Part 67

And if you are answered that industry in general loses what would have been paid for artificial light,

Rejoin; "No; for having paid nothing to the sun, what he saves me enables me to buy clothes, furniture, and candles."

In the same way, if you are told that these rascally English possess capital which is dormant,

Reply: "So much the better for us; they will not make us pay interest for it."

If it is said: "These perfidious English find coal and iron in the same pit,"

Reply: "So much the better for us; they will charge us nothing for bringing them together."

If you are told that the Swiss have rich pasturages, which cost little:

Reply: "The advantage is ours, for they will demand a smaller amount of our labour in return for giving an impetus to our agriculture, and supplying us with provisions."

If they tell you that the lands of the Crimea have no value, and pay no taxes,

Reply: "The profit is ours, who buy corn free from such charges."

If they tell you that the serfs of Poland work without wages,

Reply: "The misfortune is theirs and the profit is ours, since their labour does not enter into the price of the corn which their masters sell us."

Finally, if they tell you that other nations have many advantages over us,

Reply: "By means of exchange, they are forced to allow us to participate in these advantages."

If they tell you that under free-trade we are about to be inundated with bread, bouf à la mode, coal, and winter clothing, Reply: "In that case we shall be neither hungry nor thirsty."

If they ask how we are to pay for these things?

Reply: "Don't let that disquiet you. If we are inundated, it is a sign we have the means of paying for the inundation; and if we have not the means of paying, we shall not be inundated."

If any one says: I should approve of free-trade, if the foreigner, in sending us his products, would take our products in exchange; but he carries off our money,

Reply: "Neither money nor coffee grows in the fields of Beauce, nor are they turned out by the workshops of Elbeuf. So far as we are concerned, to pay the foreigner with money is the same thing as paying him with coffee."

If they bid you eat butcher's meat,

Reply: "Allow it to be imported."

If they say to you, in the words of the Presse, "When one has not the means to buy bread, he is forced to buy beef," Reply: "This is advice quite as judicious as that given by M. Vautour to his tenant:

"'Quand on n'a pas de quoi payer son terme, Il faut avoir une maison à soi.'"

If, again, they say to you, in the words of La Presse, "The government should teach the people how and why they must eat beef,"

Reply: "The government has only to allow the beef to be imported, and the most civilized people in the world will know how to use it without being taught by a master."

If they tell you that the government should know everything, and foresee everything, in order to direct the people, and that the people have simply to allow themselves to be led, Reply by asking: "Is there a state apart from the people? is there a human foresight apart from humanity? Archimedes might repeat every day of his life, 'With a fulcrum and lever I can move the world;' but he never did move it, for want of a fulcrum and lever. The lever of the state is the nation; and nothing can be more foolish than to found so many hopes upon the state, which is simply to take for granted the existence of collective science and foresight, after having set out with the assumption of individual imbecility and improvidence."

If any one says, "I ask no favour, but only such a duty on bread and meat as shall compensate the heavy taxes to which I am subjected; only a small duty equal to what the taxes add to the cost price of my corn,"

Reply: "A thousand pardons; but I also pay taxes. If, then, the protection which you vote in your own favour has the effect of burdening me as a purchaser of corn with exactly your share of the taxes, your modest demand amounts to nothing less than establishing this arrangement as formulated by you: