"After this, therefore on account of this." The most common and the most false of arguments.
Real suffering exists in England.
This occurrence follows two others:
First. The reduction of the tariff.
Second. The loss of two consecutive harvests.
To which of these last two circumstances is the first to be attributed?
The protectionists do not fail to exclaim: "It is this cursed freedom which does all the mischief. It promised us wonders and marvels; we welcomed it, and now the manufactories stop and the people suffer."
Commercial freedom distributes, in the most uniform and equitable manner, the fruits which Providence grants to the labor of man. If these fruits are partially destroyed by any misfortune, it none the less looks after the fair distribution of what remains. Men are not as well provided for, of course, but shall we blame freedom or the bad harvest?
Freedom rests on the same principle as insurance. When a loss happens, it divides, among a great many people, and a great number of years, evils which without it would accumulate on one nation and one season. But have they ever thought of saying that fire was no longer a scourge, since there were insurance companies?
In 1842, '43 and '44, the reduction of taxes began in England. At the same time the harvests were very abundant, and we can justly believe that these two circumstances had much to do with the wonderful prosperity shown by that country during that period.
In 1845 the harvest was bad, and in 1846 it was still worse. Breadstuffs grew dear, the people spent their money for food, and used less of other articles. There was a diminished demand for clothing; the manufactories were not so busy, and wages showed a declining tendency. Happily, in the same year, the restrictive barriers were again lowered, and an enormous quantity of food was enabled to reach the English market. If it had not been for this, it is almost certain that a terrible revolution would now fill Great Britain with blood.
Yet they make freedom chargeable with disasters, which it prevents and remedies, at least in part.
A poor leper lived in solitude. No one would touch what he had contaminated. Compelled to do everything for himself, he dragged out a miserable existence. A great physician cured him. Here was our hermit in full possession of the freedom of exchange. What a beautiful prospect opened before him! He took pleasure in calculating the advantages, which, thanks to his connection with other men, he could draw from his vigorous arms. Unluckily, he broke both of them. Alas! his fate was most miserable. The journalists of that country, witnessing his misfortune, said: "See to what misery this ability to exchange has reduced him! Really, he was less to be pitied when he lived alone."
"What!" said the physician; "do not you consider his two broken arms? Do not they form a part of his sad destiny? His misfortune is to have lost his arms, and not to have been cured of leprosy. He would be much more to be pitied if he was both maimed and a leper."
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc; do not trust this sophism.
They find my little book of Sophisms too theoretical, scientific, and metaphysical. Very well. Let us try a trivial, commonplace, and, if necessary, coarse style. Convinced that the public is duped in the matter of protection, I have desired to prove it. But the public wishes to be shouted at. Then let us cry out:
"Midas, King Midas, has asses' ears!"
An outburst of frankness often accomplishes more than the politest circumlocution.
To tell the truth, my good people, they are robbing you. It is harsh, but it is true.
The words robbery, to rob, robber, will seem in very bad taste to many people. I say to them as Harpagon did to Elise, Is it the word or the thing that alarms you?
Whoever has fraudulently taken that which does not belong to him, is guilty of robbery. (Penal Code, Art. 379.)
To rob: To take furtively, or by force. (Dictionary of the Academy.)
Robber: He who takes more than his due. (The same.)
Now, does not the monopolist, who, by a law of his own making, obliges me to pay him twenty francs for an article which I can get elsewhere for fifteen, take from me fraudulently five francs, which belong to me?
Does he not take it furtively, or by force?
Does he not require of me more than his due?
He carries off, he takes, he demands, they will say, but not furtively or by force, which are the characteristics of robbery.
When our tax levy is burdened with five francs for the bounty which this monopolist carries off, takes, or demands, what can be more furtive, since so few of us suspect it? And for those who are not deceived, what can be more forced, since, at the first refusal to pay, the officer is at our doors?
Still, let the monopolists reassure themselves. These robberies, by means of bounties or tariffs, even if they do violate equity as much as robbery, do not break the law; on the contrary, they are perpetrated through the law. They are all the worse for this, but they have nothing to do with criminal justice.
Besides, willy-nilly, we are all robbers and robbed in the business. Though the author of this book cries stop thief, when he buys, others can cry the same after him, when he sells. If he differs from many of his countrymen, it is only in this: he knows that he loses by this game more than he gains, and they do not; if they did know it, the game would soon cease.
Nor do I boast of having first given this thing its true name. More than sixty years ago, Adam Smith said:
"When manufacturers meet it may be expected that a conspiracy will be planned against the pockets of the public." Can we be astonished at this when the public pay no attention to it?
An assembly of manufacturers deliberate officially under the name of Industrial League. What goes on there, and what is decided upon?
I give a very brief summary of the proceedings of one meeting:
"A Ship-builder. Our mercantile marine is at the last gasp (warlike digression). It is not surprising. I cannot build without iron. I can get it at ten francs in the world's market; but, through the law, the managers of the French forges compel me to pay them fifteen francs. Thus they take five francs from me. I ask freedom to buy where I please.
"An Iron Manufacturer. In the world's market I can obtain transportation for twenty francs. The ship-builder, through the law, requires thirty. Thus he takes ten francs from me. He plunders me; I plunder him. It is all for the best.
"A Public Official. The conclusion of the ship-builder's argument is highly imprudent. Oh, let us cultivate the touching union which makes our strength; if we relax an iota from the theory of protection, good-bye to the whole of it.
"The Ship-builder. But, for us, protection is a failure. I repeat that the shipping is nearly gone.
"A Sailor. Very well, let us raise the discriminating duties against goods imported in foreign bottoms, and let the ship-builder, who now takes thirty francs from the public, hereafter take forty.
"A Minister. The government will push to its extreme limits the admirable mechanism of these discriminating duties, but I fear that it will not answer the purpose.
"A Government Employe. You seem to be bothered about a very little matter. Is there any safety but in the bounty? If the consumer is willing, the tax-payer is no less so. Let us pile on the taxes, and let the ship-builder be satisfied. I propose a bounty of five francs, to be taken from the public revenues, to be paid to the ship-builder for each quintal of iron that he uses.
"Several Voices. Seconded, seconded.
"A Farmer. I want a bounty of three francs for each bushel of wheat.
"A Weaver. And I two francs for each yard of cloth.
"The Presiding Officer. That is understood. Our meeting will have originated the system of drawbacks, and it will be its eternal glory. What branch of manufacturing can lose hereafter, when we have two so simple means of turning losses into gains—the tariff and drawbacks. The meeting is adjourned."
Some supernatural vision must have shown me in a dream the coming appearance of the bounty (who knows if I did not suggest the thought to M. Dupin?), when some months ago I wrote the following words:
"It seems evident to me that protection, without changing its nature or effects, might take the form of a direct tax levied by the State, and distributed in indemnifying bounties to privileged manufacturers."
And after having compared protective duties with the bounty:
"I frankly avow my preference for the latter system; it seems to me more just, more economical, and more truthful. More just, because if society wishes to give gratuities to some of its members, all should contribute; more economical, because it would save much of the expense of collection, and do away with many obstacles; and, finally, more truthful, because the public could see the operation plainly, and would know what was done."
Since the opportunity is so kindly offered us, let us study this robbery by bounties. What is said of it will also apply to robbery by tariff, and as it is a little better disguised, the direct will enable us to understand the indirect, cheating. Thus the mind proceeds from the simple to the complex.
But is there no simpler variety of robbery? Certainly, there is highway robbery, and all it needs is to be legalized, or, as they say now-a-days, organized.
I once read the following in somebody's travels:
"When we reached the Kingdom of A—— we found all industrial pursuits suffering. Agriculture groaned, manufactures complained, commerce murmured, the navy growled, and the government did not know whom to listen to. At first it thought of taxing all the discontented, and of dividing among them the proceeds of these taxes after having taken its share; which would have been like the method of managing lotteries in our dear Spain. There are a thousand of you; the State takes a dollar from each one, cunningly steals two hundred and fifty, and then divides up seven hundred and fifty, in greater or smaller sums, among the players. The worthy Hidalgo, who has received three-quarters of a dollar, forgetting that he has spent a whole one, is wild with joy, and runs to spend his shillings at the tavern. Something like this once happened in France. Barbarous as the country of A—— was, however, the government did not trust the stupidity of the inhabitants enough to make them accept such singular protection, and hence this was what it devised:
"The country was intersected with roads. The government had them measured, exactly, and then said to the farmers, 'All that you can steal from travelers between these boundaries is yours; let it serve you as a bounty, a protection, and an encouragement.' It afterwards assigned to each manufacturer and each ship-builder, a bit of road to work up, according to this formula:
Dono tibi et concedo,
Virtutem et puissantiam,
Robbandi,
Pillageandi,
Stealandi,
Cheatandi,
Et Swindlandi,
Impune per totam istam,
Viam.
"Now it has come to pass that the natives of the Kingdom of A—— are so familiarized with this regime, and so accustomed to think only of what they steal, and not of what is stolen from them, so habituated to look at pillage but from the pillager's point of view, that they consider the sum of all these private robberies as national profit, and refuse to give up a system of protection without which, they say, no branch of industry can live."
Do you say, it is not possible that an entire nation could see an increase of riches where the inhabitants plundered one another?
Why not? We have this belief in France, and every day we organize and practice reciprocal robbery under the name of bounties and protective tariffs.
Let us exaggerate nothing, however; let us concede that as far as the mode of collection, and the collateral circumstances, are concerned, the system in the Kingdom of A—— may be worse than ours; but let us say, also, that as far as principles and necessary results are concerned, there is not an atom of difference between these two kinds of robbery legally organized to eke out the profits of industry.
Observe, that if highway robbery presents some difficulties of execution, it has also certain advantages which are not found in the tariff robbery.
For instance: An equitable division can be made between all the plunderers. It is not thus with tariffs. They are by nature impotent to protect certain classes of society, such as artizans, merchants, literary men, lawyers, soldiers, etc., etc.
It is true that bounty robbery allows of infinite subdivisions, and in this respect does not yield in perfection to highway robbery, but on the other hand it often leads to results which are so odd and foolish, that the natives of the Kingdom of A—— may laugh at it with great reason.
That which the plundered party loses in highway robbery is gained by the robber. The article stolen remains, at least, in the country. But under the dominion of bounty robbery, that which the duty takes from the French is often given to the Chinese, the Hottentots, Caffirs, and Algonquins, as follows:
A piece of cloth is worth a hundred francs at Bordeaux. It is impossible to sell it below that without loss. It is impossible to sell it for more than that, for the competition between merchants forbids. Under these circumstances, if a Frenchman desires to buy the cloth, he must pay a hundred francs, or do without it. But if an Englishman comes, the government interferes, and says to the merchant: "Sell your cloth, and I will make the tax-payers give you twenty francs (through the operation of the drawback)." The merchant, who wants, and can get, but one hundred francs for his cloth, delivers it to the Englishman for eighty francs. This sum added to the twenty francs, the product of the bounty robbery, makes up his price. It is then precisely as if the tax-payers had given twenty francs to the Englishman, on condition that he would buy French cloth at twenty francs below the cost of manufacture,—at twenty francs below what it costs us. Then bounty robbery has this peculiarity, that the robbed are inhabitants of the country which allows it, and the robbers are spread over the face of the globe.
It is truly wonderful that they should persist in holding this proposition to have been demonstrated: All that the individual robs from the mass is a general gain. Perpetual motion, the philosopher's stone, and the squaring of the circle, are sunk in oblivion; but the theory of progress by robbery is still held in honor. A priori, however, one might have supposed that it would be the shortest lived of all these follies.
Some say to us: You are, then, partisans of the let alone policy? economists of the superannuated school of the Smiths and the Says? You do not desire the organization of labor? Why, gentlemen, organize labor as much as you please, but we will watch to see that you do not organize robbery.
Others say, bounties, tariffs, all these things may have been overdone. We must use, without abusing them. A wise liberty, combined with moderate protection, is what serious and practical men claim. Let us beware of absolute principles. This is exactly what they said in the Kingdom of A——, according to the Spanish traveler. "Highway robbery," said the wise men, "is neither good nor bad in itself; it depends on circumstances. Perhaps too much freedom of pillage has been given; perhaps not enough. Let us see; let us examine; let us balance the accounts of each robber. To those who do not make enough, we will give a little more road to work up. As for those who make too much, we will reduce their share."
Those who spoke thus acquired great fame for moderation, prudence, and wisdom. They never failed to attain the highest offices of the State.
As for those who said, "Let us repress injustice altogether; let us allow neither robbery, nor half robbery, nor quarter robbery," they passed for theorists, dreamers, bores—always parroting the same thing. The people also found their reasoning too easy to understand. How can that be true which is so very simple?
Jacques Bonhomme, Vine-grower.
M. Lasouche, Tax Collector.
L. You have secured twenty hogsheads of wine?
J. Yes, with much care and sweat.
—Be so kind as to give me six of the best.
—Six hogsheads out of twenty! Good heavens! You want to ruin me. If you please, what do you propose to do with them?
—The first will be given to the creditors of the State. When one has debts, the least one can do is to pay the interest.
—Where did the principal go?
—It would take too long to tell. A part of it was once upon a time put in cartridges, which made the finest smoke in the world; with another part men were hired who were maimed on foreign ground, after having ravaged it. Then, when these expenses brought the enemy upon us, he would not leave without taking money with him, which we had to borrow.
—What good do I get from it now?
—The satisfaction of saying:
How proud am I of being a Frenchman
When I behold the triumphal column,
And the humiliation of leaving to my heirs an estate burdened with a perpetual rent. Still one must pay what he owes, no matter how foolish a use may have been made of the money. That accounts for one hogshead, but the five others?
—One is required to pay for public services, the civil list, the judges who decree the restitution of the bit of land your neighbor wants to appropriate, the policemen who drive away robbers while you sleep, the men who repair the road leading to the city, the priest who baptizes your children, the teacher who educates them, and myself, your servant, who does not work for nothing.
—Certainly, service for service. There is nothing to say against that. I had rather make a bargain directly with my priest, but I do not insist on this. So much for the second hogshead. This leaves four, however.
—Do you believe that two would be too much for your share of the army and navy expenses?
—Alas, it is little compared with what they have cost me already. They have taken from me two sons whom I tenderly loved.
—The balance of power in Europe must be maintained.
—Well, my God! the balance of power would be the same if these forces were every where reduced a half or three-quarters. We should save our children and our money. All that is needed is to understand it.
—Yes, but they do not understand it.
—That is what amazes me. For every one suffers from it.
—You wished it so, Jacques Bonhomme.
—You are jesting, my dear Mr. Collector; have I a vote in the legislative halls?
—Whom did you support for Deputy?
—An excellent General, who will be a Marshal presently, if God spares his life.
—On what does this excellent General live?
—My hogsheads, I presume.
—And what would happen were he to vote for a reduction of the army and your military establishment?
—Instead of being made a Marshal, he would be retired.
—Do you now understand that yourself?
—Let us pass to the fifth hogshead, I beg of you.
—That goes to Algeria.
—To Algeria! And they tell me that all Mussulmans are temperance people, the barbarians! What services will they give me in exchange for this ambrosia, which has cost me so much labor?
—None at all; it is not intended for Mussulmans, but for good Christians who spend their days in Barbary.
—What can they do there which will be of service to me?
—Undertake and undergo raids; kill and be killed; get dysenteries and come home to be doctored; dig harbors, make roads, build villages and people them with Maltese, Italians, Spaniards and Swiss, who live on your hogshead, and many others which I shall come in the future to ask of you.
—Mercy! This is too much, and I flatly refuse you my hogshead. They would send a wine-grower who did such foolish acts to the mad-house. Make roads in the Atlas Mountains, when I cannot get out of my own house! Dig ports in Barbary when the Garonne fills up with sand every day! Take from me my children whom I love, in order to torment Arabs! Make me pay for the houses, grain and horses, given to the Greeks and Maltese, when there are so many poor around us!
—The poor! Exactly; they free the country of this superfluity.
—Oh, yes, by sending after them to Algeria the money which would enable them to live here.
—But then you lay the basis of a great empire, you carry civilization into Africa, and you crown your country with immortal glory.
—You are a poet, my dear Collector; but I am a vine-grower, and I refuse.
—Think that in a few thousand years you will get back your advances a hundred-fold. All those who have charge of the enterprise say so.
—At first they asked me for one barrel of wine to meet expenses, then two, then three, and now I am taxed a hogshead. I persist in my refusal.
—It is too late. Your representative has agreed that you shall give a hogshead.
—That is but too true. Cursed weakness! It seems to me that I was unwise in making him my agent; for what is there in common between the General of an army and the poor owner of a vineyard?
—You see well that there is something in common between you, were it only the wine you make, and which, in your name, he votes to himself.
—Laugh at me; I deserve it, my dear Collector. But be reasonable, and leave me the sixth hogshead at least. The interest of the debt is paid, the civil list provided for, the public service assured, and the war in Africa perpetuated. What more do you want?
—The bargain is not made with me. You must tell your desires to the General. He has disposed of your vintage.
—But what do you propose to do with this poor hogshead, the flower of my flock? Come, taste this wine. How mellow, delicate, velvety it is!
—Excellent, delicious! It will suit D——, the cloth manufacturer, admirably.
—D——, the manufacturer! What do you mean?
—That he will make a good bargain out of it.
—How? What is that? I do not understand you.
—Do you not know that D—— has started a magnificent establishment very useful to the country, but which loses much money every year?
—I am very sorry. But what can I do to help him?
—The Legislature saw that if things went on thus, D—— would either have to do a better business or close his manufactory.
—But what connection is there between D——'s bad speculations and my hogshead?
—The Chamber thought that if it gave D—— a little wine from your cellar, a few bushels of grain taken from your neighbors, and a few pennies cut from the wages of the workingmen, his losses would change into profits.
—This recipe is as infallible as it is ingenious. But it is shockingly unjust. What! is D—— to cover his losses by taking my wine?
—Not exactly the wine, but the proceeds of it; That is what we call a bounty for encouragement. But you look amazed! Do not you see what a great service you render to the country?
—You mean to say to D——?
—To the country. D—— asserts that, thanks to this arrangement, his business prospers, and thus it is, says he, that the country grows rich. That is what he recently said in the Chamber of which he is a member.
—It is a damnable fraud! What! A fool goes into a silly enterprise, he spends his money, and if he extorts from me wine or grain enough to make good his losses, and even to make him a profit, he calls it a general gain!
—Your representative having come to that conclusion, all you have to do is to give me the six hogsheads of wine, and sell the fourteen that I leave you for as much as possible.
—That is my business.
—For, you see, it would be very annoying if you did not get a good price for them.
—I will think of it.
—For there are many things which the money you receive must procure.
—I know it, sir. I know it.
—In the first place, if you buy iron to renew your spades and plowshares, a law declares that you must pay the iron-master twice what it was worth.
—Ah, yes; does not the same thing happen in the Black Forest?
—Then, if you need oil, meat, cloth, coal, wool and sugar, each one by the law will cost you twice what it is worth.
—But this is horrible, frightful, abominable.
—What is the use of these hard words? You yourself, through your authorized agent——
—Leave me alone with my authorized agent. I made a very strange disposition of my vote, it is true. But they shall deceive me no more, and I will be represented by some good and honest countryman.
—Bah, you will re-elect the worthy General.
—I? I re-elect the General to give away my wine to Africans and manufacturers?
—You will re-elect him, I say.
—That is a little too much. I will not re-elect him, if I do not want to.
—But you will want to, and you will re-elect him.
—Let him come here and try. He will see who he will have to settle with.
—We shall see. Good bye. I take away your six hogsheads, and will proceed to divide them as the General has directed.
If I were His Majesty's Minister!
—Well, what would you do?
—I should begin by—by—upon my word, by being very much embarrassed. For I should be Minister only because I had the majority, and I should have that only because I had made it, and I could only have made it, honestly at least, by governing according to its ideas. So if I undertake to carry out my ideas and to run counter to its ideas, I shall not have the majority, and if I do not, I cannot be His Majesty's Minister.
—Just imagine that you are so, and that consequently the majority is not opposed to you, what would you do?
—I would look to see on which side justice is.
—And then?
—I would seek to find where utility was.
—What next?
—I would see whether they agreed, or were in conflict with one another.
—And if you found they did not agree?
—I would say to the King, take back your portfolio.
—But suppose you see that justice and utility are one?
—Then I will go straight ahead.
—Very well, but to realize utility by justice, a third thing is necessary.
—What is that?
—Possibility.
—You conceded that.
—When?
—Just now.
—How?
—By giving me the majority.
—It seems to me that the concession was rather hazardous, for it implies that the majority clearly sees what is just, clearly sees what is useful, and clearly sees that these things are in perfect accord.
—And if it sees this clearly, the good will, so to speak, do itself.
—This is the point to which you are constantly bringing me—to see a possibility of reform only in the progress of the general intelligence.
—By this progress all reform is infallible.
—Certainly. But this preliminary progress takes time. Let us suppose it accomplished. What will you do? for I am eager to see you at work, doing, practicing.
—I should begin by reducing letter postage to ten centimes.
—I heard you speak of five, once.
—Yes; but as I have other reforms in view, I must move with prudence, to avoid a deficit in the revenues.
—Prudence? This leaves you with a deficit of thirty millions.
—Then I will reduce the salt tax to ten francs.
—Good! Here is another deficit of thirty millions. Doubtless you have invented some new tax.
—Heaven forbid! Besides, I do not flatter myself that I have an inventive mind.
—It is necessary, however. Oh, I have it. What was I thinking of? You are simply going to diminish the expense. I did not think of that.
—You are not the only one. I shall come to that; but I do not count on it at present.
—What! you diminish the receipts, without lessening expenses, and you avoid a deficit?
—Yes, by diminishing other taxes at the same time.
(Here the interlocutor, putting the index finger of his right hand on his forehead, shook his head, which may be translated thus: He is rambling terribly.)
—Well, upon my word, this is ingenious. I pay the Treasury a hundred francs; you relieve me of five francs on salt, five on postage; and in order that the Treasury may nevertheless receive one hundred francs, you relieve me of ten on some other tax?
—Precisely; you understand me.
—How can it be true? I am not even sure that I have heard you.
—I repeat that I balance one remission of taxes by another.
—I have a little time to give, and I should like to hear you expound this paradox.
—Here is the whole mystery: I know a tax which costs you twenty francs, not a sou of which gets to the Treasury. I relieve you of half of it, and make the other half take its proper destination.
—You are an unequaled financier. There is but one difficulty. What tax, if you please, do I pay, which does not go to the Treasury?
—How much does this suit of clothes cost you?
—A hundred francs.
—How much would it have cost you if you had gotten the cloth from Belgium?
—Eighty francs.
—Then why did you not get it there?
—Because it is prohibited.
—Why?
—So that the suit may cost me one hundred francs instead of eighty.
—This denial, then, costs you twenty francs?
—Undoubtedly.
—And where do these twenty francs go?
—Where do they go? To the manufacturer of the cloth.
—Well, give me ten francs for the Treasury, and I will remove the restriction, and you will gain ten francs.
—Oh, I begin to see. The treasury account shows that it loses five francs on postage and five on salt, and gains ten on cloth. That is even.
—Your account is—you gain five francs on salt, five on postage, and ten on cloth.
—Total, twenty francs. This is satisfactory enough. But what becomes of the poor cloth manufacturer?
—Oh, I have thought of him. I have secured compensation for him by means of the tax reductions which are so profitable to the Treasury. What I have done for you as regards cloth, I do for him in regard to wool, coal, machinery, etc., so that he can lower his price without loss.
—But are you sure that will be an equivalent?
—The balance will be in his favor. The twenty francs that you gain on the cloth will be multiplied by those which I will save for you on grain, meat, fuel, etc. This will amount to a large sum, and each one of your 35,000,000 fellow-citizens will save the same way. There will be enough to consume the cloths of both Belgium and France. The nation will be better clothed; that is all.
—I will think on this, for it is somewhat confused in my head.
—After all, as far as clothes go, the main thing is to be clothed. Your limbs are your own, and not the manufacturer's. To shield them from cold is your business and not his. If the law takes sides for him against you, the law is unjust, and you allowed me to reason on the hypothesis that what is unjust is hurtful.
—Perhaps I admitted too much; but go on and explain your financial plan.
—Then I will make a tariff.
—In two folio volumes?
—No, in two sections.
—Then they will no longer say that this famous axiom "No one is supposed to be ignorant of the law" is a fiction. Let us see your tariff.
—Here it is: Section First. All imports shall pay an ad valorem tax of five per cent.
—Even raw materials?
—Unless they are worthless.
—But they all have value, much or little.
—Then they will pay much or little.
—How can our manufactories compete with foreign ones which have these raw materials free?
—The expenses of the State being certain, if we close this source of revenue, we must open another; this will not diminish the relative inferiority of our manufactories, and there will be one bureau more to organize and pay.
—That is true; I reasoned as if the tax was to be annulled, not changed. I will reflect on this. What is your second section?
—Section Second. All exports shall pay an ad valorem tax of five per cent.
—Merciful Heavens, Mr. Utopist! You will certainly be stoned, and, if it comes to that, I will throw the first one.
—We agreed that the majority were enlightened.
—Enlightened! Can you claim that an export duty is not onerous?
—All taxes are onerous, but this is less so than others.
—The carnival justifies many eccentricities. Be so kind as to make this new paradox appear specious, if you can.
—How much did you pay for this wine?
—A franc per quart.
—How much would you have paid outside the city gates?
—Fifty centimes.
—Why this difference?
—Ask the octroi[14] which added ten sous to it.
—Who established the octroi?
—The municipality of Paris, in order to pave and light the streets.
—This is, then, an import duty. But if the neighboring country districts had established this octroi for their profit, what would happen?
—I should none the less pay a franc for wine worth only fifty centimes, and the other fifty centimes would pave and light Montmartre and the Batignolles.
—So that really it is the consumer who pays the tax?
—There is no doubt of that.
—Then by taxing exports you make foreigners help pay your expenses.[15]
—I find you at fault, this is not justice.
—Why not? In order to secure the production of any one thing, there must be instruction, security, roads, and other costly things in the country. Why shall not the foreigner who is to consume this product, bear the charges its production necessitates?
—This is contrary to received ideas.
—Not the least in the world. The last purchaser must repay all the direct and indirect expenses of production.
—No matter what you say, it is plain that such a measure would paralyze commerce; and cut off all exports.
—That is an illusion. If you were to pay this tax besides all the others, you would be right. But, if the hundred millions raised in this way, relieve you of other taxes to the same amount, you go into foreign markets with all your advantages, and even with more, if this duty has occasioned less embarrassment and expense.
—I will reflect on this. So now the salt, postage and customs are regulated. Is all ended there?
—I am just beginning.
—Pray, initiate me in your Utopian ideas.
—I have lost sixty millions on salt and postage. I shall regain them through the customs; which also gives me something more precious.
—What, pray?
—International relations founded on justice, and a probability of peace which is equivalent to a certainty. I will disband the army.
—The whole army?
—Except special branches, which will be voluntarily recruited, like all other professions. You see, conscription is abolished.
—Sir, you should say recruiting.
—Ah, I forgot, I cannot help admiring the ease with which, in certain countries, the most unpopular things are perpetuated by giving them other names.
—Like consolidated duties, which have become indirect contributions.
—And the gendarmes, who have taken the name of municipal guards.
—In short, trusting to Utopia, you disarm the country.
—I said that I would muster out the army, not that I would disarm the country. I intend, on the contrary, to give it invincible power.
—How do you harmonize this mass of contradictions?
—I call all the citizens to service.
—Is it worth while to relieve a portion from service in order to call out everybody?
—You did not make me Minister in order that I should leave things as they are. Thus, on my advent to power, I shall say with Richelieu, "the State maxims are changed." My first maxim, the one which will serve as a basis for my administration, is this: Every citizen must know two things—How to earn his own living, and defend his country.
—It seems to me, at the first glance, that there is a spark of good sense in this.
—Consequently, I base the national defense on a law consisting of two sections.
Section First. Every able-bodied citizen, without exception, shall be under arms for four years, from his twenty-first to his twenty-fifth year, in order to receive military instruction.—
—This is pretty economy! You send home four hundred thousand soldiers and call out ten millions.
—Listen to my second section:
Sec. 2. Unless he proves, at the age of twenty-one, that he knows the school of the soldier perfectly.
—I did not expect this turn. It is certain that to avoid four years' service, there will be a great emulation among our youth, to learn by the right flank and double quick, march. The idea is odd.
—It is better than that. For without grieving families and offending equality, does it not assure the country, in a simple and inexpensive manner, of ten million defenders, capable of defying a coalition of all the standing armies of the globe?
—Truly, if I were not on my guard, I should end in getting interested in your fancies.
The Utopist, getting excited: Thank Heaven, my estimates are relieved of a hundred millions! I suppress the octroi. I refund indirect contributions. I—
Getting more and more excited: I will proclaim religious freedom and free instruction. There shall be new resources. I will buy the railroads, pay off the public debt, and starve out the stock gamblers.
—My dear Utopist!
—Freed from too numerous cares, I will concentrate all the resources of the government on the repression of fraud, the administration of prompt and even-handed justice. I—
—My dear Utopist, you attempt too much. The nation will not follow you.
—You gave me the majority.
—I take it back.
—Very well; then I am no longer Minister; but my plans remain what they are—Utopian ideas.
[This chapter is an amusing dialogue relating principally to English Postal Reform. Being inapplicable to any condition of things existing in the United States, it is omitted.—Translator.]
A DEMONSTRATION IN FOUR TABLEAUX.
First Tableau.
[The scene is in the hotel of Alderman Pierre. The window looks out on a fine park; three persons are seated near a good fire.]
Pierre. Upon my word, a fire is very comfortable when the stomach is satisfied. It must be agreed that it is a pleasant thing. But, alas! how many worthy people like the King of Yvetot,
"Blow on their fingers for want of wood."
Unhappy creatures, Heaven inspires me with a charitable thought. You see these fine trees. I will cut them down and distribute the wood among the poor.
Paul and Jean. What! gratis?
Pierre. Not exactly. There would soon be an end of my good works if I scattered my property thus. I think that my park is worth twenty thousand livres; by cutting it down I shall get much more for it.
Paul. A mistake. Your wood as it stands is worth more than that in the neighboring forests, for it renders services which that cannot give. When cut down it will, like that, be good for burning only, and will not be worth a sou more per cord.
Pierre. Oh! Mr. Theorist, you forget that I am a practical man. I supposed that my reputation as a speculator was well enough established to put me above any charge of stupidity. Do you think that I shall amuse myself by selling my wood at the price of other wood?
Paul. You must.
Pierre. Simpleton!—Suppose I prevent the bringing of any wood to Paris?
Paul. That will alter the case. But how will you manage it?
Pierre. This is the whole secret. You know that wood pays an entrance duty of ten sous per cord. To-morrow I will induce the Aldermen to raise this duty to one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred livres, so high as to keep out every fagot. Well, do you see? If the good people do not want to die of cold, they must come to my wood-yard. They will fight for my wood; I shall sell it for its weight in gold, and this well-regulated deed of charity will enable me to do others of the same sort.
Paul. This is a fine idea, and it suggests an equally good one to me.
Jean. Well, what is it?
Paul. How do you find this Normandy butter?
Jean. Excellent.
Paul. Well, it seemed passable a moment ago. But do you not think it is a little strong? I want to make a better article at Paris. I will have four or five hundred cows, and I will distribute milk, butter and cheese to the poor people.
Pierre and Jean. What! as a charity?
Paul. Bah, let us always put charity in the foreground. It is such a fine thing that its counterfeit even is an excellent card. I will give my butter to the people and they will give me their money. Is that called selling?
Jean. No, according to the Bourgeois Gentilhomme; but call it what you please, you ruin yourself. Can Paris compete with Normandy in raising cows?
Paul. I shall save the cost of transportation.
Jean. Very well; but the Normans are able to beat the Parisians, even if they do have to pay for transportation.
Paul. Do you call it beating any one to furnish him things at a low price?
Jean. It is the time-honored word. You will always be beaten.
Paul. Yes; like Don Quixote. The blows will fall on Sancho. Jean, my friend, you forgot the octroi.
Jean. The octroi! What has that to do with your butter?
Paul. To-morrow I will demand protection, and I will induce the Council to prohibit the butter of Normandy and Brittany. The people must do without butter, or buy mine, and that at my price, too.
Jean. Gentlemen, your philanthropy carries me along with it. "In time one learns to howl with the wolves." It shall not be said that I am an unworthy Alderman. Pierre, this sparkling fire has illumined your soul; Paul, this butter has given an impulse to your understanding, and I perceive that this piece of salt pork stimulates my intelligence. To-morrow I will vote myself, and make others vote, for the exclusion of hogs, dead or alive; this done, I will build superb stock-yards in the middle of Paris "for the unclean animal forbidden to the Hebrews." I will become swineherd and pork-seller, and we shall see how the good people of Lutetia can help getting their food at my shop.
Pierre. Gently, my friends; if you thus run up the price of butter and salt meat, you diminish the profit which I expected from my wood.
Paul. Nor is my speculation so wonderful, if you ruin me with your fuel and your hams.
Jean. What shall I gain by making you pay an extra price for my sausages, if you overcharge me for pastry and fagots?
Pierre. Do you not see that we are getting into a quarrel? Let us rather unite. Let us make reciprocal concessions. Besides, it is not well to listen only to miserable self-interest. Humanity is concerned, and must not the warming of the people be secured?
Paul. That it is true, and people must have butter to spread on their bread.
Jean. Certainly. And they must have a bit of pork for their soup.
All Together. Forward, charity! Long live philanthropy! To-morrow, to-morrow, we will take the octroi by assault.
Pierre. Ah, I forgot. One word more which is important. My friends, in this selfish age people are suspicious, and the purest intentions are often misconstrued. Paul, you plead for wood; Jean, defend butter; and I will devote myself to domestic swine. It is best to head off invidious suspicions. Paul and Jean (leaving). Upon my word, what a clever fellow!
SECOND TABLEAU.
The Common Council.
Paul. My dear colleagues, every day great quantities of wood come into Paris, and draw out of it large sums of money. If this goes on, we shall all be ruined in three years, and what will become of the poor people? [Bravo.] Let us prohibit foreign wood. I am not speaking for myself, for you could not make a tooth-pick out of all the wood I own. I am, therefore, perfectly disinterested. [Good, good.] But here is Pierre, who has a park, and he will keep our fellow-citizens from freezing. They will no longer be in a state of dependence on the charcoal dealers of the Yonne. Have you ever thought of the risk we run of dying of cold, if the proprietors of these foreign forests should take it into their heads not to bring any more wood to Paris? Let us, therefore, prohibit wood. By this means we shall stop the drain of specie, we shall start the wood-chopping business, and open to our workmen a new source of labor and wages. [Applause.]
Jean. I second the motion of the Honorable member—a proposition so philanthropic and so disinterested, as he remarked. It is time that we should stop this intolerable freedom of entry, which has brought a ruinous competition upon our market, so that there is not a province tolerably well situated for producing some one article which does not inundate us with it, sell it to us at a low price, and depress Parisian labor. It is the business of the State to equalize the conditions of production by wisely graduated duties; to allow the entrance from without of whatever is dearer there than at Paris, and thus relieve us from an unequal contest. How, for instance, can they expect us to make milk and butter in Paris as against Brittany and Normandy? Think, gentlemen; the Bretons have land cheaper, feed more convenient, and labor more abundant. Does not common sense say that the conditions must be equalized by a protecting duty? I ask that the duty on milk and butter be raised to a thousand per cent., and more, if necessary. The breakfasts of the people will cost a little more, but wages will rise! We shall see the building of stables and dairies, a good trade in churns, and the foundation of new industries laid. I, myself, have not the least interest in this plan. I am not a cowherd, nor do I desire to become one. I am moved by the single desire to be useful to the laboring classes. [Expressions of approbation.]
Pierre. I am happy to see in this assembly statesmen so pure, enlightened, and devoted to the interests of the people. [Cheers.] I admire their self-denial, and cannot do better than follow such noble examples. I support their motion, and I also make one to exclude Poitou hogs. It is not that I want to become a swineherd or pork dealer, in which case my conscience would forbid my making this motion; but is it not shameful, gentlemen, that we should be paying tribute to these poor Poitevin peasants who have the audacity to come into our own market, take possession of a business that we could have carried on ourselves, and, after having inundated us with sausages and hams, take from us, perhaps, nothing in return? Anyhow, who says that the balance of trade is not in their favor, and that we are not compelled to pay them a tribute in money? Is it not plain that if this Poitevin industry were planted in Paris, it would open new fields to Parisian labor? Moreover, gentlemen, is it not very likely, as Mr. Lestiboudois said, that we buy these Poitevin salted meats, not with our income, but our capital? Where will this land us? Let us not allow greedy, avaricious and perfidious rivals to come here and sell things cheaply, thus making it impossible for us to produce them ourselves. Aldermen, Paris has given us its confidence, and we must show ourselves worthy of it. The people are without labor, and we must create it, and if salted meat costs them a little more, we shall, at least, have the consciousness that we have sacrificed our interests to those of the masses, as every good Alderman ought to do. [Thunders of applause.]
A Voice. I hear much said of the poor people; but, under the pretext of giving them labor, you begin by taking away from them that which is worth more than labor itself—wood, butter, and soup.
Pierre, Paul and Jean. Vote, vote. Away with your theorists and generalizers! Let us vote. [The three motions are carried.]
THIRD TABLEAU.
Twenty Years After.
Son. Father, decide; we must leave Paris. Work is slack, and everything is dear.
Father. My son, you do not know how hard it is to leave the place where we were born.
Son. The worst of all things is to die there of misery.
Father. Go, my son, and seek a more hospitable country. For myself, I will not leave the grave where your mother, sisters and brothers lie. I am eager to find, at last, near them, the rest which is denied me in this city of desolation.
Son. Courage, dear father, we will find work elsewhere—in Poitou, Normandy or Brittany. They say that the industry of Paris is gradually transferring itself to those distant countries.
Father. It is very natural. Unable to sell us wood and food, they stopped producing more than they needed for themselves, and they devoted their spare time and capital to making those things which we formerly furnished them.
Son. Just as at Paris, they quit making handsome furniture and fine clothes, in order to plant trees, and raise hogs and cows. Though quite young, I have seen vast storehouses, sumptuous buildings, and quays thronged with life on those banks of the Seine which are now given up to meadows and forests.
Father. While the provinces are filling up with cities, Paris becomes country. What a frightful revolution! Three mistaken Aldermen, aided by public ignorance, have brought down on us this terrible calamity.
Son. Tell me this story, my father.
Father. It is very simple. Under the pretext of establishing three new trades at Paris, and of thus supplying labor to the workmen, these men secured the prohibition of wood, butter, and meats. They assumed the right of supplying their fellow-citizens with them. These articles rose immediately to an exorbitant price. Nobody made enough to buy them, and the few who could procure them by using up all they made were unable to buy anything else; consequently all branches of industry stopped at once—all the more so because the provinces no longer offered a market. Misery, death, and emigration began to depopulate Paris.
Son. When will this stop?
Father. When Paris has become a meadow and a forest.
Son. The three Aldermen must have made a great fortune.
Father. At first they made immense profits, but at length they were involved in the common misery.
Son. How was that possible?
Father. You see this ruin; it was a magnificent house, surrounded by a fine park. If Paris had kept on advancing, Master Pierre would have got more rent from it annually than the whole thing is now worth to him.
Son. How can that be, since he got rid of competition?
Father. Competition in selling has disappeared; but competition in buying also disappears every day, and will keep on disappearing until Paris is an open field, and Master Pierre's woodland will be worth no more than an equal number of acres in the forest of Bondy. Thus, a monopoly, like every species of injustice, brings its own punishment upon itself.
Son. This does not seem very plain to me, but the decay of Paris is undeniable. Is there, then, no means of repealing this unjust measure that Pierre and his colleagues adopted twenty years ago?
Father. I will confide my secret to you. I will remain at Paris for this purpose; I will call the people to my aid. It depends on them whether they will replace the octroi on its old basis, and dismiss from it this fatal principle, which is grafted on it, and has grown there like a parasite fungus.
Son. You ought to succeed on the very first day.
Father. No; on the contrary, the work is a difficult and laborious one. Pierre, Paul and Jean understand one another perfectly. They are ready to do anything rather than allow the entrance of wood, butter and meat into Paris. They even have on their side the people, who clearly see the labor which these three protected branches of business give, who know how many wood-choppers and cow-drivers it gives employment to, but who cannot obtain so clear an idea of the labor that would spring up in the free air of liberty.
Son. If this is all that is needed, you will enlighten them.
Father. My child, at your age, one doubts at nothing. If I wrote, the people would not read; for all their time is occupied in supporting a wretched existence. If I speak, the Aldermen will shut my mouth. The people will, therefore, remain long in their fatal error; political parties, which build their hopes on their passions, attempt to play upon their prejudices, rather than to dispel them. I shall then have to deal with the powers that be—the people and the parties. I see that a storm will burst on the head of the audacious person who dares to rise against an iniquity which is so firmly rooted in the country.
Son. You will have justice and truth on your side.
Father. And they will have force and calumny. If I were only young! But age and suffering have exhausted my strength.
Son. Well, father, devote all that you have left to the service of the country. Begin this work of emancipation, and leave to me for an inheritance the task of finishing it.
FOURTH TABLEAU.
The Agitation.
Jacques Bonhomme. Parisians, let us demand the reform of the octroi; let it be put back to what it was. Let every citizen be FREE to buy wood, butter and meat where it seems good to him.
The People. Hurrah for LIBERTY!
Pierre. Parisians, do not allow yourselves to be seduced by these words. Of what avail is the freedom of purchasing, if you have not the means? and how can you have the means, if labor is wanting? Can Paris produce wood as cheaply as the forest of Bondy, or meat at as low price as Poitou, or butter as easily as Normandy? If you open the doors to these rival products, what will become of the wood cutters, pork dealers, and cattle drivers? They cannot do without protection.
The People.. Hurrah for PROTECTION!
Jacques. Protection! But do they protect you, workmen? Do not you compete with one another? Let the wood dealers then suffer competition in their turn. They have no right to raise the price of their wood by law, unless they, also, by law, raise wages. Do you not still love equality?
The People. Hurrah for EQUALITY!
Pierre. Do not listen to this factious fellow. We have raised the price of wood, meat, and butter, it is true; but it is in order that we may give good wages to the workmen. We are moved by charity.
The People. Hurrah for CHARITY!
Jacques. Use the octroi, if you can, to raise wages, or do not use it to raise the price of commodities. The Parisians do not ask for charity, but justice.
The People. Hurrah for JUSTICE!
Pierre. It is precisely the dearness of products which will, by reflex action, raise wages.
The People. Hurrah for DEARNESS!
Jacques. If butter is dear, it is not because you pay workmen well; it is not even that you may make great profits; it is only because Paris is ill situated for this business, and because you desired that they should do in the city what ought to be done in the country, and in the country what was done in the city. The people have no more labor, only they labor at something else. They get no more wages, but they do not buy things as cheaply.
The People. Hurrah for CHEAPNESS!
Pierre. This person seduces you with his fine words. Let us state the question plainly. Is it not true that if we admit butter, wood, and meat, we shall be inundated with them, and die of a plethora? There is, then, no other way in which we can preserve ourselves from this new inundation, than to shut the door, and we can keep up the price of things only by causing scarcity artificially.
A Very Few Voices. Hurrah for SCARCITY!
Jacques. Let us state the question as it is. Among all the Parisians we can divide only what is in Paris; the less wood, butter and meat there is, the smaller each one's share will be. There will be less if we exclude than if we admit. Parisians, individual abundance can exist only where there is general abundance.
The People. Hurrah for ABUNDANCE!
Pierre. No matter what this man says, he cannot prove to you that it is to your interest to submit to unbridled competition.
The People. Down with COMPETITION!
Jacques. Despite all this man's declamation, he cannot make you enjoy the sweets of restriction.
The People. Down with RESTRICTION!
Pierre. I declare to you that if the poor dealers in cattle and hogs are deprived of their livelihood, if they are sacrificed to theories, I will not be answerable for public order. Workmen, distrust this man. He is an agent of perfidious Normandy; he is under the pay of foreigners. He is a traitor, and must be hanged. [The people keep silent.]
Jacques. Parisians, all that I say now, I said to you twenty years ago, when it occurred to Pierre to use the octroi for his gain and your loss. I am not an agent of Normandy. Hang me if you will, but this will not prevent oppression from being oppression. Friends, you must kill neither Jacques nor Pierre, but liberty if it frightens you, or restriction if it hurts you.
The People. Let us hang nobody, but let us emancipate everybody.