What Is Free Trade? Part 9

CHAPTER XV.

RECIPROCITY AGAIN.

The protectionists ask, "Are we sure that the foreigner will purchase as much from us, as he will sell to us? What reason have we to think that the English producer will come to us rather than to any other nation on the globe to look for the productions he may need; and for productions equivalent in value to his own exportations to this country?"

We are surprised that men who call themselves peculiarly _practical_, reason independent of all practice.

In practice, is there one exchange in a hundred, in a thousand, in ten thousand perhaps, where there is a direct barter of product for product? Since there has been money in the world, has any cultivator ever said, "I wish to buy shoes, hats, advice, instruction, from that shoemaker, hatter, lawyer, and professor only, who will purchase from me just wheat enough to make an equivalent value?"

And why should nations impose such a restraint upon themselves?

How is the matter managed?

Suppose a nation deprived of exterior relations. A man has produced wheat. He throws it into the widest national circulation he can find for it, and receives in exchange, what? Some dollars; that is to say bills, bonds, infinitely divisible, by means of which it becomes lawful for him to withdraw from national circulation, whenever he thinks it advisable, and by just agreement, such articles as he may need or wish. In fine, at the end of the operation he will have withdrawn from the ma.s.s the exact equivalent of what he threw into it, and in value his consumption will precisely equal his production.

If the foreign exchanges of that nation are free, it is no longer into _national_, but into _general_ circulation that each one throws his products, and from which he draws his returns. He has not to inquire whether what he delivers up for general circulation is purchased by a fellow-countryman or a foreigner; whether the goods he receives came to him from a Frenchman or an Englishman; whether the objects for which, in accordance with his needs, he, in the end, exchanges his bills, are made on this or that side of the Atlantic or the St.

Lawrence. With each individual there is always an exact balance between what he puts into and what he draws out of the grand common reservoir; and if that is true of each individual, it is true of the nation in the aggregate. The only difference between the two cases is, that in the latter, each one is in a more extended market for both his sales and his purchases, and has consequently more chances of doing well by both.

This objection is made: "If every one should agree that they would not withdraw from circulation any of the products of a specified individual, he in turn would sustain the misfortune of being able to draw nothing out. The same of a nation."

ANSWER.--If the nation cannot draw out of the ma.s.s, it will no longer contribute to it: it will work for itself. It will be compelled to that which you would impose on it in advance: that is to say, isolation.

And this will be the ideal of prohibitive government. Is it not amusing that you inflict upon it, at once and already, the misfortune of this system, in the fear that it runs the risk of getting there some day without you?

CHAPTER XVI.

OBSTRUCTED RIVERS PLEAD FOR THE PROHIBITIONISTS.

Some years ago, when the Spanish Cortes were discussing a treaty with Portugal on improving the course of the river Douro, a deputy rose and said, "If the Douro is turned into a ca.n.a.l, transportation will be made at a much lower price. Portuguese cereals will sell cheaper in Castile, and will make a formidable opposition to our _national labor_. I oppose the project unless the ministers engage to raise the tariff in such a way as to restore the equilibrium." The a.s.sembly found the argument unanswerable.

Three months later the same question was submitted to the Senate of Portugal. A n.o.ble hidalgo said: "Mr. President, the project is absurd.

You post guards, at great expense, on the banks of the Douro, in order to prevent the introduction of Castilian cereals into Portugal, while, at the same time, you would, also, at great expense, facilitate their introduction. This is an inconsistency with which I cannot identify myself. Let the Douro pa.s.s on to our sons as our fathers left it to us."

Now, when it is proposed to alter and confine the course of the Mississippi, we recall the arguments of the Iberian orators, and say to ourselves, if the member from St. Louis was as good an economist as those of Valencia, and the representatives from New Orleans as powerful logicians as those of Oporto, a.s.suredly the Mississippi would be left

"To sleep amid its forests dank and lone,"

for to improve the navigation of the Mississippi will favor the introduction of New Orleans products to the injury of St. Louis, and an inundation of the products of St. Louis to the detriment of New Orleans.

CHAPTER XVII.

A NEGATIVE RAILROAD.

We have said that when, unfortunately, we place ourselves at the point of view of the producer's interest, we cannot fail to clash with the general interest, because the producer, as such, demands only _efforts_, _wants_, _and obstacles_.

When the Atlantic and Great Western Railway is finished, the question will arise, "Should connection be broken at Pittsburg?" This the Pittsburgers will answer affirmatively, for a mult.i.tude of reasons, but for this among others; the railroad from New York to St. Louis ought to have an interruption at Pittsburg, in order that merchandise and travellers compelled to stop in the city may leave in it fees to the hackmen, pedlars, errand-boys, consignees, hotel-keepers, etc.

It is clear, that here again the interest of the agent of labor is placed before the interest of the consumer.

But if Pittsburg ought to profit by the interruption, and if the profit is conformable with public interest, Harrisburg, Dayton, Indianapolis, Columbus, much more all the intermediate points, ought to demand stoppages, and that in the general interest, in the widely extended interest of national labor, for the more they are multiplied, the more will consignments, commissions, transportations, be multiplied on all points of the line. With this system we arrive at a railroad of successive stoppages, to a _negative railroad_.

Whether the protectionists wish it or not, it is not the less certain that the principle of restriction is the same as the principle of gaps, the sacrifice of the consumers to the producer, of the end to the means.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTE PRINCIPLES.

We cannot be too much astonished at the facility with which men resign themselves to be ignorant of what is most important for them to know, and we may feel sure that they have decided to go to sleep in their ignorance when they have brought themselves to proclaim this axiom: There are no absolute principles.

Enter the Halls of Congress. The question under discussion is whether the law shall interdict or allow international exchanges.

Mr. C****** rises and says:

"If you tolerate these exchanges, the foreigner will inundate you with his products, the English with cotton and iron goods, the Nova-Scotian with coal, the Spaniard with wool, the Italian with silk, the Canadian with cattle, the Swede with iron, the Newfoundlander with salt-fish.

Industrial pursuits will thus be destroyed."

Mr. G***** replies:

"If you prohibit these exchanges, the varied benefits which nature has lavished on different climates will be, to you, as though they were not. You will not partic.i.p.ate in the mechanical skill of the English, nor in the riches of the Nova-Scotian mines, in the abundance of Canadian pasturage, in the cheapness of Spanish labor, in the fervor of the Italian climate; and you will be obliged to ask through a forced production that which you might by exchange have obtained through a readier production."

a.s.suredly, one of the senators deceives himself. But which? It is well worth while to ascertain; for we are not dealing with opinions only.

You stand at the entrance of two roads; you must choose; one of them leads necessarily to _misery_.

To escape from this embarra.s.sment it is said: There are no absolute principles.

This axiom, so much in vogue in our day, not only serves laziness, it is also in accord with ambition.

If the theory of prohibition should prevail, or again, if the doctrine of liberty should triumph, a very small amount of law would suffice for our economic code. In the first case it would stand--_All foreign exchange is forbidden_; in the second, _All exchange with abroad is free_, and many great personages would lose their importance.

But if exchange has not a nature proper to itself; if it is governed by no natural law; if it is capriciously useful or injurious; if it does not find its spring in the good it accomplishes, its limit when it ceases to do good; if its effects cannot be appreciated by those who execute them; in one word, if there are no absolute principles, we are compelled to measure, weigh, regulate transactions, to equalize the conditions of labor, to look for the level of profits--colossal task, well suited to give great entertainments, and high influence to those who undertake it.

Here in New York are a million of human beings who would all die within a few days, if the abundant provisioning of nature were not flowing towards this great metropolis.