What Is Free Trade? Part 12

It will be urged that it is of more advantage to a nation to import the materials called raw, whether they are or are not the product of labor, and to export manufactured articles.

This is a strongly accredited opinion.

"The more abundant raw materials are," said the pet.i.tion from Bordeaux, "the more manufactories are multiplied and extended." It said again, that "raw material opens an unlimited field of labor to the inhabitants of the country from which it is imported."

"Raw material," said the other pet.i.tion, that from Havre, "being the aliment of labor, must be submitted to a _different system_, and admitted at once at the lowest duty." The same pet.i.tion would have the protection on manufactured articles reduced, not one after another, but at an undetermined time; not to the lowest duty, but to twenty per cent.

"Among other articles which necessity requires to be abundant and cheap," said the third pet.i.tion, that from Lyons, "the manufacturers name all raw material."

This all rests on an illusion. We have seen that all _value_ represents labor. Now, it is true that labor increases ten-fold, sometimes a hundred-fold, the value of a rough product, that is to say, expands ten-fold, a hundred-fold, the products of a nation.

Thence it is reasoned, "The production of a bale of cotton causes workmen of all cla.s.ses to earn one hundred dollars only. The conversion of this bale into lace collars raises their profits to ten thousand dollars; and will you dare to say that the nation is not more interested in encouraging labor worth ten thousand than that worth one hundred dollars?"

We forget that international exchanges, no more than individual exchanges, work by weight or measure. We do not exchange a bale of cotton for a bale of lace collars, nor a pound of wool in the grease for a pound of wool in cashmere; but a certain value of one of these things _for an equal value_ of the other. Now to barter equal value against equal value is to barter equal work against equal work. It is not true, then, that the nation which gives for a hundred dollars cashmere or collars, gains more than the nation which delivers for a hundred dollars wool or cotton.

In a country where no law can be adopted, no impost established, without the consent of those whom this law is to govern, the public cannot be robbed without being first deceived. Our ignorance is the "raw material" of all extortion which is practised upon us, and we may be sure in advance that every sophism is the forerunner of a spoliation. Good public, when you see a sophism, clap your hand on your pocket; for that is certainly the point at which it aims. What was the secret thought which the shipowners of Bordeaux and of Havre, and the manufacturers of Lyons, conceived in this distinction between agricultural products and manufactured articles?

"It is princ.i.p.ally in this first cla.s.s (that which comprehends raw material _unmodified by human labor_)," said the Raw-Materialists of Bordeaux, "that the chief aliment of our merchant marine is found. At the outset, a wise economy would require that this cla.s.s should not be taxed. The second (articles which have received some preparation) may be charged; the third (articles on which no more work has to be done) we consider the most taxable."

"Consider," said those of Havre, "that it is indispensable to reduce all raw materials one after another to the lowest rate, in order that industry may successively bring into operation the naval forces which will furnish to it its first and indispensable means of labor." The manufacturers could not in exchange of politeness be behind the ship-owners; so the pet.i.tion from Lyons demanded the free introduction of raw material, "in order to prove," said they, "that the interests of manufacturing towns are not always opposed to those of maritime ones!"

True; but it must be said that both interests were, understood as the pet.i.tioners understood them, terribly opposed to the interests of the country, of agriculture, and of consumers.

See, then, where you would come out! See the end of these subtle economical distinctions! You would legislate against allowing _perfected_ produce to traverse the ocean, in order that the much more expensive transportation of rough materials, dirty, loaded with waste matter, may offer more employment to our merchant service, and put our naval force into wider operation. This is what these pet.i.tioners termed _a wise economy_. Why did they not demand that the firs of Russia should be brought to them with their branches, bark, and roots; the gold of California in its mineral state, and the hides from Buenos Ayres still attached to the bones of the tainted skeleton?

Industry, the navy, labor, have for their end, the general good, the public good. To create a useless industry, in order to favor superfluous transportation; to feed superfluous labor, not for the good of the public, but for the expense of the public--this is to realize a veritable begging the question. Work, in itself, is not a desirable thing; its result is; all work without result is a loss. To pay sailors for carrying useless waste matter across the sea is like paying them for skipping stones across the surface of the water. So we arrive at this result: that all economical sophisms, despite their infinite variety, have this in common, that they confound the means with the end, and develop one at the expense of the other.

CHAPTER XXII.

METAPHORS.

Sometimes a sophism dilates itself, and penetrates through the whole extent of a long and heavy theory. More frequently it is compressed, contracted, becomes a principle, and is completely covered by a word.

A good man once said: "G.o.d protect us from the devil and from metaphors!" In truth, it would be difficult to say which of the two creates the more evil upon our planet. It is the demon, say you; he alone, so long as we live, puts the spirit of spoliation in our hearts. Yes; but he does not prevent the repression of abuses by the resistance of those who suffer from them. _Sophistry_ paralyzes this resistance. The sword which malice puts in the a.s.sailant's hand would be powerless, if sophistry did not break the shield upon the arm of the a.s.sailed; and it is with good reason that Malebranche has inscribed at the opening of his book, "Error is the cause of human misery."

See how it comes to pa.s.s. Ambitious hypocrites will have some sinister purpose; for example, sowing national hatred in the public mind. This fatal germ may develop, lead to general conflagration, arrest civilization, pour out torrents of blood, draw upon the land the most terrible of scourges--_invasion_. In every case of indulgence in such sentiments of hatred they lower us in the opinion of nations, and compel those Americans, who have retained some love of justice, to blush for their country. Certainly these are great evils; and in order that the public should protect itself from the guidance of those who would lead it into such risks, it is only necessary to give it a clear view of them. How do they succeed in veiling it from them? It is by _metaphor_. They alter, they force, they deprave the meaning of three or four words, and all is done.

Such a word is _invasion_ itself. An owner of an American furnace says, "Preserve us from the _invasion_ of English iron." An English landlord exclaims, "Let us repel the _invasion_ of American wheat!"

And so they propose to erect barriers between the two nations.

Barriers const.i.tute isolation, isolation leads to hatred, hatred to war, and war to _invasion_. "Suppose it does," say the two sophists; "is it not better to expose ourselves to the chance of an eventual _invasion_, than to accept a certain one?" And the people still believe, and the barriers still remain.

Yet what a.n.a.logy is there between an exchange and an _invasion_? What resemblance can possibly be established between a vessel of war, which comes to pour fire, shot, and devastation into our cities, and a merchant ship, which comes to offer to barter with us freely, voluntarily, commodity for commodity?

As much may be said of the word _inundation_. This word is generally taken in bad part, because _inundations_ often ravage fields and crops. If, however, they deposit upon the soil a greater value than that which they take from it; as is the case in the inundations of the Nile, we might bless and deify them as the Egyptians do. Well! before declaiming against the inundation of foreign produces, before opposing to them restraining and costly obstacles, let us inquire if they are the inundations which ravage or those which fertilize? What should we think of Mehemet Ali, if, instead of building, at great expense, dams across the Nile for the purpose of extending its field of inundation, he should expend his money in digging for it a deeper bed, so that Egypt should not be defiled by this _foreign_ slime, brought down from the Mountains of the Moon? We exhibit precisely the same amount of reason, when we wish, by the expenditure of millions, to preserve our country--From what? The advantages with which Nature has endowed other climates.

Among the metaphors which conceal an injurious theory, none is more common than that embodied in the words _tribute, tributary_.

These words are so much used that they have become synonymous with the words _purchase, purchaser_, and one is used indifferently for the other.

Yet a _tribute_ or _tax_ differs as much from _purchase_ as a theft from an exchange, and we should like quite as well to hear it said, "d.i.c.k Turpin has broken open my safe, and has _purchased_ out of it a thousand dollars," as we do to have it remarked by our sage representatives, "We have paid to England the _tribute_ for a thousand gross of knives which she has sold to us."

For the reason why Turpin's act is not a _purchase_ is, that he has not paid into my safe, with my consent, value equivalent to what he has taken from it, and the reason why the payment of five hundred thousand dollars, which we have made to England, is not a _tribute_, is simply because she has not received them gratuitously, but in exchange for the delivery to us of a thousand gross of knives, which we ourselves have judged worth five hundred thousand dollars.

But is it necessary to take up seriously such abuses of language? Why not, when they are seriously paraded in newspapers and in books?

Do not imagine that they escape from writers who are ignorant of their language; for one who abstains from them, we could point you to ten who employ them, and they persons of consideration--that is to say, men whose words are laws, and whose most shocking sophisms serve as the basis of administration for the country.

A celebrated modern philosopher has added to the categories of Aristotle, the sophism which consists in including in one word the begging of the question. He cites several examples. He should have added the word _tributary_ to his vocabulary. In effect the question is, are purchases made abroad useful or injurious? "They are injurious," you say. And why? "Because they make us _tributary_ to the foreigner." Here is certainly a word which presents as a fact that which is a question.

How is this abusive trope introduced into the rhetoric of monopolists?

Some specie _goes out of a country_ to satisfy the rapacity of a victorious enemy--other specie, also, goes out of a country to settle an account for merchandise. The a.n.a.logy between the two cases is established, by taking account of the one point in which they resemble one another, and leaving out of view that in which they differ.

This circ.u.mstance, however,--that is to say, non-reimburs.e.m.e.nt in the one case, and reimburs.e.m.e.nt freely agreed upon in the other--establishes such a difference between them, that it is not possible to cla.s.s them under the same t.i.tle. To deliver a hundred dollars _by compulsion_ to him who says "Stand and deliver," or _voluntarily_ to pay the same sum to him who sells you the object of your wishes--truly, these are things which cannot be made to a.s.similate. As well might you say, it is a matter of indifference whether you throw bread into the river or eat it, because in either case it is bread _destroyed_. The fault of this reasoning, as in that which the word _tribute_ is made to imply, consists in founding an exact similitude between two cases on their points of resemblance, and omitting those of difference.

CHAPTER XXIII.

CONCLUSION.

All the sophisms we have hitherto combated are connected with one single question: the restrictive system; and, out of pity for the reader, we pa.s.s by acquired rights, untimeliness, misuse of the currency, etc., etc.

But social economy is not confined to this narrow circle. Fourierism, Saint-Simonism, communism, mysticism, sentimentalism, false philanthropy, affected aspirations to equality and chimerical fraternity, questions relative to luxury, to salaries, to machines, to the pretended tyranny of capital, to distant territorial acquisitions, to outlets, to conquests, to population, to a.s.sociation, to emigration, to imposts, to loans, have enc.u.mbered the field of science with a host of parasitical _sophisms_, which demand the hoe and the sickle of the diligent economist. It is not because we do not recognize the fault of this plan, or rather of this absence of plan.

To attack, one by one, so many incoherent sophisms which sometimes clash, although more frequently one runs into the other, is to condemn one's self to a disorderly, capricious struggle, and to expose one's self to perpetual repet.i.tions.

How much we should prefer to say simply how things are, without occupying ourselves with the thousand aspects in which the ignorant see them! To explain the laws under which societies prosper or decay, is virtually to destroy all sophistry at once. When La Place had described all that can, as yet, be known of the movements of the heavenly bodies, he had dispersed, without even naming them, all the astrological dreams of the Egyptians, Greeks, and Hindoos, much more surely than he could have done by directly refuting them through innumerable volumes. Truth is one; the book which exposes it is an imposing and durable monument:

Il brave les tyrans avides, Plus hardi que les Pyramides Et plus durable que l'airain.

Error is manifold, and of ephemeral duration; the work which combats it does not carry within itself a principle of greatness or of endurance.

But if the power, and perhaps the opportunity, have failed us for proceeding in the manner of La Place and of Say, we cannot refuse to believe that the form which we have adopted has, also, its modest utility. It appears to us especially well suited to the wants of the age, to the hurried moments which it can consecrate to study.

A treatise has, doubtless, an incontestable superiority; but upon condition that it be read, meditated upon, searched into. It addresses itself to a select public only. Its mission is, at first, to fix, and afterwards to enlarge, the circle of acquired knowledge.

The refutation of vulgar prejudices could not carry with it this high bearing. It aspires only to disenc.u.mber the route before the march of truth, to prepare the mind, to reform public opinion, to blunt dangerous tools in improper hands. It is in social economy above all, that these hand-to-hand struggles, these constantly recurring combats with popular errors, have a true practical utility.

We might arrange the sciences under two cla.s.ses. The one, strictly, can be known to philosophers only. They are those whose application demands a special occupation. The public profit by their labor, despite their ignorance of them. They do not enjoy the use of a watch the less, because they do not understand mechanics and astronomy. They are not the less carried along by the locomotive and the steamboat through their faith in the engineer and the pilot. We walk according to the laws of equilibrium without being acquainted with them.

But there are sciences which exercise upon the public an influence proportionate with the light of the public itself, not from knowledge acc.u.mulated in a few exceptional heads, but from that which is diffused through the general understanding. Such are morals, hygiene, social economy, and in countries which men belong to themselves, politics. It is of these sciences, above all, that Bentham might have said: "That which spreads them is worth more than that which advances them." Of what consequence is it that a great man, a G.o.d even, should have promulgated moral laws, so long as men, imbued with false notions, take virtues for vices, and vices for virtues? Of what value is it that Smith, Say, and, according to Chamans, economists of all schools, have proclaimed the superiority of liberty to restraint in commercial transactions, if those who make the laws and those for whom the laws are made, are convinced to the contrary.

These sciences, which are well named social, have this peculiarity: that for the very reason that they are of a general application, no one confesses himself ignorant of them. Do we wish to decide a question in chemistry or geometry? No one pretends to have the knowledge instinctively; we are not ashamed to consult Draper; we make no difficulty about referring to Euclid.