Part 23

Two articles are necessary and sufficient to man—bread and water; let not meat be called in as a third; it is too well known, that three fourths of Europe seldom eat any, and doubtless no one will contend that three fourths of a whole are less valuable than the fourth remaining, in the eyes of Him who created that whole, and who probably takes some concern in its preservation. Exchanges of any other articles besides bread and water, are therefore, strictly speaking, exchanges of mere superfluities. Now, what inconvenience can there be in bartering one superfluity against another?

I shall first of all, display in their full force, the most solid reasonings that can possibly be adduced, in order to demonstrate, that the choice and price of all superfluities must be left to the discretion of one set of men only. The chymist is not to blame if he can extract nothing but a fetid oil from the matter which he undertakes to decompound.

That set of men, as estimable, as worthy as any in the world, will perhaps wonder when they see the analysis of those ideas, which, probably, they never submitted but to a superficial examination.

Prohibitory Laws against Exportation.

Query. Why do you solicit a prohibitory law against the exporting of such an article of national product?

Answer. That I may get it cheaper.

Q. Can you buy it cheaper, without wronging the man who might sell it dearer?

A. No.

Q. As it is impossible to prove that such a conduct is equitable, how will you be able to prove it to be advantageous to the State?

A. It is advantageous to the State, that all its internal productions should receive at home, all such forms and preparations as may increase their value.

Q. Is the quantity of productions useful to the State?

A. The question is almost ridiculous.

Q. If the productor be discouraged by the low price set upon his productions, and take proper measures to produce less, in order to save the expence attending a greater production, and in the mean time to gain by producing less as much as he could gain by producing more, will you not then be guilty of having wronged the State of all the productions which you crush in the very bud, by the prohibition you sue for?

A. No; Smuggling will give to the parties injured by the prohibitory law, a fully sufficient means of extricating themselves.

Q. Your hopes then are, that Smuggling will make up for the injuries you propose to do to the productors; but how will you compensate to the State for the loss it sustains by a clandestine exportation?

A. Our only business is to mind our own interest; besides, the State may easily procure, by means of a land-tax, what it may lose by the clandestine exportation: and we are so far from expecting that Smuggling should turn out to our advantage, that we petition it may be made a capital offence, and prohibited under pain of mutilation, the galleys, or at least the entire ruin of the smuggler.

Q. But the law will either succeed, or fail in its effect. If the law succeed, will you not be the author of that diminution of the products, which the low price you intend to set upon those products must unavoidably occasion? And if the law fail in its effect, do you not uselessly deprive the State, 1st, of the produce of the smuggler’s labour, whom you hope to see hanged, or at best, mutilated; and, 2dly, of the produce of that labour which would have been performed by that army, partly composed of rogues, partly of idle fellows, now to be set upon the watch to detect and apprehend the smuggler, keep him in close confinement, and lead him finally to the gallows, or to the galleys?—Who is to pay those rogues and idle fellows?

A. The State, to be sure.

Q. What are the essential parts of the State?

A. Industry that goes in search of money, and Agriculture in as much as she feeds Industry at the cheapest rate.

Agriculture, impoverished by your prohibitory law, will then lose, not only what she should get by being at liberty to export, but also what she must find to assist you in procuring her impoverishment, by paying the land-tax necessary to pay those very rogues and idle fellows, whose business it is to destroy her only remaining resource against your cupidity—SMUGGLING.

Prohibitory Laws against, or excessive Duties imposed upon Importation.

Q. Why do you petition against the liberty of importing such or such another article?

A. Because we manufacture it, and wish to sell it dearer to the national consumers.

Q. Of how many orders of men is the class of national consumers composed?

A. Of two, the land proprietor, and all persons not wholly destitute of money.

Q. That is to say, in all cases, of the whole kingdom, against the small number of individuals who humbly petition for the prohibition of an article;—be it so. Have you devised any means to increase in the consumer the ability of purchasing, whilst you advance the price of your goods?

A. Not we;—on the contrary, it is our intention to have as much as we can of his commodities and money, for as little of our goods as possible.