Part 32

The means of favouring us, which I have thus marvellously discovered, is to prohibit the use of sharp axes in this country.

I maintain that such a restriction would not be in the least more illogical or more arbitrary than the one to which you subject us in the case of your cloth.

Why do you drive away the Belgians? Because they sell cheaper than you. And why do they sell cheaper than you? Because they have a certain degree of superiority over you as manufacturers.

Between you and a Belgian, therefore, there is exactly the same difference as in my trade there would be between a blunt and a sharp axe.

And you force me, as a tradesman, to purchase from you the product of the blunt hatchet?

Regard the country at large as a workman who desires, by his labour, to procure all things he has want of, and, among others, cloth.

There are two means of effecting this.

The first is to spin and weave the wool.

The second is to produce other articles, as, for example, French clocks, paper-hangings, or wines, and exchange them with the Belgians for the cloth wanted.

Of these two processes, the one which gives the best result may be represented by the sharp axe, and the other by the blunt one.

You do not deny that at present, in France, we obtain a piece of stuff by the work of our own looms (that is the blunt axe) with more labour than by producing and exchanging wines (that is the sharp axe). So far are you from denying this, that it is precisely because of this excess of labour (in which you make wealth to consist) that you recommend, nay, that you compel the employment of the worse of the two hatchets.

Now, only be consistent, be impartial, and if you mean to be just, treat the poor carpenters as you treat yourselves.

Pass a law to this effect:

"No one shall henceforth be permitted to employ any beams or rafters, but such as are produced and fashioned by blunt hatchets."

And see what will immediately happen.

Whereas at present we give a hundred blows of the axe, we shall then give three hundred. The work which we now do in an hour will then require three hours. What a powerful encouragement will thus be given to labour! Masters, journeymen, apprentices! our sufferings are now at an end. We shall be in demand; and, therefore, well paid. Whoever shall henceforth desire to have a roof to cover him must comply with our exactions, just as at present whoever desires clothes to his back must comply with yours.

And should the theoretical advocates of free trade ever dare to call in question the utility of the measure, we know well where to seek for reasons to confute them Your Inquiry of 1834 is still to be had. With that weapon, we shall conquer; for you have there admirably pleaded the cause of restriction, and of blunt axes, which are in reality the same thing.

IV. LOWER COUNCIL OF LABOUR.

"What! you have the face to demand for all citizens a right to sell, buy, barter, and exchange; to render and receive service for service, and to judge for themselves, on the single condition that they do all honestly, and comply with the demands of the public treasury? Then you simply desire to deprive our workmen of employment, of wages, and of bread?"

This is what is said to us. I know very well what to think of it; but what I wish to know is, what the workmen themselves think of it.

I have at hand an excellent instrument of inquiry. Not those Upper Councils of Industry, where extensive proprietors who call themselves labourers, rich shipowners who call themselves sailors, and wealthy shareholders who pass themselves off for workmen, turn their philanthropy to account in a way which we all know.

No; it is with workmen, who are workmen in reality, that we have to do--joiners, carpenters, masons, tailors, shoemakers, dyers, blacksmiths, innkeepers, grocers, etc., etc.,--and who, in my village, have founded a friendly society.

I have transformed this friendly society, at my own hand, into a Lower Council of Labour, and instituted an inquiry which will be found of great importance, although it is not crammed with figures, or inflated to the bulk of a quarto volume, printed at the expense of the State.

My object was to interrogate these plain, simple people as to the manner in which they are, or believe themselves to be, affected by the policy of protection. The president pointed out that this would be infringing to some extent on the fundamental conditions of the Association. For in France, this land of liberty, people who associate give up their right to talk politics--in other words, their right to discuss their common interests. However, after some hesitation, he agreed to include the question in the order of the day.

They divided the assembly into as many committees as there were groups of distinct trades, and delivered to each committee a schedule to be filled up after fifteen days' deliberation.

On the day fixed, the worthy president (we adopt the official style) took the chair, and there were laid upon the table (still the official style) fifteen reports, which he read in succession.

The first which was taken into consideration was that of the tailors. Here is an exact and literal copy of it:--

EFFECTS OF PROTECTION.--REPORT OF THE TAILORS.