Part 7

Affectation is the besetting sin of our times. When a serious writer, in a spirit of philanthropy, refers to the sufferings of the working classes, his words are caught up by these sentimentalists, twisted, distorted, and exaggerated, _usque ad 'nauseam_. The grand, the only remedy, it would seem, lies in the high-sounding phrases, association and organization. The working classes are flattered--fulsomely, servilely flattered; they are represented as in the condition of slaves, and men of common sense will soon be ashamed publicly to espouse their cause, for how can common sense make itself heard in the midst of all this insipid and empty declamation?

Far from us be this cowardly indifference, which would not be justified even by the sentimental affectation which prompts it.

Workmen! your situation is peculiar! They make merchandise of you, as I shall show you immediately.... But no; I withdraw that expression. Let us steer clear of strong language, which may be misapplied; for spoliation, wrapt up in the sophistry which conceals it, may be in full operation unknown to the spoliator, and with the blind assent of his victim. Still, you are deprived of the just remuneration of your labour, and no one is concerned to do you _justice_. If all that was wanted to console you were ardent appeals to philanthropy, to impotent charity, to degrading almsgiving; or if the grand words, organization, communism, _phalanstère,_* were enough for you, truly they would not be spared. But _justice_, simple justice, no one thinks of offering you. And yet, would it not be _just_ that when, after a long day's toil, you have received your modest wages, you should have it in your power to exchange them for the greatest amount of satisfactions and enjoyments which you could possibly obtain for them from any one in any part of the world?

* Allusion to a socialist work of the day.--Translator.

Some day I may have occasion also to talk to you of association and organization, and we shall then see what you have to expect from those chimeras which now mislead you.

In the meantime, let us inquire whether _injustice_ is not done you by fixing legislatively the people from whom you are to purchase the things you have need of--bread, meat, linens, or cloth; and in dictating, if I may say so, the artificial scale of prices which you are to adopt in your dealings.

Is it true that protection, which admittedly makes you pay dearer for everything, and entails a loss upon you in this respect, raises proportionally your wages?

On what does the rate of wages depend?

One of your own class has put it forcibly, thus: When two workmen run after one master, wages fall; they rise when two masters run after one workman.

For the sake of brevity, allow me to make use of this formula, more scientific, although, perhaps, not quite so clear. The rate of wages depends on the proportion which the supply of labour bears to the demand for it.

Now, on what does the _supply_ of labour depend?

On the number of men waiting for employment; and on this first element protection can have no effect.

On what does the _demand_ for labour depend?

On the disposable capital of the nation. But does the law which says, We shall no longer receive such or such a product from abroad, we shall make it at home, augment the capital? Not in the least degree. It may force capital from one employment to another, but it does not increase it by a single farthing. It does not then increase the demand for labour.

We point with pride to a certain manufacture. Is it established or maintained with capital which has fallen from the moon? No; that capital has been withdrawn from agriculture, from shipping, from the production of wines. And this is the reason why, under the _régime_ of protective tariffs, there are more workmen in our mines and in our manufacturing towns, and fewer sailors in our ports, and fewer labourers in our fields and vineyards.

I could expatiate at length on this subject, but I prefer to explain what I mean by an example.

A countryman was possessed of twenty acres of land, which he worked with a capital of £400. He divided his land into four parts, and established the following rotation of crops:--1st, maize; 2d, wheat; 3d, clover; 4th, rye. He required for his own family only a moderate portion of the grain, meat, and milk which his farm produced, and he sold the surplus to buy oil, flax, wine, etc. His whole capital was expended each year in wages, hires, and small payments to the working classes in his neighbourhood. This capital was returned to him in his sales, and even went on increasing year by year; and our countryman, knowing very well that capital produces nothing when it is unemployed, benefited the working classes by devoting the annual surplus to enclosing and clearing his land, and to improving his agricultural implements and farm buildings. He had even some savings in the neighbouring town with his banker, who, of course, did not let the money lie idle in his till, but lent it to shipowners and contractors for public works, so that these savings were always resolving themselves into wages.

At length the countryman died, and his son, who succeeded him, said to himself, "My father was a dupe all his life. He purchased oil, and so paid _tribute_ to Provence, whilst our own land, with some pains, can be made to grow the olive. He bought cloth, wine, and oranges, and thus paid tribute to Brittany, Medoc, and Hyères, whilst we can cultivate hemp, the vine, and the orange tree with more or less success. He paid _tribute_ to the miller and the weaver, whilst our own domestics can weave our linen and grind our wheat." In this way he ruined himself, and spent among strangers that money which he might have spent at home.

Misled by such reasoning, the volatile youth changed his rotation of crops. His land he divided into twenty divisions. In one he planted olives, in another mulberry trees, in a third he sowed flax, in a fourth he had vines, in a fifth wheat, and so on. By this means he succeeded in supplying his family with what they required, and felt himself independent. He no longer drew anything from the general circulation, nor did he add anything to it. Was he the richer for this? No; for the soil was not adapted for the cultivation of the vine, and the climate was not fitted for the successful cultivation of the olive; and he was not long in finding out that his family was less plentifully provided with all the things which they wanted than in the time of his father, who procured them by exchanging his surplus produce.

As regarded his workmen, they had no more employment than formerly. There were five times more fields, but each field was five times smaller; they produced oil, but they produced less wheat; he no longer purchased linens, but he no longer sold rye. Moreover, the farmer could expend in wages only the amount of his capital, and his capital went on constantly diminishing. A great part of it went for buildings, and the various implements needed for the more varied cultivation in which he had engaged. In short, the supply of labour remained the same, but as the means of remunerating that labour fell off, the ultimate result was a forcible reduction of wages.

On a greater scale, this is exactly what takes place in the case of a nation which isolates itself by adopting a prohibitive _régime_. It multiplies its branches of industry, I grant, but they become of diminished importance; it adopts, so to speak, a more complicated _industrial rotation_, but it is not so prolific, because its capital and labour have now to struggle with natural difficulties. A greater proportion of its circulating capital, which forms the wages fund, must be converted into fixed capital. What remains may have more varied employment, but the total mass is not increased. It is like distributing the water of a pond among a multitude of shallow reservoirs--it covers more ground, and presents a greater surface to the rays of the sun, and it is precisely for this reason that it is all the sooner absorbed, evaporated, and lost.

The amount of capital and labour being given, they create a smaller amount of commodities in proportion as they encounter more obstacles. It is beyond doubt, that when international obstructions force capital and labour into channels and localities where they meet with greater difficulties of soil and climate, the general result must be, fewer products created--that is to say, fewer enjoyments for consumers. Now, when there are fewer enjoyments upon the whole, will the workman's share of them be augmented? If it were augmented, as is asserted, then the rich--the men who make the laws--would find their own share not only subject to the general diminution, but that diminished share would be still further reduced by what was added to the labourers' share. Is this possible? Is it credible? I advise you, workmen, to reject such suspicious generosity.*

* See _Harmonies Économiques_, ch. xiv.

XIII. THEORY, PRACTICE.

As advocates of free trade, we are accused of being theorists, and of not taking practice sufficiently into account.

"What fearful prejudices were entertained against M. Say," says M. Ferrier,* "by that long train of distinguished administrators, and that imposing phalanx of authors who dissented from his opinions; and M. Say was not unaware of it. Hear what he says:--'It has been alleged in support of errors of long standing, that there must have been some foundation for ideas which have been adopted by all nations. Ought we not to distrust observations and reasonings which run counter to opinions which have been constantly entertained down to our own time, and which have been regarded as sound by so many men remarkable for their enlightenment and their good intentions? This argument, I allow, is calculated to make a profound impression, and it might have cast doubt upon points which we deem the most incontestable, if we had not seen, by turns, opinions the most false, and now generally acknowledged to be false, received and professed by everybody during a long series of ages. Not very long ago all nations, from the rudest to the most enlightened, and all men, from the street-porter to the _savant_, admitted the existence of four elements. No one thought of contesting that doctrine, which, however, is false; so much so, that even the greenest assistant in a naturalist's class-room would be ashamed to say that he regarded earth, water, and fire as elements.'"

* De l'Administration Commerciale opposée à Oeconomie Politique, p. 5.

On this M. Ferrier remarks:--

"If M. Say thinks to answer thus the very strong objection which he brings forward, he is singularly mistaken. That men, otherwise well informed, should have been mistaken for centuries on certain points of natural history is easily understood, and proves nothing. Water, air, earth, and fire, whether elements or not, are not the less useful to man.... Such errors are unimportant: they lead to no popular commotions, no uneasiness in the public mind; they run counter to no pecuniary interest; and this is the reason why without any felt inconvenience they may endure for a thousand years. The physical world goes on as if they did not exist. But of errors in the moral world, can the same thing be said? Can we conceive that a system of administration, found to be absolutely false and therefore hurtful, should be followed out among many nations for centuries, with the general approval of all well-informed men? Can it be explained how such a system could coexist with the constantly increasing prosperity of nations? M. Say admits that the argument which he combats is fitted to make a profound impression. Yes, indeed; and the impression remains; for M. Say has rather deepened than done away with it."

* Might we not say, that it is a "fearful prejudice" against MM. Ferrier and Saint-Chamans, that "_economists of all schools_, that is to say, everybody who has studied the question, should have arrived at the conclusion, that, after all, liberty is better than constraint, and the laws of God wiser than those of Colbert."

Let us hear what M. de Saint-Chamans says on the same subject:--

"It was only in the middle of the last century, of that eighteenth century which handed over all subjects and all principles without exception to free discussion, that these _spéculative_ purveyors of ideas, applied by them to all things without being really applicable to anything, began to write upon political economy. There existed previously a system of political economy, not to be found in books, but which had been put in _practical_ operation by governments. Colbert, it is said, was the inventor of it, and it was adopted as a rule by all the nations of Europe. The singular thing is, that in spite of contempt and maledictions, in spite of all the discoveries of the modern school, it still remains in practical operation. This system, which our authors have called the _mercantile system_, was designed to.... impede, by prohibitions or import duties, the entry of foreign products, which might ruin our own manufactures by their competition. Economic writers of all schools* have declared this system untenable, absurd, and calculated to impoverish any country. It has been banished from all their books, and forced to take refuge in the _practical_ legislation of all nations. They cannot conceive why, in measures relating to national wealth, governments should not follow the advice and opinions of learned authors, rather than trust to their _experience_ of the tried working of a system which has been long in operation. Above all, they cannot conceive why the French government should in economic questions obstinately set itself to resist the progress of enlightenment, and maintain in its _practice_ those ancient errors, which all our economic writers have exposed. But enough of this mercantile system, which has nothing in its favour but _facts_, and is not defended by any speculative writer."*

* Du Système de l'Impot, par M. le Vicomte de Saint-Chamans, p. 11.

Such language as this would lead one to suppose that in demanding for every one _the free disposal of his property_, economists were propounding some new system, some new, strange, and chimerical social order, a sort of _phalanstère_, coined in the mint of their own brain, and without precedent in the annals of the human race. To me it would seem that if we have here anything factitious or contingent, it is to be found, not in liberty, but in protection; not in the free power of exchanging, but in customs duties employed to overturn artificially the natural course of remuneration.

But our business at present is not to compare, or pronounce between, the two systems; but to inquire which of the two is founded on experience.

The advocates of monopoly maintain that _the facts_ are on their side, and that we have on our side only _theory_.

They flatter themselves that this long series of public acts, this _old experience_ of Europe, which they invoke, has presented itself as something very formidable to the mind of M. Say; and I grant that he has not refuted it with his wonted sagacity. For my own part, I am not disposed to concede to the monopolists the domain of _facts_, for they have only in their favour facts which are forced and exceptional; and we oppose to these, facts which are universal, the free and voluntary acts of mankind at large.

What do we say; and what do they say?

We say,

"You should buy from others what you cannot make for yourself but at a greater expense."

And they say,

"It is better to make things for yourself, although they cost you more than, the price at which you could buy them from others."

Now, gentlemen, throwing aside theory, argument, demonstration, all which seems to affect you with nausea, which of these two assertions has on its side the sanction of _universal practice?_

Visit your fields, your workshops, your forges, your warehouses; look above, below, and around you; look at what takes place in your own houses; remark your own everyday acts; and say what is the principle which guides these labourers, artisans, and merchants; say what is your own personal _practice_.

Does the farmer make his own clothes? Does the tailor produce the corn he consumes? Does your housekeeper continue to have your bread made at home, after she finds she can buy it cheaper from the baker? Do you resign the pen for the brush, to save your paying _tribute_ to the shoeblack? Does the entire economy of society not rest upon the separation of employments, the division of labour--in a word, upon _exchange?_ And what is exchange, but a calculation which we make with a view to discontinuing direct production in every case in which we find that possible, and in which indirect acquisition enables us to effect a saving in time and in effort?

It is not you, therefore, who are the men of _practice_, since you cannot point to a single human being who acts upon your principle.

But you will say, we never intended to make our principle a rule for individual relations. We perfectly understand that this would be to break up the bond of society, and would force men to live like snails, each in his own shell. All that we contend for is, that our principle regulates _de facto_, the regulations which obtain between the different agglomerations of the human family.

Well, I affirm that this principle is still erroneous. The family, the commune, the canton, the department, the province, are so many agglomerations, which all, without any exception, reject _practically_ your principle, and have never dreamt of acting on it. All procure themselves, by means of exchange, those things which it would cost them dearer to procure by means of production. And nations would do the same, did you not hinder them _by force_.

We, then, are the men of practice and of experience; for we oppose to the restriction which you have placed exceptionally on certain international exchanges, the practice and experience of all individuals, and of all agglomerations of individuals, whose acts are voluntary, and can consequently be adduced as evidence. But you begin by _constraining, by hindering_, and then you lay hold of acts which are _forced or prohibited_, as warranting you to exclaim, "We have practice and experience on our side!"

You inveigh against our theory, and even against theories in general. But when you lay down a principle in opposition to ours, you perhaps imagine you are not proceeding on theory? Clear your heads of that idea. You in fact form a theory, as we do; but between your theory and ours there is this difference:

Our theory consists merely in observing universal _facts_, universal opinions; calculations and ways of proceeding which universally prevail; and in classifying these, and rendering them Co-ordinate, with a view to their being more easily understood.

Our theory is so little opposed to practice that it is nothing else but _practice explained_. We observe men acting as they are moved by the instinct of self-preservation and a desire for progress, and what they thus do freely and voluntarily we denominate political or social economy. We can never help repeating, that each individual man is _practically_ an excellent economist, producing or exchanging according as he finds it more to his interest to produce or to exchange. Each, by experience, educates himself in this science; or rather the science itself is only this same experience accurately observed and methodically explained.

But on your side, you construct a _theory_ in the worst sense of the word. You imagine, you invent, a course of proceeding which is not sanctioned by the practice of any living man under the canopy of heaven; and then you invoke the aid of constraint and prohibition. It is quite necessary that you should have recourse to _force_, for you desire that men should be made to produce those things which they find it _more advantageous_ to buy; you desire that they should renounce this _advantage_, and act upon a doctrine which implies a contradiction in terms.

The doctrine which you acknowledge would be absurd in the relations of individuals; I defy you to extend it, even in speculation, to transaction between families, communities, or provinces. By your own admission, it is only applicable to international relations.

This is the reason why you are forced to keep repeating:

"There are no absolute principles, no inflexible rules. What is _good_ for an individual, a family, a province, is _bad_ for a nation. What is _good_ in detail--namely, to purchase rather than produce, when purchasing is more advantageous than producing--that same is _bad_ in the gross. The political economy of individuals is not that of nations;" and other nonsense _ejusdèm farino_.

And to what does all this tend? Look at it a little closer. The intention is to prove that we, the consumers, are your property! that we are yours body and soul! that you have an exclusive right over our stomachs and our limbs! that it belongs to you to feed and clothe us on your own terms, whatever be your ignorance, incapacity, or rapacity!

No, you are not men of practice; you are men of abstraction--and of extortion.

XIV. CONFLICT OF PRINCIPLES.

There is one thing which confounds me; and it is this: Sincere publicists, studying the economy of society from the producer's point of view, have laid down this double formula:--

"Governments should order the interests of consumers who are subject to their laws, in such a way as to be favourable to national industry.

"They should bring distant consumers under subjection to their laws, for the purpose of ordering their interests in a way favourable to national industry."

The first of these formulas gets the name of protection; the second we call _débouchés_, or the creating of markets, or vents, for our produce.

Both are founded on the _datum_ which we denominate the _Balance of Trade_.

"A nation is impoverished when it imports; enriched when it exports."

For if every purchase from a foreign country is a _tribute paid_ and a national loss, it follows, of course, that it is right to restrain, and even prohibit, importations.

And if every sale to a foreign country is a _tribute received_, and a national profit, it is quite right and natural to create markets for our products even by force.

The _system of protection_ and the _colonial system_ are, then, only two aspects of one and the same theory. To _hinder_ our fellow-citizens from buying from foreigners, and to _force_ foreigners to buy from our fellow-citizens, are only two consequences of one and the same principle.

Now, it is impossible not to admit that this doctrine, if true, makes general utility to repose on _monopoly_ or internal spoliation, and on _conquest_ or external spoliation.

I enter a cottage on the French side of the Pyrenees.