Sophisms of the Protectionists Part 10

Both rest upon this proposition, called the _Balance of Trade_, that

"A people is impoverished by importations and enriched by exportations."

For if every foreign purchase is a _tribute paid_, a loss, nothing can be more natural than to restrain, even to prohibit importations.

And if every foreign sale is a _tribute received_, a gain, nothing more natural than to create _outlets_, even by force.

_Protective System; Colonial System._--These are only two aspects of the same theory. To _prevent_ our citizens from buying from foreigners, and to _force_ foreigners to buy from our citizens. Two consequences of one identical principle.

It is impossible not to perceive that according to this doctrine, if it be true, the welfare of a country depends upon _monopoly_ or domestic spoliation, and upon _conquest_ or foreign spoliation.

Let us take a glance into one of these huts, perched upon the side of our Pyrenean range.

The father of a family has received the little wages of his labor; but his half-naked children are s.h.i.+vering before a biting northern blast, beside a fireless hearth, and an empty table. There is wool, and wood, and corn, on the other side of the mountain, but these are forbidden to them; for the other side of the mountain is not France. Foreign wood must not warm the hearth of the poor shepherd; his children must not taste the bread of Biscay, nor cover their numbed limbs with the wool of Navarre. It is thus that the general good requires!

The disposing by law of consumers, forcing them to the support of home industry, is an encroachment upon their liberty, the forbidding of an action (mutual exchange) which is in no way opposed to morality! In a word, it is an act of _injustice_.

But this, it is said, is necessary, or else home labor will be arrested, and a severe blow will be given to public prosperity.

Thus then we must come to the melancholy conclusion, that there is a radical incompatibility between the Just and the Useful.

Again, if each people is interested in _selling_, and not in _buying_, a violent action and reaction must form the natural state of their mutual relations; for each will seek to force its productions upon all, and all will seek to repulse the productions of each.

A sale in fact implies a purchase, and since, according to this doctrine, to sell is beneficial, and to buy injurious, every international transaction must imply the benefiting of one people by the injuring of another.

But men are invincibly inclined to what they feel to be advantageous to themselves, while they also, instinctively resist that which is injurious. From hence then we must infer that each nation bears within itself a natural force of expansion, and a not less natural force of resistance, which are equally injurious to all others. In other words, antagonism and war are the _natural_ state of human society.

Thus then the theory in discussion resolves itself into the two following axioms. In the affairs of a nation,

Utility is incompatible with the internal administration of justice.

Utility is incompatible with the maintenance of external peace.

Well, what embarra.s.ses and confounds me is, to explain how any writer upon public rights, any statesman who has sincerely adopted a doctrine of which the leading principle is so antagonistic to other incontestable principles, can enjoy one moment's repose or peace of mind.

For myself, if such were my entrance upon the threshold of science, if I did not clearly perceive that Liberty, Utility, Justice, and Peace, are not only compatible, but closely connected, even identical, I would endeavor to forget all I have learned; I would say:

"Can it be possible that G.o.d can allow men to attain prosperity only through injustice and war? Can he so direct the affairs of mortals, that they can only renounce war and injustice by, at the same time, renouncing their own welfare?

"Am I not deceived by the false lights of a science which can lead me to the horrible blasphemy implied in this alternative, and shall I dare to take it upon myself to propose this as a basis for the legislation of a great people? When I find a long succession of ill.u.s.trious and learned men, whose researches in the same science have led to more consoling results; who, after having devoted their lives to its study, affirm that through it they see Liberty and Utility indissolubly linked with Justice and Peace, and find these great principles destined to continue on through eternity in infinite parallels, have they not in their favor the presumption which results from all that we know of the goodness and wisdom of G.o.d as manifested in the sublime harmony of material creation?

Can I lightly believe, in opposition to such a presumption and such imposing authorities, that this same G.o.d has been pleased to put disagreement and antagonism in the laws of the moral world? No; before I can believe that all social principles oppose, shock and neutralize each other; before I can think them in constant, anarchical and eternal conflict; above all, before I can seek to impose upon my fellow-citizens the impious system to which my reasonings have led me, I must retrace my steps, hoping, perchance, to find some point where I have wandered from my road."

And if, after a sincere investigation twenty times repeated, I should still arrive at the frightful conclusion that I am driven to choose between the Desirable and the Good, I would reject the science, plunge into a voluntary ignorance, above all, avoid partic.i.p.ation in the affairs of my country, and leave to others the weight and responsibility of so fearful a choice.

XV.

RECIPROCITY AGAIN.

Mr. de Saint Cricq has asked: "Are we sure that our foreign customers will buy from us as much as they sell us?"

Mr. de Dombasle says: "What reason have we for believing that English producers will come to seek their supplies from us, rather than from any other nation, or that they will take from us a value equivalent to their exportations into France?"

I cannot but wonder to see men who boast, above all things, of being _practical_, thus reasoning wide of all practice!

In practice, there is perhaps no traffic which is a direct exchange of produce for produce. Since the use of money, no man says, I will seek shoes, hats, advice, lessons, only from the shoemaker, the hatter, the lawyer, or teacher, who will buy from me the exact equivalent of these in corn. Why should nations impose upon themselves so troublesome a restraint?

Suppose a nation without any exterior relations. One of its citizens makes a crop of corn. He casts it into the _national_ circulation, and receives in exchange--what? Money, bank bills, securities, divisible to any extent, by means of which it will be lawful for him to withdraw when he pleases, and, unless prevented by just compet.i.tion from the national circulation, such articles as he may wish. At the end of the operation, he will have withdrawn from the ma.s.s the exact equivalent of what he first cast into it, and in value, _his consumption will exactly equal his production_.

If the exchanges of this nation with foreign nations are free, it is no longer into the _national_ circulation but into the _general_ circulation that each individual casts his produce, and from thence his consumption is drawn. He is not obliged to calculate whether what he casts into this general circulation is purchased by a countryman or by a foreigner; whether the notes he receives are given to him by a Frenchman or an Englishman, or whether the articles which he procures through means of this money are manufactured on this or the other side of the Rhine or the Pyrenees. One thing is certain; that each individual finds an exact balance between what he casts in and what he withdraws from the great common reservoir; and if this be true of each individual, it is not less true of the entire nation.

The only difference between these two cases is, that in the last, each individual has open to him a larger market both for his sales and his purchases, and has, consequently, a more favorable opportunity of making both to advantage.

The objection advanced against us here, is, that if all were to combine in not withdrawing from circulation the produce from any one individual, he, in his turn, could withdraw nothing from the ma.s.s. The same, too, would be the case with regard to a nation.

Our answer is: If a nation can no longer withdraw any thing from the ma.s.s of circulation, neither will it any longer cast any thing into it.

It will work for itself. It will be obliged to submit to what, in advance, you wish to force upon it, viz., _Isolation_. And here you have the ideal of the prohibitive system.

Truly, then, is it not ridiculous enough that you should inflict upon it now, and unnecessarily, this system, merely through fear that some day or other it might chance to be subjected to it without your a.s.sistance?

XVI.

OBSTRUCTED RIVERS PLEADING FOR THE PROHIBITIONISTS.

Some years since, being at Madrid, I went to the meeting of the Cortes.

The subject in discussion was a proposed treaty with Portugal, for improving the channel of the Douro. A member rose and said: If the Douro is made navigable, transportation must become cheaper, and Portuguese grain will come into formidable compet.i.tion with our _national labor_. I vote against the project, unless ministers will agree to increase our tariff so as to re-establish the equilibrium.

Three months after, I was in Lisbon, and the same question came before the Senate. A n.o.ble Hidalgo said: Mr. President, the project is absurd.

You guard at great expense the banks of the Douro, to prevent the influx into Portugal of Spanish grain, and at the same time you now propose, at great expense, _to facilitate such an event_. There is in this a want of consistency in which I can have no part. Let the Douro descend to our Sons as we have received it from our Fathers.

XVII.

A NEGATIVE RAILROAD.

I have already remarked that when the observer has unfortunately taken his point of view from the position of producer, he cannot fail in his conclusions to clash with the general interest, because the producer, as such, must desire the existence of efforts, wants, and obstacles.

I find a singular exemplification of this remark in a journal of Bordeaux.