich if their annual produce were infinitely abundant, and consequently bearing no value at all.



CHAPTER XII.

DOES PROTECTION RAISE THE RATE OF WAGES?

When we hear our beardless scribblers, romancers, reformers, our perfumed magazine writers, stuffed with ices and champagne, as they carefully place in their portfolios the sentimental scissorings which fill the current literature of the day, or cause to be decorated with gilded ornaments their tirades against the egotism and the individualism of the age; when we hear them declaiming against social abuses, and groaning over deficient wages and needy families; when we see them raising their eyes to heaven and weeping over the wretchedness of the laboring classes, while they never visit this wretchedness unless it be to draw lucrative sketches of its scenes of misery, we are tempted to say to them: The sight of you is enough to make me sicken of attempting to teach the truth.

Affectation! Affectation! It is the nauseating disease of the day! If a thinking man, a sincere philanthropist, takes into consideration the condition of the working classes and endeavors to lay bare their necessities, scarcely has his work made an impression before it is greedily seized upon by the crowd of reformers, who turn, twist, examine, quote, exaggerate it, until it becomes ridiculous; and then, as sole compensation, you are overwhelmed with such big words as: Organization, Association; you are flattered and fawned upon until you become ashamed of publicly defending the cause of the working man; for how can it be possible to introduce sensible ideas in the midst of these sickening affectations?

But we must put aside this cowardly indifference, which the affectation that provokes it is not enough to justify.

Working men, your situation is singular! You are robbed, as I will presently prove to you. But no: I retract the word; we must avoid an expression which is violent; perhaps, indeed, incorrect; inasmuch as this spoliation, wrapped in the sophisms which disguise it, is practised, we must believe, without the intention of the spoiler, and with the consent of the spoiled. But it is nevertheless true that you are deprived of the just remuneration of your labor, while no one thinks of causing justice to be rendered to you. If you could be consoled by the noisy appeals of your champions to philanthropy, to powerless charity, to degrading almsgiving, or if the high-sounding words of Voice of the People, Rights of Labor, &c., would relieve you—these indeed you can have in abundance. But justice, simple justice—this nobody thinks of rendering you. For would it not be just that after a long day's labor, when you have received your wages, you should be permitted to exchange them for the largest possible sum of comforts you can obtain voluntarily from any man upon the face of the earth?

I too, perhaps, may some day speak to you of the Voice of the People, the Rights of Labor, &c., and may perhaps be able to show you what you have to expect from the chimeras by which you allow yourselves to be led astray.

In the meantime let us examine if injustice is not done to you by the legislative limitation of the number of persons from whom you are allowed to buy those things which you need; as iron, coal, cotton and woollen cloths, &c.; thus artificially fixing (so to express myself) the price which these articles must bear.

Is it true that protection, which avowedly raises prices, and thus injures you, proportionably raises the rate of wages?

On what does the rate of wages depend?

One of your own class has energetically said: "When two workmen run after a boss, wages fall; when two bosses run after a workman, wages rise."

Allow me, in similar laconic phrase, to employ a more scientific, though perhaps a less striking expression: "The rate of wages depends upon the proportion which the supply of labor bears to the demand."

On what depends the demand for labor?

On the quantity of disposable capital seeking investment. And the law which says, "Such or such an article shall be limited to home production and no longer imported from foreign countries," can it in any degree increase this capital? Not in the least. This law may withdraw it from one course, and transfer it to another; but cannot increase it one penny. Then it cannot increase the demand for labor.

While we point with pride to some prosperous manufacture, can we answer, whence comes the capital with which it is founded and maintained? Has it fallen from the moon? or rather is it not drawn either from agriculture, or stock-breeding, or commerce? We here see why, since the reign of protective tariffs, if we see more workmen in our mines and our manufacturing towns, we find also fewer vessels in our ports, fewer graziers and fewer laborers in our fields and upon our hill-sides.

I could speak at great length upon this subject, but prefer illustrating my thought by an example.

A countryman had twenty acres of land, with a capital of $10,000. He divided his land into four parts, and adopted for it the following changes of crops: 1st, maize; 2d, wheat; 3d, clover; and 4th, rye. As he needed for himself and family but a small portion of the grain, meat, and dairy produce of the farm, he sold the surplus and bought iron, coal, cloths, etc. The whole of his capital was yearly distributed in wages and payments of accounts to the workingmen of the neighborhood. This capital was, from his sales, again returned to him, and even increased from year to year. Our countryman, being fully convinced that idle capital produces nothing, caused to circulate among the working classes this annual increase, which he devoted to the inclosing and clearing of lands, or to improvements in his farming utensils and his buildings. He deposited some sums in reserve in the hands of a neighboring banker, who on his part did not leave these idle in his strong-box, but lent them to various tradesmen, so that the whole came to be usefully employed in the payment of wages.

The countryman died, and his son, become master of the inheritance, said to himself: "It must be confessed that my father has, all his life, allowed himself to be duped. He bought iron, and thus paid tribute to England, while our own land could, by an effort, be made to produce iron as well as England. He bought coal, cloths, and oranges, thus paying tribute to New Brunswick, France, and Sicily, very unnecessarily; for coal may be found, doeskins may be made, and oranges may be forced to grow, within our own territory. He paid tribute to the foreign miner and the weaver; our own servants could very well mine our iron and get up native doeskins almost as good as the French article. He did all he could to ruin himself, and gave to strangers what ought to have been kept for the benefit of his own household."

Full of this reasoning, our headstrong fellow determined to change the routine of his crops. He divided his farm into twenty parts. On one he dug for coal; on another he erected a cloth factory; on a third he put a hot-house and cultivated the orange; he devoted the fourth to vines, the fifth to wheat, &c., &c. Thus he succeeded in rendering himself independent, and furnished all his family supplies from his own farm. He no longer received anything from the general circulation; neither, it is true, did he cast anything into it. Was he the richer for this course? No; for his mine did not yield coal as cheaply as he could buy it in the market, nor was the climate favorable to the orange. In short, the family supply of these articles was very inferior to what it had been during the time when the father had obtained them and others by exchange of produce.

With regard to the demand for labor, it certainly was no greater than formerly. THERE WERE, TO BE SURE, FIVE TIMES AS MANY FIELDS TO CULTIVATE, BUT THEY WERE FIVE TIMES SMALLER. If coal was mined, there was also less wheat; and because there were no more oranges bought, neither was there any more rye sold. Besides, the farmer could not spend in wages more than his capital, and his capital, instead of increasing, was now constantly diminishing. A great part of it was necessarily devoted to numerous buildings and utensils, indispensable to a person who determines to undertake everything. In short, the supply of labor continued the same, but the means of paying became less.

The result is precisely similar when a nation isolates itself by the prohibitive system. Its number of industrial pursuits is certainly multiplied, but their importance is diminished. In proportion to their number, they become less productive, for the same capital and the same skill are obliged to meet a greater number of difficulties. The fixed capital absorbs a greater part of the circulating capital; that is to say, a greater part of the funds destined to the payment of wages. What remains, ramifies itself in vain; the quantity cannot be augmented. It is like the water of a deep pond, which, distributed among a multitude of small reservoirs, appears to be more abundant, because it covers a greater quantity of soil, and presents a larger surface to the sun, while we hardly perceive that, precisely on this account, it absorbs, evaporates, and loses itself the quicker.

Capital and labor being given, the result is, a sum of production, always the less great in proportion as obstacles are numerous. There can be no doubt that international barriers, by forcing capital and labor to struggle against greater difficulties of soil and climate, must cause the general production to be less, or, in other words, diminish the portion of comforts which would thence result to mankind. If, then, there be a general diminution of comforts, how, working men, can it be possible that your portion should be increased? Under such a supposition it would be necessary to believe that the rich, those who made the law, have so arranged matters, that not only they subject themselves to their own proportion of the general diminution, but taking the whole of it upon themselves, that they submit also to a further loss in order to increase your gains. Is this credible? Is this possible? It is, indeed, a most suspicious act of generosity; and if you act wisely you will reject it.



CHAPTER XIII.

THEORY AND PRACTICE.

Defenders of free trade, we are accused of being mere theorists, of not giving sufficient weight to the practical.

"What a fearful charge against you, free traders," say the protectionists, "is this long succession of distinguished statesmen, this imposing race of writers, who have all held opinions differing from yours!" This we do not deny. We answer, "It is said, in support of established errors, that 'there must be some foundation for ideas so generally adopted by all nations. Should not one distrust opinions and arguments which overturn that which, until now, has been held as settled; that which is held as certain by so many persons whose intelligence and motives make them trustworthy?'"

We confess this argument should make a profound impression, and ought to throw doubt on the most incontestable points, if we had not seen, one after another, opinions the most false, now generally acknowledged to be such, received and professed by all the world during a long succession of centuries. It is not very long since all nations, from the most rude to the most enlightened, and all men, from the street-porter to the most learned philosopher, believed in the four elements. Nobody had thought of contesting this doctrine, which is, however, false; so much so, that at this day any mere naturalist's assistant, who should consider earth, water, and fire, elements, would disgrace himself.

On which our opponents make this observation: "If you suppose you have thus answered the very forcible objection you have proposed to yourselves, you deceive yourselves strangely. Suppose that men, otherwise intelligent, should be mistaken on any point whatever of natural history for many centuries, that would signify or prove nothing. Would water, air, earth, fire, be less useful to man whether they were or were not elements? Such errors are of no consequence; they lead to no revolutions, do not unsettle the mind; above all, they injure no interests, so they might, without inconvenience, endure for millions of years. The physical world would progress just as if they did not exist. Would it be thus with errors which attack the moral world? Can we conceive that a system of government, absolutely false, consequently injurious, could be carried out through many centuries, among many nations, with the general consent of educated men? Can we explain how such a system could be reconciled with the ever-increasing prosperity of nations? You acknowledge that the argument you combat ought to make a profound impression. Yes, truly, and this impression remains, for you have rather strengthened than destroyed it."

Or again, they say: "It was only in the middle of the last century, the eighteenth century, in which all subjects, all principles, without exception, were delivered up to public discussion, that these furnishers of speculative ideas which are applied to everything without being applicable to anything—commenced writing on political economy. There existed, however, a system of political economy, not written, but practised by governments. It is said that Colbert was its inventor, and it was the rule of all the States of Europe. What is more singular, it has remained so till lately, despite anathemas and contempt, and despite the discoveries of the modern school. This system, which our writers have called the mercantile system, consists in opposing, by prohibitions and duties, such foreign productions as might ruin our manufacturers by their competition. This system has been pronounced futile, absurd, capable of ruining any country, by economical writers of all schools. It has been banished from all books, reduced to take refuge in the practice of every people; and we do not understand why, in regard to the wealth of nations, governments should not have yielded themselves to wise authors rather than to the old experience of a system. Above all, we cannot conceive why, in political economy, the American government should persist in resisting the progress of light, and in preserving, in its practice, those old errors which all our economists of the pen have designated. But we have said too much about this mercantile system, which has in its favor facts alone, though sustained by scarcely a single writer of the day."

Would not one say, who listened only to this language, that we political economists, in merely claiming for every one the free disposition of his own property, had, like the Fourierists, conjured up from our brains a new social order, chimerical and strange; a sort of phalanstery, without precedent in the annals of the human race, instead of merely talking plain meum and tuum It seems to us that if there is in all this anything utopian, anything problematical, it is not free trade, but protection; it is not the right to exchange, but tariff after tariff applied to overturning the natural order of commerce.

But it is not the point to compare and judge of these two systems by the light of reason; the question for the moment is, to know which of the two is founded upon experience.

So, Messrs. Monopolists, you pretend that the facts are on your side; that we have, on our side, theories only.

You even flatter yourselves that this long series of public acts, this old experience of the world, which you invoke, has appeared imposing to us, and that we confess we have not as yet refuted you as fully as we might.

But we do not cede to you the domain of facts, for you have on your side only exceptional and contracted facts, while we have universal ones to oppose to them; the free and voluntary acts of all men.

What do you say, and what say we?

We say:

"It is better to buy from others anything which would cost more to make ourselves."

And on your part you say:

"It is better to make things ourselves, even though it would cost less to purchase them from others."

Now, gentlemen, laying aside theory, demonstration, argument, everything which appears to afflict you with nausea, which of these assertions has in its favor the sanction of universal practice?

Visit the fields, work-rooms, manufactories, shops; look above, beneath, and around you; investigate what is going on in your own establishment; observe your own conduct at all times, and then say which is the principle that directs these labors, these workmen, these inventors, these merchants; say, too, which is your own individual practice.

Does the farmer make his clothes? Does the tailor raise the wheat which he consumes? Does not your housekeeper cease making bread at home so soon as she finds it more economical to buy it from the baker? Do you give up the pen for the brush in order to avoid paying tribute to the shoe-black? Does not the whole economy of society depend on the separation of occupations, on the division of labor; in one word, on exchange? And is exchange anything else than the calculation which leads us to discontinue, as far as we can, direct production, when indirect acquisition spares us time and trouble?

You are not, then, men of practice, since you cannot show a single man on the surface of the globe who acts in accordance with your principle.

"But," you will say, "we have never heard our principle made the rule of individual relations. We comprehend perfectly that this would break the social bond, and force men to live, like snails, each one in his own shell. We limit ourselves to asserting that it governs in fact the relations which are established among the agglomerations of the human family."

But still, this assertion is erroneous. The family, the village, the town, the county, the state, are so many agglomerations, which all, without any exception, practically reject your principle, and have never even thought of it. All of them procure, by means of exchange, that which would cost them more to procure by means of production. Nations would act in the same natural manner, if you did not prevent it by force.

It is we, then, who are the men of practice and of experience; for, in order to combat the interdict which you have placed exceptionally on certain international exchanges, we appeal to the practice and experience of all individuals, and all agglomerations of individuals whose acts are voluntary, and consequently may be called on for testimony. But you commence by constraining, by preventing, and then you avail yourself of acts caused by prohibition to exclaim, "See! practice justifies us!" You oppose our theory, indeed all theory. But when you put a principle in antagonism with ours, do you, by chance, fancy that you have formed no theory? No, no; erase that from your plea. You form a theory as well as ourselves; but between yours and ours there is this difference: our theory consists merely in observing universal facts, universal sentiments, universal calculations and proceedings, and further, in classifying them and arranging them, in order to understand them better. It is so little opposed to practice, that it is nothing but practice explained. We observe the actions of men moved by the instinct of preservation and of progress; and what they do freely, voluntarily, is precisely what we call political economy, or the economy of society. We go on repeating with out cessation: "Every man is practically an excellent economist, producing or exchanging, according as it is most advantageous to him to exchange or to produce. Each one, through experience, is educated to science; or rather, science is only that same experience scrupulously observed and methodically set forth."

As for you, you form a theory, in the unfavorable sense of the word. You imagine, you invent—proceedings which are not sanctioned by the practice of any living man under the vault of heaven—and then you call to your assistance constraint and prohibition. You need, indeed, have recourse to force, since, in wishing that men should produce that which it would be more advantageous to them to buy, you wish them to renounce an advantage; you demand that they should act in accordance with a doctrine which implies contradiction even in its terms.

Now, this doctrine, which, you argue, would be absurd in individual relations, we defy you to extend, even in speculation, to transactions between families, towns, counties, states. By your own avowal, it is applicable to international relations only.

And this is why you are obliged to repeat daily: "Principles are not in their nature absolute. That which is well in the individual, the family, the county, the state, is evil in the nation. That which is good in detail—such as, to purchase rather than to produce, when purchase is more advantageous than production—is bad in the mass. The political economy of individuals is not that of nations," and other rubbish, ejusdem farinae. And why all this? Look at it closely. It is in order to prove to us that we, consumers, are your property, that we belong to you body and soul, that you have an exclusive right to our stomachs and limbs, and it is for you to nourish us and clothe us at your own price, however great may be your ignorance, your rapacity, or the inferiority of your position.

No, you are not men of practice; you are men of abstraction—and of extraction!



CHAPTER XIV.

CONFLICT OF PRINCIPLES.

There is one thing which confounds us, and it is this:

Some sincere publicists, studying social economy from the point of view of producers only, have arrived at this double formula:

"Governments ought to dispose of the consumers subject to the influence of their laws, in favor of national labor."

"They should render distant consumers subject to their laws, in order to dispose of them in favor of national labor."

The first of these formulas is termed protection; the latter, expediency.

Both rest on the principle called Balance of Trade; the formula of which is:

"A people impoverishes itself when it imports, and enriches itself when it exports."

Of course, if every foreign purchase is a tribute paid, a loss, it is perfectly evident we must restrain, even prohibit, importations.

And if all foreign sales are tribute received, profit, it is quite natural to create channels of outlet, even by force.

Protective System—Colonial System: two aspects of the same theory. To hinder our fellow-citizens purchasing of foreigners, to force foreigners to purchase from our fellow-citizens, are merely two consequences of one identical principle. Now, it is impossible not to recognize that according to this doctrine, general utility rests on monopoly, or interior spoliation, and on conquest, or exterior spoliation.

Let us enter one of the cabins among the Adirondacks. The father of the family has received for his work only a slender salary. The icy northern blast makes his half naked children shiver, the fire is extinguished, and the table bare. There are wool, and wood, and coal, just over the St. Lawrence; but these commodities are forbidden to the family of the poor day-laborer, for the other side of the river is no longer the United States. The foreign pine-logs may not gladden the hearth of his cabin; his children may not know the taste of Canadian bread, the wool of Upper Canada will not bring back warmth to their benumbed limbs. General utility wills it so. All very well! but acknowledge that here it contradicts justice. To dispose by legislation of consumers, to limit them to the products of national labor, is to encroach upon their liberty, to forbid them a resource (exchange) in which there is nothing contrary to morality; in one word, it is to do them injustice.

"Yet this is necessary," it is said, "under the penalty of seeing national labor stopped, under the penalty of striking a fatal blow at public prosperity."

The writers of the protectionist school arrive then at this sad conclusion; that there is a radical incompatibility between justice and utility.

On the other side, if nations are interested in selling, and not in buying, violent action and reaction are the natural condition of their relations, for each will seek to impose its products on all, and all will do their utmost endeavor to reject the products of each.

As a sale, in effect, implies a purchase, and since, according to this doctrine, to sell is to benefit, as to buy is to injure, every international transaction implies the amelioration of one people, and the deterioration of another.

But, on one side, men are fatally impelled towards that which profits them: on the contrary, they resist instinctively whatever injures them; whence we must conclude that every people bears within itself a natural force of expansion, and a not less natural power of resistance, which are equally prejudicial to all the others; or, in other terms, that antagonism and war are the natural constitution of human society!

So that the theory which we are discussing may be summed up in these two axioms:

"Utility is incompatible with justice at home,"

"Utility is incompatible with peace abroad."

Now that which astonishes us, which confounds us, is, that a publicist, a statesman, who has sincerely adhered to an economic doctrine whose principle clashes so violently with other incontestable principles, could enjoy one moment's calm and repose of mind. As for us, it seems to us, that if we had penetrated into science by this entrance, if we did not clearly perceive that liberty, utility, justice, peace, are things not only compatible, but closely allied together, so to say, identical with each other, we would try to forget all we had learned; we would say to ourselves:

"How could God will that men shall attain prosperity only through injustice and war? How could He will that they may remove war and injustice only by renouncing their own well-being?"

Does not the science which has conducted us to the horrible blasphemy which this alternative implies deceive us by false lights; and shall we dare take on ourselves to make it the basis of legislation for a great people? And when a long succession of illustrious philosophers have brought together more comforting results from this same science, to which they have consecrated their whole lives; when they affirm that Liberty and Utility are reconciled with Justice and Peace, that all these grand principles follow infinite parallels, without clashing, throughout all eternity; have they not in their favor the presumption which results from all we know of the goodness and the wisdom of God, manifested in the sublime harmony of the material creation? Ought we lightly to believe, against such a presumption, and in face of so many imposing authorities, that it has pleased this same God to introduce antagonism and a discord into the laws of the moral world?

No, no; before taking it for granted that all social principles clash, shock, and neutralize each other, and are in anarchical, eternal, irremediable, conflict together; before imposing on our fellow citizens the impious system to which such reasoning conducts us, we had better go over the whole chain, and assure ourselves that there is no point on the way where we may have gone astray.

And if, after a faithful examination, twenty times recommenced, we should always return to this frightful conclusion, that we must choose between the advantages and the good—we should thrust science away, disheartened; we should shut ourselves up in voluntary ignorance; above all, we should decline all participation in the affairs of our country, leaving to the men of another time the burden and the responsibility of a choice so difficult.



CHAPTER XV.

RECIPROCITY AGAIN.

The protectionists ask, "Are we sure that the foreigner will purchase as much from us, as he will sell to us? What reason have we to think that the English producer will come to us rather than to any other nation on the globe to look for the productions he may need; and for productions equivalent in value to his own exportations to this country?"

We are surprised that men who call themselves peculiarly practical, reason independent of all practice.

In practice, is there one exchange in a hundred, in a thousand, in ten thousand perhaps, where there is a direct barter of product for product? Since there has been money in the world, has any cultivator ever said, "I wish to buy shoes, hats, advice, instruction, from that shoemaker, hatter, lawyer, and professor only, who will purchase from me just wheat enough to make an equivalent value?"

And why should nations impose such a restraint upon themselves?

How is the matter managed?

Suppose a nation deprived of exterior relations. A man has produced wheat. He throws it into the widest national circulation he can find for it, and receives in exchange, what? Some dollars; that is to say bills, bonds, infinitely divisible, by means of which it becomes lawful for him to withdraw from national circulation, whenever he thinks it advisable, and by just agreement, such articles as he may need or wish. In fine, at the end of the operation he will have withdrawn from the mass the exact equivalent of what he threw into it, and in value his consumption will precisely equal his production.

If the foreign exchanges of that nation are free, it is no longer into national, but into general circulation that each one throws his products, and from which he draws his returns. He has not to inquire whether what he delivers up for general circulation is purchased by a fellow-countryman or a foreigner; whether the goods he receives came to him from a Frenchman or an Englishman; whether the objects for which, in accordance with his needs, he, in the end, exchanges his bills, are made on this or that side of the Atlantic or the St. Lawrence. With each individual there is always an exact balance between what he puts into and what he draws out of the grand common reservoir; and if that is true of each individual, it is true of the nation in the aggregate. The only difference between the two cases is, that in the latter, each one is in a more extended market for both his sales and his purchases, and has consequently more chances of doing well by both.

This objection is made: "If every one should agree that they would not withdraw from circulation any of the products of a specified individual, he in turn would sustain the misfortune of being able to draw nothing out. The same of a nation."

ANSWER.—If the nation cannot draw out of the mass, it will no longer contribute to it: it will work for itself. It will be compelled to that which you would impose on it in advance: that is to say, isolation.

And this will be the ideal of prohibitive government. Is it not amusing that you inflict upon it, at once and already, the misfortune of this system, in the fear that it runs the risk of getting there some day without you?



CHAPTER XVI.

OBSTRUCTED RIVERS PLEAD FOR THE PROHIBITIONISTS.

Some years ago, when the Spanish Cortes were discussing a treaty with Portugal on improving the course of the river Douro, a deputy rose and said, "If the Douro is turned into a canal, transportation will be made at a much lower price. Portuguese cereals will sell cheaper in Castile, and will make a formidable opposition to our national labor. I oppose the project unless the ministers engage to raise the tariff in such a way as to restore the equilibrium." The assembly found the argument unanswerable.

Three months later the same question was submitted to the Senate of Portugal. A noble hidalgo said: "Mr. President, the project is absurd. You post guards, at great expense, on the banks of the Douro, in order to prevent the introduction of Castilian cereals into Portugal, while, at the same time, you would, also, at great expense, facilitate their introduction. This is an inconsistency with which I cannot identify myself. Let the Douro pass on to our sons as our fathers left it to us."

Now, when it is proposed to alter and confine the course of the Mississippi, we recall the arguments of the Iberian orators, and say to ourselves, if the member from St. Louis was as good an economist as those of Valencia, and the representatives from New Orleans as powerful logicians as those of Oporto, assuredly the Mississippi would be left

"To sleep amid its forests dank and lone,"

for to improve the navigation of the Mississippi will favor the introduction of New Orleans products to the injury of St. Louis, and an inundation of the products of St. Louis to the detriment of New Orleans.



CHAPTER XVII.

A NEGATIVE RAILROAD.

We have said that when, unfortunately, we place ourselves at the point of view of the producer's interest, we cannot fail to clash with the general interest, because the producer, as such, demands only efforts, wants, and obstacles.

When the Atlantic and Great Western Railway is finished, the question will arise, "Should connection be broken at Pittsburg?" This the Pittsburgers will answer affirmatively, for a multitude of reasons, but for this among others; the railroad from New York to St. Louis ought to have an interruption at Pittsburg, in order that merchandise and travellers compelled to stop in the city may leave in it fees to the hackmen, pedlars, errand-boys, consignees, hotel-keepers, etc.

It is clear, that here again the interest of the agent of labor is placed before the interest of the consumer.

But if Pittsburg ought to profit by the interruption, and if the profit is conformable with public interest, Harrisburg, Dayton, Indianapolis, Columbus, much more all the intermediate points, ought to demand stoppages, and that in the general interest, in the widely extended interest of national labor, for the more they are multiplied, the more will consignments, commissions, transportations, be multiplied on all points of the line. With this system we arrive at a railroad of successive stoppages, to a negative railroad.

Whether the protectionists wish it or not, it is not the less certain that the principle of restriction is the same as the principle of gaps, the sacrifice of the consumers to the producer, of the end to the means.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTE PRINCIPLES.

We cannot be too much astonished at the facility with which men resign themselves to be ignorant of what is most important for them to know, and we may feel sure that they have decided to go to sleep in their ignorance when they have brought themselves to proclaim this axiom: There are no absolute principles.

Enter the Halls of Congress. The question under discussion is whether the law shall interdict or allow international exchanges.

Mr. C****** rises and says:

"If you tolerate these exchanges, the foreigner will inundate you with his products, the English with cotton and iron goods, the Nova-Scotian with coal, the Spaniard with wool, the Italian with silk, the Canadian with cattle, the Swede with iron, the Newfoundlander with salt-fish. Industrial pursuits will thus be destroyed."

Mr. G***** replies:

"If you prohibit these exchanges, the varied benefits which nature has lavished on different climates will be, to you, as though they were not. You will not participate in the mechanical skill of the English, nor in the riches of the Nova-Scotian mines, in the abundance of Canadian pasturage, in the cheapness of Spanish labor, in the fervor of the Italian climate; and you will be obliged to ask through a forced production that which you might by exchange have obtained through a readier production."

Assuredly, one of the senators deceives himself. But which? It is well worth while to ascertain; for we are not dealing with opinions only. You stand at the entrance of two roads; you must choose; one of them leads necessarily to misery.

To escape from this embarrassment it is said: There are no absolute principles.

This axiom, so much in vogue in our day, not only serves laziness, it is also in accord with ambition.

If the theory of prohibition should prevail, or again, if the doctrine of liberty should triumph, a very small amount of law would suffice for our economic code. In the first case it would stand—All foreign exchange is forbidden; in the second, All exchange with abroad is free, and many great personages would lose their importance.

But if exchange has not a nature proper to itself; if it is governed by no natural law; if it is capriciously useful or injurious; if it does not find its spring in the good it accomplishes, its limit when it ceases to do good; if its effects cannot be appreciated by those who execute them; in one word, if there are no absolute principles, we are compelled to measure, weigh, regulate transactions, to equalize the conditions of labor, to look for the level of profits—colossal task, well suited to give great entertainments, and high influence to those who undertake it.

Here in New York are a million of human beings who would all die within a few days, if the abundant provisioning of nature were not flowing towards this great metropolis.

Imagination takes fright in the effort to appreciate the immense multiplicity of articles which must cross the Bay, the Hudson, the Harlem, and the East rivers, to-morrow, if the lives of its inhabitants are not to become the prey of famine, riot, and pillage. Yet, as we write, all are sleeping; and their quiet slumbers are not disturbed for a moment by the thought of so frightful a perspective. On the other hand, forty-five States and Territories have worked to-day, without concert, without mutual understanding, to provision New York. How is it that every day brings in what is needed, neither more nor less, to this gigantic market? What is the intelligent and secret power which presides over the astonishing regularity of movements so complicated—a regularity in which each one has a faith so undoubting, though comfort and life are at stake.

This power is an absolute principle, the principle of freedom of operation, the principle of free conduct.

We have faith in that innate light which Providence has placed in the hearts of all men, to which he has confided the preservation and improvement of our race-interest (since we must call it by its name), which is so active, so vigilant, so provident, when its action is free. What would become of you, inhabitants of New York, if a Congressional majority should take a fancy to substitute for this power the combinations of their genius, however superior it may be supposed to be; if they imagined they could submit this prodigious mechanism to its supreme direction, unite all its resources in their own hands, and decide when, where, how, and on what conditions everything should be produced, transported, exchanged, and consumed? Ah! though there may be much suffering within your bounds, though misery, despair, and perhaps hungry exhaustion may cause more tears to flow than your ardent charity can dry, it is probable, it is certain, we dare to affirm, that the arbitrary intervention of government would multiply these sufferings infinitely, and would extend to you all, those evils which at present are confined to a small portion of your number.

We all have faith in this principle where our internal transactions are concerned; why should we not have faith in the same principle applied to our international operations, which are, assuredly, less numerous, less delicate, and less complicated. And if it is not necessary that the Mayor and Common Council of New York should regulate our industries, weigh our change, our profits, and our losses, occupy themselves with the regulation of prices, equalize the conditions of our labor in internal commerce—why is it necessary that the custom-house, proceeding on its fiscal mission, should pretend to exercise protective action upon our exterior commerce?



CHAPTER XIX.

NATIONAL INDEPENDENCE.

Among the arguments which are considered of weight in favor of the restriction system, we must not forget that drawn from national independence.

"What shall we do in case of war," say they, "if we have placed ourselves at the mercy of Great Britain for iron and coal?"

English monopolists did not fail on their side to exclaim, when the corn-laws were repealed, "What will become of Great Britain in time of war if she depends on the United States for food?"

One thing they fail to observe: it is that this sort of dependence, which results from exchange, from commercial operations, is a reciprocal dependence. We cannot depend on the foreigner unless the foreigner depends on us. This is the very essence of society. We do not place ourselves in a state of independence by breaking natural relations, but in a state of isolation.

Remark also: we isolate ourselves in the anticipation of war; but the very act of isolation is the commencement of war. It renders it more easy, less burdensome, therefore less unpopular. Let nations become permanent recipient customers each of the other, let the interruption of their relations inflict upon them the double suffering of privation and surfeit, and they will no longer require the powerful navies which ruin them, the great armies which crush them; the peace of the world will no longer be compromised by the caprice of a Napoleon or of a Bismarck, and war will disappear through lack of aliment, resources, motive, pretext, and popular sympathy.

We know well that we shall be reproached (in the cant of the day) for proposing interest, vile and prosaic interest, as a foundation for the fraternity of nations. It would be preferred that it should have its foundation in charity, in love, even in self-renunciation, and that, demolishing the material comfort of man, it should have the merit of a generous sacrifice.

When shall we have done with such puerile talk? When shall we banish charlatanry from science? When shall we cease to manifest this disgusting contradiction between our writings and our conduct? We hoot at and spit upon interest, that is to say, the useful, the right (for to say that all nations are interested in a thing, is to say that that thing is good in itself), as if interest were not the necessary, eternal, indestructible instrument to which Providence has intrusted human perfectibility. Would not one suppose us all angels of disinterestedness? And is it supposed that the public does not see with disgust that this affected language blackens precisely those pages for which it is compelled to pay highest? Affectation is truly the malady of this age.

What! because comfort and peace are correlative things; because it has pleased God to establish this beautiful harmony in the moral world; you are not willing that we should admire and adore His providence, and accept with gratitude laws which make justice the condition of happiness. You wish peace only so far as it is destructive to comfort; and liberty burdens you because it imposes no sacrifices on you. If self-renunciation has so many claims for you, who prevents your carrying it into private life? Society will be grateful to you for it, for some one, at least, will receive the benefit of it; but to wish to impose it on humanity as a principle is the height of absurdity, for the abnegation of everything is the sacrifice of everything—it is evil set up in theory.

But, thank Heaven, men may write and read a great deal of such talk, without causing the world to refrain on that account from rendering obedience to its motive-power, which is, whether they will or no, interest. After all, it is singular enough to see sentiments of the most sublime abnegation invoked in favor of plunder itself. Just see to what this ostentatious disinterestedness tends. These men, so poetically delicate that they do not wish for peace itself, if it is founded on the base interest of men, put their hands in the pockets of others, and, above all, of the poor; for what section of the tariff protects the poor?

Well, gentlemen, dispose according to your own judgment of what belongs to yourselves, but allow us also to dispose of the fruit of the sweat of our brows, to avail ourselves of exchange at our own pleasure. Talk away about self-renunciation, for that is beautiful; but at the same time practice a little honesty.



CHAPTER XX.

HUMAN LABOR—NATIONAL LABOR.

To break machines, to reject foreign merchandise—are two acts proceeding from the same doctrine.

We see men who clap their hands when a great invention is made known to the world, who nevertheless adhere to the protective system. Such men are highly inconsistent.

With what do they upbraid freedom of commerce? With getting foreigners more skilful or better situated than ourselves to produce articles, which, but for them, we should produce ourselves. In one word, they accuse us of damaging national labor.

Might they not as well reproach machines for accomplishing, by natural agents, work which, without them, we could perform with our own arms, and, in consequence, damaging human labor?

The foreign workman who is more favorably situated than the American laborer, is, in respect to the latter, a veritable economic machine, which injures him by competition. In the same manner, a machine which executes a piece of work at a less price than can be done by a certain number of arms, is, relatively to those arms, a true competing foreigner, who paralyzes them by his rivalry.

If, then, it is needful to protect national labor against the competition of foreign labor, it is not less so, to protect human labor against the rivalry of mechanical labor.

So, he who adheres to the protective policy, if he has but a small amount of logic in his brain, must not stop when he has prohibited foreign products; he must farther proscribe the shuttle and the plough.

And that is the reason why we prefer the logic of those men who, declaiming against the invasion of exotic merchandise, have, at least, the courage to declaim as well against the excess of production due to the inventive power of the human mind.

Hear such a Conservative:—"One of the strongest arguments against liberty of commerce, and the too great employment of machines, is, that very many workmen are deprived of work, either by foreign competition, which is destructive to their manufactures, or by machines, which take the place of men in the workshops."

This gentleman perfectly sees the analogy, or rather, let us say, the identity, existing between importations and machines; that is the reason he proscribes both: and truly there is some pleasure in having to do with reasonings, which, even in error, pursue an argument to the end.

Let us look at the difficulty in the way of its soundness.

If it be true, a priori, that the domain of invention and that of labor cannot be extended, except at the expense of one or the other, it is in the place where there are most machines, Lancaster or Lowell, for example, that we shall meet with the fewest workmen. And if, on the contrary, we prove a fact, that mechanical and hand work co-exist in a greater degree among wealthy nations than among savages, we must necessarily conclude that these two powers do not exclude each other.

It is not easy to explain how a thinking being can taste repose in presence of this dilemma:

Either—"The inventions of man do not injure labor, as general facts attest, since there are more of both among the English and Americans than among the Hottentots and Cherokees. In that case I have made a false reckoning, though I know neither where nor when I got astray. I should commit the crime of treason to humanity if I should introduce my error into the legislation of my country."

Or else—"The discoveries of the mind limit the work of the arms, as some particular facts seem to indicate; for I see daily a machine do the labor of from twenty to a hundred workmen, and thus I am forced to prove a flagrant, eternal, incurable antithesis between the intellectual and physical ability of man; between his progress and his comfort; and I cannot forbear saying that the Creator of man ought to have given him either reason or arms, moral force, or brutal force, but that he has played with him in conferring upon him opposing faculties which destroy one another."

The difficulty is pressing. Do you know how they get rid of it? By this singular apothegm:

"In political economy there are no absolute principles."

In intelligible and vulgar language, that means: "I do not know where is the true nor the false; I am ignorant of what constitutes general good or evil; I give myself no trouble about it. The only law which I consent to recognize, is the immediate effect of each measure upon my personal comfort."

No absolute principles! You might as well say, there are no absolute facts; for principles are only the summing up of well proven facts.

Machines, importations, have certainly consequences. These consequences are good or bad. On this point there may be difference of opinion. But whichever of these we adopt, we express it in one of these two principles: "machines are a benefit," or "machines are an evil." "Importations are favorable," or "importations are injurious." But to say "there are no principles," is the lowest degree of abasement to which the human mind can descend; and we confess we blush for our country when we hear so monstrous a heresy uttered in the presence of the American people, with their consent; that is to say, in the presence and with the consent of the greater part of our fellow-citizens, in order to justify Congress for imposing laws on us, in perfect ignorance of the reasons for them or against them.

But then we shall be told, "destroy the sophism; prove that machines do not injure human labor, nor importations national industry."

In an essay of this nature such demonstrations cannot be complete. Our aim is more to propose difficulties than to solve them; to excite reflection, than to satisfy it. No conviction of the mind is well acquired, excepting that which it gains by its own labor. We will try, nevertheless, to place it before you.

The opponents of importations and machines are mistaken, because they judge by immediate and transitory consequences, instead of looking at general and final ones.

The immediate effect of an ingenious machine is to economize, towards a given result, a certain amount of handwork. But its action does not stop there: inasmuch as this result is obtained with less effort, it is given to the public for a lower price; and the amount of the savings thus realized by all the purchasers, enables them to procure other gratifications—that is to say, to encourage handwork in general, equal in amount to that subtracted from the special handwork lately improved upon—so that the level of work has not fallen, though that of gratification has risen. Let us make this connection of consequences evident by an example.

Suppose that in the United States ten millions of hats are sold at five dollars each: this affords to the hatters' trade an income of fifty millions. A machine is invented which allows hats to be afforded at three dollars each. The receipts are reduced to thirty millions, admitting that the consumption does not increase. But, for all that, the other twenty millions are not subtracted from human labor. Economized by the purchasers of hats, they will serve them in satisfying other needs, and by consequence will, to that amount, remunerate collective industry. With these two dollars saved, John will purchase a pair of shoes, James a book, William a piece of furniture, etc. Human labor, in the general, will thus continue to be encouraged to the amount of fifty millions; but this sum, beside giving the same number of hats as before, will add the gratifications obtained by the twenty millions which the machine has spared. These gratifications are the net products which America has gained by the invention. It is a gratuitous gift, a tax, which the genius of man has imposed on Nature. We do not deny that, in the course of the change, a certain amount of labor may have been displaced; but we cannot agree that it has been destroyed, or even diminished. The same holds true of importations.

We will resume the hypothesis. America makes ten millions of hats, of which the price was five dollars each. The foreigner invaded our market in furnishing us with hats at three dollars. We say that national labor will be not at all diminished. For it will have to produce to the amount of thirty millions, in order to pay for ten millions of hats at three dollars. And then there will remain to each purchaser two dollars saved on each hat, or a total of twenty millions, which will compensate for other enjoyments; that is to say, for other work. So the total of labor remains what it was; and the supplementary enjoyments, represented by twenty millions economized on the hats, will form the net profit of the importations, or of free trade.

No one need attempt to horrify us by a picture of the sufferings, which, in this hypothesis, will accompany the displacement of labor. For if prohibition had never existed, labor would have classed itself in accordance with the law of exchange, and no displacement would have taken place. If, on the contrary, prohibition has brought in an artificial and unproductive kind of work, it is prohibition, and not free trade, which is responsible for the inevitable displacement, in the transition from wrong to right.

Unless, indeed, it should be contended that, because an abuse cannot be destroyed without hurting those who profit by it, its existence for a single moment is reason enough why it should endure forever.