What Is Free Trade? Part 11

We will resume the hypothesis. America makes ten millions of hats, of which the price was five dollars each. The foreigner invaded our market in furnishing us with hats at three dollars. We say that national labor will be not at all diminished. For it will have to produce to the amount of thirty millions, in order to pay for ten millions of hats at three dollars. And then there will remain to each purchaser two dollars saved on each hat, or a total of twenty millions, which will compensate for other enjoyments; that is to say, for other work. So the total of labor remains what it was; and the supplementary enjoyments, represented by twenty millions economized on the hats, will form the net profit of the importations, or of free trade.

No one need attempt to horrify us by a picture of the sufferings, which, in this hypothesis, will accompany the displacement of labor.

For if prohibition had never existed, labor would have cla.s.sed itself in accordance with the law of exchange, and no displacement would have taken place. If, on the contrary, prohibition has brought in an artificial and unproductive kind of work, it is prohibition, and not free trade, which is responsible for the inevitable displacement, in the transition from wrong to right.

Unless, indeed, it should be contended that, because an abuse cannot be destroyed without hurting those who profit by it, its existence for a single moment is reason enough why it should endure forever.

CHAPTER XXI.

RAW MATERIAL.

It is said that the most advantageous commerce consists in the exchange of manufactured goods for raw material, because this raw material is a spur to _national labor_.

And then the conclusion is drawn, that the best custom-house regulation would be that which should give the utmost possible facility to the entry of _raw material_, and oppose the greatest obstacles to articles which have received their first manipulation by labor.

No sophism of political economy is more widely spread than the foregoing. It supports not only the protectionists, but, much more, and above all, the pretended liberalists. This is to be regretted; for the worst which can happen to a good cause is not to be severely attacked, but to be badly defended.

Commercial freedom will probably have the fate of all freedom; it will not be introduced into our laws until after it has taken possession of our minds. But if it be true that a reform must be generally understood, in order that it may be solidly established, it follows that nothing can r.e.t.a.r.d it so much as that which misleads public opinion; and what is more likely to mislead it than those writings which seem to favor freedom by upholding the doctrines of monopoly?

Several years ago, three large cities of France--Lyons, Bordeaux, and Havre--were greatly agitated against the restrictive policy. The nation, and indeed all Europe, was moved at seeing a banner raised, which they supposed to be that of free trade. Alas! it was still the banner of monopoly; of a monopoly a little more n.i.g.g.ardly, and a great deal more absurd, than that which they appeared to wish to overturn.

Owing to the sophism which we are about to unveil, the pet.i.tioners merely reproduced the doctrine of _protection to national labor_, adding to it, however, another folly.

What is, in effect, the prohibitive system? Let us listen to the protectionist: "Labor const.i.tutes the wealth of a people, because it alone creates those material things which our necessities demand, and because general comfort depends upon these."

This is the principle.

"But this abundance must be the product of _national labor_. Should it be the product of foreign labor, national labor would stop at once."

This is the mistake. (See the close of the last chapter.)

"What shall be done, then, in an agricultural and manufacturing country?"

This is the question.

"Restrict its market to the products of its own soil, and its own industry."

This is the end proposed.

"And for this end, restrain by prohibitive duties the entrance of the products of the industry of other nations."

These are the means.

Let us reconcile with this system that of the pet.i.tion from Bordeaux.

It divided merchandise into three cla.s.ses:

"The first includes articles of food, and _raw material free from all human labor. A wise economy would require that this cla.s.s should not be taxed_."

Here there is no labor; consequently no protection.

"The second is composed of articles which have undergone _some preparation_. This preparation warrants us _in charging it with some tax_."

Here protection commences, because, according to the pet.i.tioners, _national labor_ commences.

"The third comprises perfected articles which can in no way serve national labor; we consider these the most taxable."

Here, labor, and with it protection, reach their maximum.

The pet.i.tioners a.s.sert that foreign labor injures national labor; this is _the error_ of the prohibitive school.

They demanded that the French market should be restricted to French _labor_; this is the _end_ of the prohibitive system.

They insisted that foreign labor should be subject to restriction and taxation; these are the _means_ of the prohibitive system.

What difference, then, is it possible to discover between the pet.i.tioners of Bordeaux and the advocate of American restriction? One alone: the greater or less extent given to the word _labor_.

The protectionist extends it to everything--so he wishes to _protect_ everything.

"Labor const.i.tutes _all_ the wealth of a people," says he; "to protect national industry, _all_ national industry, manufacturing industry, _all_ manufacturing industry, is the idea which should always be kept before the people." The pet.i.tioners saw no labor excepting that of manufacturers; so they would admit that alone to the favors of protection. They said:

"Raw material is _devoid of all human labor_. For that reason we should not tax it. Fabricated articles can no longer occupy national labor. We consider them the most taxable."

We are not inquiring whether protection to national labor is reasonable. The protectionist and the Bordelais agree upon this point, and we, as has been seen in the preceding chapters, differ from both.

The question is to ascertain which of the two--the protectionists or the raw-materialists of Bordeaux--give its just acceptation to the word "labor."

Now, upon this ground, it must be said, the protectionist is, by all odds, right; for observe the dialogue which might take place between them:

The PROTECTIONIST: "You agree that national labor ought to be protected. You agree that no foreign labor can be introduced into our market without destroying therein an equal amount of our national labor. Yet you a.s.sert that there is a host of merchandise possessed of _value_ (since it sells), which is, however, free from _human labor_.

And, among other things, you name wheat, corn, meats, cattle, lard, salt, iron, bra.s.s, lead, coal, wool, furs, seeds, etc. If you can prove to me that the value of these things is not due to labor, I will agree that it is useless to protect them. But, again, if I demonstrate to you that there is as much labor in a hundred dollars' worth of wool as in a hundred dollars' worth of cloth, you must acknowledge that protection is as much due to the one as to the other. Now, why is this bag of wool worth a hundred dollars? Is it not because that sum is the price of production? And is the price of production anything but that which it has been necessary to distribute in wages, salaries, manual labor, interest, to all the workmen and capitalists who have concurred in producing the article?"

The RAW-MATERIALIST: "It is true, that in regard to wool, you may be right. But a bag of wheat, an ingot of iron, a quintal of coal--are they the produce of labor? Did not Nature create them?"

The PROTECTIONIST: "Without doubt Nature _creates_ the _elements_ of all things; but it is labor which produces their _value_. I was wrong myself in saying that labor creates material objects, and this faulty phrase has led the way to many other errors.

It does not belong to man, either manufacturer or cultivator, to _create_, to make something out of nothing; if, by _production_, we understand _creation_, all our labors will be unproductive; that of merchants more so than any other, except, perhaps, that of law-makers.

The farmer has no claim to have _created_ wheat, but he may claim to have created its _value_: he has transformed into wheat substances which in no wise resembled it, by his own labor with that of his ploughmen and reapers. What more does the miller effect who converts it into flour, the baker who turns it into bread? Because man must clothe himself in cloth, a host of operations is necessary. Before the intervention of any human labor, the true raw materials of this product (cloth) are air, water, gas, light, the chemical substances which must enter into its composition. These are truly the raw materials which are _untouched by human labor_; therefore, they are of no _value_, and I do not think of protecting them. But a first labor converts these substances into hay, straw, etc., a second into wool, a third into thread, a fourth into cloth, a fifth into clothing--who will dare to say that every step in this work is not _labor_, from the first stroke of the plough, which begins, to the last stroke of the needle, which terminates it? And because, in order to secure more celerity and perfection in the accomplishment of a definite work, such as a garment, the labors are divided among several cla.s.ses of industry, you wish, by an arbitrary distinction, that the order of succession of these labors should be the only reason for their importance; so much so that the first shall not deserve even the name of labor, and that the last work pre-eminently, shall alone be worthy of the favors of protection!"

The RAW-MATERIALIST: "Yes, we begin to see that wheat no more than wool is entirely devoid of human labor; but, at least, the agriculturist has not, like the manufacturer, done all by himself and his workmen; Nature aids him, and if there is labor, it is not all labor in the wheat."

The PROTECTIONIST: "But all its _value_ is in the labor it has cost. I admit that Nature has a.s.sisted in the material formation of wheat. I admit even that it may be exclusively her work; but confess that I have controlled it by my labor; and when I sell you some wheat, observe this well: that it is not the work of _Nature_ for which I make you pay, but _my own_; and, on your supposition, manufactured articles would be no more the product of labor than agricultural ones. Does not the manufacturer, too, rely upon Nature to second him? Does he not avail himself of the weight of the atmosphere in aid of the steam-engine, as I avail myself of its humidity in aid of the plough? Did he create the laws of gravitation, of correlation of forces, of affinities?"

The RAW-MATERIALIST: "Come, let the wool go too. But coal is a.s.suredly the work, and the exclusive work, of Nature, _unaided by any human labor_."

The PROTECTIONIST: "Yes, Nature made coal, but _labor_ makes its value. Coal had no _value_ during the thousands of years during which it was hidden, unknown, a hundred feet below the soil. It was necessary to look for it there--that is a _labor_: it was necessary to transport it to market; that is another _labor_: and once more, the price which you pay for it in the market is nothing else than the remuneration for these labors of digging and transportation."

We see that thus far the protectionist has all the advantage on his side; that the value of raw material, as well as that of manufactured material, represents the expense of production, that is to say, of _labor_; that it is impossible to conceive of a material possessed of value while totally unindebted to human labor; that the distinction which the raw-materialists make is wholly futile, in theory; that, as a basis for an unequal division of _favors_, it would be iniquitous in practice; because the result would be that one-third of the people, engaged in manufactures, would obtain the sweets of monopoly, for the reason that they produced _by labor_, while the other two-thirds, that is to say the agriculturists, would be abandoned to compet.i.tion, under pretext that they produced without labor.