Part 5

Matters being thus arranged, I prepare to put my intelligence, my arms, my saw, and plane into activity. Naturally my eyes are always fixed on those things necessary to my existence, and which it is my duty to produce indirectly in creating what is equal to them in value. The problem is, that I should produce them in the most advantageous manner possible. Consequently I look at values generally, or what, in other words, may be called the current or market price of articles. I am satisfied, judging from these materials in my possession, that my means for obtaining the largest quantity possible of fuel, for example, with the smallest possible quantity of labour, is to make a piece of furniture, to send it to a Belgian, who will give me in return some coal.

But there is in France a workman who extracts coal from the earth. Now, it so happens that the officials, whom the miner and I contribute to pay for preserving to each of us his freedom of labour, and the free disposal of its produce (which is property), it so happens, I say, that these officials have become newly enlightened and assumed other duties. They have taken it into their heads to compare my labour with that of the miner. Consequently, they have forbidden me to warm myself with Belgian fuel: and when I go to the frontier with my piece of furniture to receive the coal, I find it prohibited from entering France, which comes to the same thing as if they prohibited my piece of furniture from going out. I then reason with myself--if we had never paid the government in order to save us the trouble of defending our own property, would the miner have had the right to go to the frontier to prohibit me from making an advantageous exchange, on the ground that it would be better for him that this exchange should not be effected? Assuredly not. If he had made so unjust an attempt, we would have joined issue on the spot, he, urged on by his unjust pretensions, I, strong in my right of legitimate defence.

We have appointed and paid a public officer for the special purpose of preventing such contests. How does it happen, then, that I find the miner and him concurring in restraining my liberty and hampering my industry, in limiting the field of my exertions? If the public officer had taken my part, I might have conceived his right; he would have derived it from my own; for lawful defence is, indeed, a right. But on what principle should he aid the miner in his injustice? I learn, then, that the public officer has changed his nature. He is no longer a simple mortal invested with rights delegated to him by other men, who, consequently, possess them. No. He is a being superior to humanity, drawing his right from himself, and, amongst these rights, he arrogates to himself that of calculating our profits, of holding the balance between our various circumstances and conditions. It is very well, say I; in that case, I will overwhelm him with claims and demands, while I see a richer man than myself in the country. He will not listen to you, it may be said to me, for if he listen to you, he will be a Communist, and he takes good care not to forget that his duty is to secure properties, not to destroy them.

What disorder, what confusion in facts; but what can you expect when there is such disorder and confusion in ideas? You may have resisted Communism vigorously in the abstract; but while at the same time you humour, and support, and foster it in that part of our legislation which it has tainted, your labours will be in vain. It is a poison, which, with your consent and approbation, has glided into all our laws and into our morals, and now you are indignant that it is followed by its natural consequences.

Possibly, Sir, you will make me one concession; you will say to me, perhaps, the system of Protection rests on the principle of Communism. It is contrary to right, to property, to liberty; it throws the government out of its proper road, and invests it with arbitrary powers, which have no rational origin. All this is but too true; but the system of Protection is useful; without it the country, yielding to foreign competition, would be ruined.

This would lead us to the examination of Protection in the economical point of view. Putting aside all consideration of justice, of right, of equity, of property, of liberty, we should have to resolve the question into one of pure utility, the money question, so to speak; but this, you will admit, does not properly fall within my subject. Take care that, availing yourself of expediency in order to justify your contempt of the principle of right is as if you said, 'Communism or spoliation, condemned by justice, can, nevertheless, be admitted as an expedient,' and you must admit that such an avowal is replete with danger.

Without seeking to solve in this place the economical problem, allow me to make one assertion. I affirm that I have submitted to arithmetical calculation the advantages and the inconveniences of Protection, from the point of view of mere wealth, and putting aside all higher considerations. I affirm, moreover, that I have arrived at this result: that all restrictive measures produce one advantage and two inconveniences, or, if you will, one profit and two losses, each of these losses equal to the profit, from which results one pure distinct loss, which circumstance brings with it the encouraging conviction, that in this, as in many other things, and I dare say in all, expediency and justice agree.

This is only an assertion, it is true, but it can be supported by proofs of mathematical accuracy.*

* What M. Bastiat here asserts is unquestionably true. For it has often been shown, and may readily be shown, that the importation of foreign commodities, in the common course of traffic, never takes place except when it is, economically speaking, a national good, by causing the same amount of commodities to be obtained at a smaller cost of labour and capital to the country. To prohibit, therefore, this importation, or impose duties which prevent it, is to render the labour and capital of the country less efficient in production than they would otherwise be; and compel a waste of the difference between the labour and capital necessary for the home production of the commodity, and that which is required for producing the things with which it can be purchased from abroad. The amount of national loss thus occasioned is measured by the excess of the price at which the commodity is produced over that at which it could be imported. In the case of manufactured goods, the whole difference between the two prices is absorbed in indemnifying the producers for waste of labour, or of the capital which supports that labour. Those who are supposed to be benefited--namely, the makers of the protected article, (unless they form an exclusive company, and have a monopoly against their own countrymen, as well as against foreigners,) do not obtain higher profits than other people. All is sheer loss to the country as well as to the consumer. When the protected article is a product of agriculture--the waste of labour not being incurred on the whole produce, but only on what may be called the last instalment of it--the extra price is only in part an indemnity for waste, the remainder being a tax paid to the landlords.--J. S. Mill

What causes public opinion to be led astray upon this point is this, that the profit produced by Protection is palpable--visible, as it were, to the naked eye, whilst of the two equal losses which it involves, one is distributed over the mass of society, and the existence of the other is only made apparent to the investigating and reflective mind.

Without pretending to bring forward any proof of the matter here, I may be allowed, perhaps, to point out the basis on which it rests.

Two products, A and B, have an original value in France, which I may denominate 50 and 40 respectively. Let us admit that A is not worth more than 40 in Belgium. This being supposed, if France is subjected to the protective system, she will have the enjoyment of A and B in the whole as the result of her efforts, a quantity equal to 90, for she will, on the above supposition, be compelled to produce A directly. If she is free, the result of her efforts, equal to 90, will be equal: 1st, to the production of B, which she will take to Belgium, in order to obtain A; 2ndly, to the production of another B for herself; 3rdly, to the production of C.

It is that portion of disposable labour applied to the production of C in the second case, that is to say, creating new wealth equal to 10, without France being deprived either of A or of B, which makes all the difficulty. In the place of A put iron; in the place of B, wine, silk, and Parisian articles; in the place of C put some new product not now existing. You will always find that restriction is injurious to national prosperity.

Do you wish to leave this dull algebra? So do I. To speak of facts, therefore, you will not deny that if the prohibitory system has contrived to do some good to the coal trade, it is only in raising the price of the coal. You will not, moreover, deny that this excess of price from 1822 to the present time has only occasioned a greater expense to all those who use this fuel--in other words, that it represents a loss. Can it be said that the producers of coal have received, besides the interest of their capital and the ordinary profits of trade, in consequence of the protection afforded them, an extra gain equivalent to that loss? It would be necessary that Protection, without losing those unjust and Communistic qualities which characterize it, should at least be neuter in the purely economic point of view. It would be necessary that it should at least have the merit of resembling simple robbery, which displaces wealth without destroying it. But you yourself affirm, at page 236, 'that the mines of Aveyron, Alais, Saint-Etienne, Creuzot, Anzin, the most celebrated of all, have not produced a revenue of four per cent, on the capital embarked in them.' It does not require Protection that capital in France should yield four per cent. Where, then, in this instance, is the profit to counterbalance the above-mentioned loss?

This is not all. There is another national loss. Since by the relative rising of the price of fuel, all the consumers of coal have lost, they have been obliged to limit their expenses in proportion, and the whole of national labour has been necessarily discouraged to this extent. It is this loss which they never take into their calculation, because it does not strike their senses.

Permit me to make another observation, which I am surprised has not struck people more. It is that Protection applied to agricultural produce shows itself in all its odious iniquity with regard to farmers, and injurious in the end to the landed proprietors themselves.

Let us imagine an island in the South Seas where the soil has become the private property of a certain number of inhabitants.

Let us imagine upon this appropriated and limited territory an agricultural population always increasing or having a tendency to increase.

This last class will not be able to produce anything directly of what is indispensable to life. They will be compelled to give up their labour to those who have it in their power to offer in exchange maintenance, and also the materials for labour, corn, fruit, vegetables, meat, wool, flax, leather, wood, &c.

The interest of this class evidently is, that the market where these things are sold should be as extensive as possible. The more it finds itself surrounded by the greatest quantity of agricultural produce, the more of this it will receive for any given quantity of its own labour.

Under a free system, a multitude of vessels would be seen seeking food and materials among the neighbouring islands and continents, in exchange for manufactured articles. The cultivators of the land will enjoy all the prosperity to which they have a right to pretend; a just balance will be maintained between the value of manufacturing labour and that of agricultural labour.

But, in this situation, the landed proprietors of the island make this calculation--If we prevent the workmen labouring for the foreigners, and receiving from them in exchange subsistence and raw materials, they will be forced to turn to us. As their number continually increases, and as the competition which exists between them is always active, they will compete for that share of food and materials which we can dispose of, after deducting what we require for ourselves, and we cannot fail to sell our produce at a very high price. In other words, the balance in the relative value of their labour and of ours will be disturbed. We shall be able to command a greater share in the result of their labour. Let us, then, impose restrictions on that commerce which inconveniences us; and to enforce these restrictions, let us constitute a body of functionaries, which the workmen shall aid in paying.

I ask you, would not this be the height of oppression, a flagrant violation of all liberty, of the first and the most sacred principles of property?

However, observe well, that it would not perhaps be difficult for the landed proprietors to make this law received as a benefit by the labourer. They would say to the latter:

'It is not for us, honest people, that we have made it, but for you. Our own interests touch us little; we only think of yours. Thanks to this wise measure, agriculture prospers; we proprietors shall become rich, which will, at the same time, put it in our power to support a great deal of labour, and to pay you good wages; without it, we shall be reduced to misery--and what will become of you? The island will be inundated with provisions and importations from abroad; your vessels will be always afloat--what a national calamity! Abundance, it is true, will reign all round you, but will you share in it? Do not imagine that your wages will keep up and be raised, because the foreigner will only augment the number of those who overwhelm you with their competition. Who can say that they will not take it into their heads to give you their produce for nothing? In this case, having neither labour nor wages, you will perish of want in the midst of abundance. Believe us; accept our regulations with gratitude. Increase and multiply. The produce which will remain in the island, over and above what is necessary for our own consumption, will be given to you in exchange for your labour, which by this means you will be always secure of. Above all, do not believe that the question now in debate is between you and us, or one in which your liberty and your property are at stake. Never listen to those who tell you so. Consider it as certain that the question is between you and the foreigner--this barbarous foreigner--and who evidently wishes to speculate upon you; making you perfidious proffers of intercourse, which you are free either to accept or to refuse.'

It is not improbable that such a discourse, suitably seasoned with sophisms upon cash, the balance of trade, national labour, agriculture encouraged by the state, the prospect of a war, &c., &c., would obtain the greatest success, and that the oppressive decree would' obtain the sanction of the oppressed themselves, if they were consulted. This has been, and will be so again.*

* The ease with which the body of the people--the consumers-- are deceived by statements and arguments such as are given in the text is remarkable. The principal reason, perhaps, is, that men are disposed at first to regard themselves as producers rather than as consumers. They imagine that the advantages of Protection, if applied to their own case, would be incontestable; and, being unable consistently to deny that their neighbours are equally entitled to the same favour, a general clamour for Protection against foreign competition arises. While they fail to perceive the absurdity of universal Protection and its fallacy, or that it would be more for their interests to be able to dispose of a larger quantity of their productions, though perhaps at a reduced cost, than a smaller quantity in a market narrowed, as it must be, by the Protection which it receives.

However, the true position of the case is now, we hope, firmly established in England, and this is chiefly due to the recent able, full, and free discussions which have resulted in our existing Free-trade system. And we confidently anticipate the day when the people of the Continent, and of America, will, through the same processes of reasoning and reflection, and influenced by our example, arrive at the same result as ourselves.