What Is Free Trade? / An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Éconimiques" Designed for the American Reader

CHAPTER X.

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.

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.

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.

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 farinœ. 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.

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.

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.

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