Economic Sophisms/Chapter 3
| ←Obstacle, Cause | Economic Sophisms by Author:Frédéric Bastiat Effort, Result |
To Equalize the Conditions of Production→ |
This little book of Sophisms is found to be too theoretical, scientific, and metaphysical. Be it so. Let us try the effect of a more trivial and hackneyed, or, if you will, a ruder style. Convinced that the public is duped in this matter of protection, I have endeavoured to prove it. But if outcry is preferred to argument, let us vociferate,
A burst of plain speaking has more effect frequently than the most polished circumlocution. You remember Oronte, and the difficulty which the Misanthrope had in convincing him of his folly.[2]
| ALCESTE. | On s'expose à jouer un mauvais personnage. | |
| ORONTE. | Est-ce que vous voulez me declarer par là | |
| Que j'ai tort de vouloir.… | ||
| ALCESTE. | Je ne dis pas cela. | |
| Mais … | ||
| ORONTE. | Est-ce que j'écris mal? | |
| ALCESTE. | Je ne dis pas cela. | |
| Mais enfin … | ||
| ORONTE. | Mais ne puis-je savoir ce que dans mon sonnet? … | |
| ALCESTE. | Franchement, il est bon à mettre au Cabinet. | |
To speak plainly, 'Good Public! you are robbed. This is speaking bluntly, but the thing is very evident. C'est cru, mais c'est clair.
The words theft, to steal, robbery, may appear ugly words to many people. I ask such people, as Harpagon asks Elise,[3] "Is it the word or the thing which frightens you?"
"Whoever has possessed himself fraudulently of a thing which does not belong to him is guilty of theft." (C. Pen., art 379.)
To steal: To take by stealth or by force. (Dictionnaire de l'Academie.)
Thief: He who exacts more than is due to him. (Ib.)
Now, does the monopolist, who, by a law of his own making, obliges me to pay him 20 francs for what I could get elsewhere for 15, not take from me fraudulently 6 francs which belonged to me?
Does he not take them by stealth or by force?
Does he not exact more than is due to him?
He takes, purloins, exacts, it may be said; but not by stealth or by force, which are the characteristics of theft.
When our bulletins de contributions have included in them 5 francs for the premium which the monopolist takes, exacts, or abstracts, what can be more stealthy for the unsuspecting? And for those who are not dupes, and who do suspect, what savours more of force, seeing that on the first refusal the tax-gather's bailiff is at the door?
But let monopolists take courage. Premium thefts, tariff thefts, if they violate equity as much as theft à L'Americaine, do not violate the law; on the contrary, they are perpetrated according to law; and if they are worse than common thefts, they do not come under the cognizance of la correctionnelle.
Besides, right or wrong, we are all robbed or robbers in this business. The author of this volume might very well cry "Stop thief!" when he buys; and with equal reason he might have that cry addressed to him when he sells;[4] and if he is in a situation different from that of many of his countrymen, the difference consists in this, that he knows that he loses more than he gains by the game, and they don't know it. If they knew it, the game would soon be given up.
Nor do I boast of being the first to give the thing its right name. Adam Smith said, sixty years ago, that "when manufacturers hold meetings, we may be sure a plot is hatching against the pockets of the public." Can we be surprised at this, when the public winks at it?
Well, then, suppose a meeting of manufacturers deliberating formally, under the title of conseils generaux. What takes place, and what is resolved upon?
Here is an abridged report of one of their meetings:—
"SHIPOWNER: Our merchant shipping is at the lowest ebb. {Dissent.) That is not to be wondered at. I cannot construct ships without iron. I can buy it in the market of the world at 10 francs; but by law the French ironmaster forces me to pay him 15 francs, which takes 5 francs out of my pocket. I demand liberty to purchase iron wherever I see proper.
"IRONMASTER: In the market of the world I find freights at 20 francs. By law I am obliged to pay the French shipowner 30; he takes 10 francs out of my pocket. He robs me, and I rob him; all quite right.
"STATESMAN: The shipowner has arrived at a hasty Template:Hws Template:Hwe. Let us cultivate union as regards that which constitutes our strength. If we give up a single point of the theory of protection, the whole theory falls to the ground.
"SHIPOWNER: For us shipowners protection has been a failure. I repeat that the merchant marine is at its lowest ebb.
"SHIPMASTER: Well, let us raise the surtaxe, and let the shipowner who now exacts 30 francs from the public for his freight, charge 40.
"A MINISTER; The government will make all the use they can of the beautiful mechanism of the surtaxe; but I fear that will not be sufficient.
"A GOVERNMENT FUNCTIONARY: You are all very easily frightened. Does the tariff alone protect you? and do you lay taxation out of account? If the consumer is kind and benevolent, the taxpayer is not less so. Let us heap taxes upon him, and the shipowner will be satisfied. I propose a premium of five francs to be levied from the public taxpayers, to be handed over to the shipbuilder for each ton of iron he shall employ.
"Confused voices: Agreed! agreed! An agriculturist: Three francs premium upon the hectolitre of corn for me! A manufacturer: Two francs premium on the yard of cloth for me! etc., etc.
"THE PRESIDENT: This then is what we have agreed upon. Our session has instituted a system of premiums, and it will be to our eternal honour. What branch of industry can possibly henceforth be a loser, since we have two means, and both so very simple, of converting our losses into gains—the tariff and the premium? The sitting is adjourned."
I really think some supernatural vision must have foreshadowed to me in a dream the near approach of the premium (who knows but I may have first suggested the idea to M. Dupin?) when six months ago I wrote these words:—
"It appears evident to me that protection, without changing its nature or the effects which it produces, might take the form of a direct tax, levied by the state, and distributed in premiums of indemnification among privileged branches of industry."
And after comparing a protective duty to a premium, I added,
"I confess candidly my preference for the last system. It seems to me juster, more economical, and more fair. Juster, because if society desires to make presents to some of its members, all ought to bear the expense; more economical, because it would save a great deal in the cost of collection, and do away with many of the trammels with which trade is hampered; more fair, because the public would see clearly the nature of the operation, and act accordingly."[5]
Since the occasion presents itself to us so opportunely, let us study this system of plunder by premium; for all we say of it applies equally to the system of plunder by tariff; and as the latter is a little better concealed, the direct may help us to detect and expose the indirect system of cheating. The mind will thus be led from what is simple to what is more complicated.
But it may be asked. Is there not a species of theft which is more simple still? Undoubtedly; there is highway robbery, which wants only to be legalized, and made a monopoly of, or, in the language of the present day, organized.
I have been reading what follows in a book of travels:—
"When we reached the kingdom of A., all branches of industry declared themselves in a state of suffering. Agriculture groaned, manufactures complained, trade murmured, the shipping interest grumbled, and the government were at a loss what to do. First of all, the idea was to lay a pretty smart tax on all the malcontents, and afterwards to divide the proceeds among them after retaining its own quota; this would have been on the principle of the Spanish lottery. There are a thousand of you, and the State takes a piastre from each; then by sleight of hand, it conveys away 250 piastres, and divides the remaining 750 in larger and smaller proportions among the ticket-holders. The gallant Hidalgo who gets three-fourths of a piastre, forgetting that he had contributed a whole piastre, cannot conceal his delight, and rushes off to spend his fifteen reals at the alehouse. This is very much the same thing as we see taking place in France. But the government had overrated the stupidity of the population when it endeavoured to make them accept such a species of protection, and at length it lighted upon the following expedient.
"The country was covered with a network of highroads. The government had these roads accurately measured; and then it announced to the agriculturist, 'All that you can steal from travellers between these two points is yours; let that serve as a premium for your protection and encouragement.' Afterwards it assigned to each manufacturer, to each shipowner, a certain portion of road, to be made available for their profit, according to this formula:—
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Dono tibi et concedo |
Now it has come to pass tliat the natives of the kingdom of A. have become so habituated to this system, that they take into account only what they are enabled to steal, not what is stolen from them, being so determined to regard pillage only from the standpoint of the thief, that they look upon the sum total of individual thefts as a national gain, and refuse to abandon a system of protection, without which they say no branch of industry could support itself.
You demur to this. It is not possible, you exclaim, that a whole people should be led to ascribe a redundancy of wealth to mutual robbery.
And why not? We see that this conviction pervades France, and that we are constantly organizing and improving the system of reciprocal robbery under the respectable names of premiums and protective tarifis.
We must not, however, be guilty of exaggeration. As regards the mode of levying, and other collateral circumstances, the system adopted in the kingdom of A. may be worse than ours; but we must at the same time admit that, as regards the principle and its necessary consequences, there is not an atom of difference between these two species of theft; which are both organized by law for the purpose of supplementing the profits of particular branches of industry.
Remark also, that if highway robbery presents some inconveniences in its actual perpetration, it has likewise some advantages which we do not find in robbery by tariff.
For example, it is possible to make an equitable division among all the producers. It is not so in the case of customs duties. The latter are incapable of protecting certain classes of society, such as artisans, shopkeepers, men of letters, lawyers, soldiers, labourers, etc.
It is true that the robbery by premium assumes an infinite number of shapes, and in this respect is not inferior to highway robbery; but, on the other hand, it leads frequently to results so whimsical and awkward that the natives of the kingdom of A. may well laugh at us.
What the victim of a highway robbery loses, the thief gains, and the articles stolen remain in the country. But under the system of robbery by premium, what the tax exacts from the Frenchman is conferred frequently on the Chinese, on the Hottentots, on the Caffres, etc., and here is the way in which this takes place:
A piece of cloth, we shall suppose, is worth 100 francs at Bordeaux. It cannot be sold below that price without a loss. It is impossible to sell it above that price because the competition of merchants prevents the price rising. In these circumstances, if a Frenchman desires to have the cloth, he must pay 100 francs, or want it. But if it is an Englishman who wants the cloth, the government steps in, and says to the merchant, "Sell your cloth, and we will get you 20 francs from the tax-payers." The merchant who could not get more than 100 francs for his cloth, sells it to the Englishman for 80. This sum, added to the 20 francs produced by the premium theft, makes all square. This is exactly the same case as if the taxpayers had given 20 francs to the Englishmen, upon condition of his buying French cloth at 20 francs discount, at 20 francs below the cost of production, at 20 francs below what it has cost ourselves. The robbery by premium, then, has this peculiarity, that the people robbed are resident in the country which tolerates it, while the people who profit by the robbery are scattered over the world.
Verily, it is marvellous that people should persist in Template:Hws Template:Hwe that all which an individual steals from the musses is a general gain. Perpetual motion, the philosopher's stone, the quadrature of the circle, are antiquated problems; but the theory of progress by plunder is still held in honour. A priori, we should have thought that, of all imaginable puerilities, it was the least likely to survive.
Some people will say. You are partisans, then, of the laissez passer?— economists of the school of Smith and Say? You do not desire the organization of labour. Yes, gentlemen, organize labour as much as you choose, but have the goodness not to organize theft.
Another, and a more numerous, set keep repeating, premiums, tariffs, all that has been exaggerated. We should use them without abusing them. A judicious liberty, combined with a moderate protection, that is what discreet and practical men desire. Let us steer clear of fixed principles and inflexible rules.
This is precisely what the traveller tells us takes place in the kingdom of A. "Highway robbery," say the sages, "is neither good nor bad in itself; that depends upon circumstances. All we are concerned with is to weigh things, and see our functionaries well paid for the work of weighing. It may be that we have given too great latitude to pillage; perhaps we have not given enough. Let us examine and balance the accounts of each man employed in the work of pillage. To those who do not earn enough, let us assign a larger portion of the road. To those who gain too much, we must limit the days or months of pillage."
Those who talk in this way gain a great reputation for moderation, prudence, and good sense. They never aspire to the highest offices in the state.
Those who say, Repress all injustice, whether on a greater or a smaller scale, suffer no dishonesty, to however small an extent, are marked down for ideologues, idle dreamers, who keep repeating over and over again the same thing. The people, moreover, find their arguments too clear, and why should they be expected to believe what is so easily understood?
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JACQUES BONHOMME, a Vinedresser. |
L.: You have secured twenty tuns of wine?
J.: Yes; by dint of my own skill and labour.
L.: Have the goodness to deliver up to me six of the best.
J.: Six tuns out of twenty ! Good Heaven ! you are going to ruin me. And, please, Sir, for what purpose do you intend them?
L.: The first will be handed over to the creditors of the State. When people have debts, the least thing they can do is to pay interest upon them.
J.: And what becomes of the capital?
L.: That is too long a story to tell you at present. One part used to be converted into cartridges, which emitted the most beautiful smoke in the world. Another went to pay the men who had got crippled in foreign wars. Then, when this expenditure brought invasion upon us, our polite friend, the enemy, was unwilling to take leave of us without carrying away some of our money as a souvenir, and this money had to be borrowed.
J.: And what benefit do I derive from this now?
L.: The satisfaction of saying— Template:Fs90/s
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Que je suis fier d'être Français |
J.: And the humiliation of leaving to my heirs an estate burdened with a perpetual rent-charge. Still, it is necessary to pay one's debts, whatever foolish use is made of the proceeds. So much for the disposal of one tun; but what about the five others?
L.: One goes to support the public service, the civil list, the judges who protect your property when your neighbour wishes wrongfully to appropriate it, the gendarmes who protect you from robbers when you are asleep, the cantonnier who maintains the highways, the curé who baptizes your children, the Template:Hws Template:Hwe who educates them, and, lastly, your humble servant, who cannot be expected to work exactly for nothing.
J.: All right; service for service is quite fair, and I have nothing to say against it. I should like quite as well, no doubt, to deal directly with the rector and the schoolmaster on my own account; but I don't stand upon that. This accounts for the second tun—but we have still other four to account for.
L.: Would you consider two tuns as more than your fair contribution to the expense of the army and navy?
J.: Alas! that is a small affair, compared with what the two services have cost me already, for they have deprived me of two sons whom I dearly loved.
L.: It is necessary to maintain the balance of power.
J.: And would that balance not be quite as well maintained if the European powers were to reduce their forces by one-half or three-fourths? We should preserve our children and our money. All that is requisite is to come to a common understanding.
L.: Yes; but they don't understand one another.
J.: It is that which fills me with astonishment, for they suffer from it in common.
L. : It is partly your own doing, Jacques Bonhomme.
J.: You are joking, Mr Taxgatherer. Have I any voice in the matter?
L.: Whom did you vote for as deputy?
J.: A brave general officer, who will soon be a marshal, if God spares him.
L.: And upon what does the gallant general live?
J.: Upon my six tuns, I should think.
L.: What would happen to him if he voted a reduction of the army, and of your contingent?
J.: Instead of being made a marshal, he would be forced to retire.
L.: Do you understand now that you have yourself …
J.: Let us pass on to the fifth tun, if you please.
L.: That goes to Algeria.
J.: To Algeria! And yet they tell us that all the Mussulmans are wine-haters, barbarians as they are! I have often inquired whether it is their ignorance of claret which has made them infidels, or their infidelity which has made them ignorant of claret. And then, what service do they render me in return for this nectar which has cost me so much toil?
L.: None at all; nor is the wine destined for the Mussulman, but for good Christians who spend their lives in Barbary.
J.: And what service do they render me?
L.: They make razzias, and suffer from them in their turn; they kill and are killed; they are seized with dysentery and sent to the hospital; they make harbours and roads, build villages, and people them with Maltese, Italians, Spaniards, and Swiss, who live upon your wine; for another supply of which, I can tell you, I will soon come back to you.
J.: Good gracious! that is too much. I shall give you a flat refusal. A vinedresser who could be guilty of such folly would be sent to Bicétre. To make roads over Mount Atlas—good Heavens! when I can scarcely leave my house for want of roads! To form harbours in Barbary, when the Garonne is silted up! To carry off my children whom I love, and send them to torment the Kabyles! To make me pay for houses, seed, and cattle, to be handed over to Greeks and Maltese, when we have so many poor people to provide for at home!
L.: The poor! Just so; they rid the country of the trop plein, and prevent a redundant population.
J.: And we are to send after them to Algeria the capital on which they could live at home!
L.: But then you are laying the foundations of a great empire, you carry civilization into Africa, thus crowning your country with immortal glory.
J.: You are a poet, Mr Taxgatherer. I am a plain vinedresser, and I refuse your demand.
L.: But think, that in the course of some thousands of years, your present advances will be recouped and repaid a hundredfold to your descendants. The men who direct the enterprise assure us that it will be so.
J.: In the meantime, in order to defray the expense, they ask me first of all for one cask of wine, then for two, then for three, and now I am taxed by the tun! I persist in my refusal.
L.: Your refusal comes too late. Your representative has stipulated for the whole quantity I demand.
J.: Too true. Cursed weakness on my part! Surely, in making him my proxy, I was guilty of a piece of folly; for what is there in common between a general officer and a poor vinedresser?
L.: Oh, yes; there is something in common, namely, the wine, which he has voted to himself in your name.
J.: You may well laugh at me, Mr Taxgatherer, for I richly deserve it. But be reasonable. Leave me at least the sixth tun. You have already secured payment of the interest of the debt, and provided for the civil list and the public service, besides perpetuating the war in Africa. What more would you have?
L.: It is needless to higgle with me. Communicate your views to Monsieur le General, your representative. For the present, he has voted away your vintage.
J.: Confound the fellow! But tell me what you intend to make of this last cask, the best of my whole stock? Stay, taste this wine. How ripe, mellow, and full-bodied it is!
L.: Excellent! delicious! It will suit Mons. D., the cloth-manufacturer, admirably.
J.: Mons. D., the cloth-manufacturer? What do you mean?
L.: That he will reap the benefit.
J.: How? What? I'll be hanged if I understand you!
L.: Don't you know that Mons. D. has set on foot a grand undertaking, which will prove most useful to the country, but which, when everything is taken into account, causes each year a considerable pecuniary loss?
J.: I am sorry to hear it, but what can I do?
L.: The Chamber has come to the conclusion that, if this state of things continues, Mons. D. will be under the necessity of either working more profitably, or of shutting up his manufacturing establishment altogether.
J.: But what have these losing speculations of Mons. D. to do with my wine?
L.: The Chamber has found out that, by making over to Mons. D. some wine taken from your cellar, some corn taken from your neighbour's granaries, some money kept off the workmen's wages, the losses of that enterprising patriot may be converted into profits.
J.: The recipe is as infallible as it is ingenious. But, zounds! it is awfully iniquitous. Mons. D,, forsooth, is to make up his losses by laying hold of my wine?
L.: Not exactly of the wine, but of its price. This is what we denominate premiums of encouragement, or bounties. Don't you see the great service you are rendering to the country?
J.: You mean to Mons. D.?
L.: To the country. Mons. D. assures us that his manufacture prospers in consequence of this arrangement, and in this way he considers the country is enriched. He said so the other day in the Chamber, of which he is a member.
J.: This is a wretched quibble! A speculator enters into a losing trade, and dissipates his capital; and then he extorts from me and from my neighbours wine and corn of sufficient value, not only to repair his losses, but afford him a profit, and this is represented as a gain to the country at large.
L.: Your representative having come to this conclusion, you have nothing more to do but to deliver up to me the six tuns of wine which I demand, and sell the remaining fourteen tuns to the best advantage.
J.: That is my business.
L.: It will be unfortunate if you do not realize a large price
J.: I will think of it.
L.: The higher price will enable you to procure more of other things.
J.: I am aware of that. Sir, L.: In the first place, if you purchase iron to renew your ploughs and your spades, the law decrees that you must pay the ironmaster double what the commodity is worth.
J.: Yes, this is very consolatory.
L.: Then you have need of coal, of butchers' meat, of cloth, of oil, of wool, of sugar; and for each of these commodities the law makes you pay double.
J.: It is horrible, frightful, abominable!
L.: Why should you indulge in complaints? You yourself, through your representative …
J.: Say nothing more of my representative. I am singularly represented, it is true. But they will not impose upon me a second time. I shall be represented by a good and honest peasant.
L.: Bah! you will re-elect the gallant General.
J.: Shall I re-elect him, to divide my wine among Africans and manufacturers?
L.: I tell you, you will re-elect him.
J.: This is too much. I am free to re-elect him or not, as I choose.
L.: But you will so choose.
J.: Let him come forward again, and he will find whom he has to deal with.
L.: Well, we shall see. Farewell. I carry away your six tuns of wine, to be distributed as your friend, the General, has determined.
"If I were but one of His Majesty's ministers! …
"Well, what would you do?
"I should begin by—by—faith, by being very much at a loss. For it is clear I could only be a minister in consequence of having the majority in my favour; I could only have the majority in my favour by securing the popular suffrage; and I could attain that end, honestly at least, only by governing in accordance with public opinion. If I should attempt to carry out my own opinions, I should no longer have the majority; and if I lost the favour of the majority, I should be no longer one of His Majesty's ministers."
"But suppose yourself already a minister, and that you experience no opposition from the majority, what would you do?"
"I should inquire on what side justice lay."
"And then?"
"I should inquire on what side utility lay."
"And then?"
"I should inquire whether justice and utility were in harmony, or ran counter to one another."
"And if you found they were not in harmony?
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Template:Gap"Je dirais au roi Philippe; |
"But if you found that the just and the useful were one and the same thing?"
"Then I should go straight forward."
"True; but to realize utility by means of justice, a third thing is needed."
"What?"
"Possibility."
"You granted me that"
"When?"
"Just now."
"How?"
"In assuming that I had the majority on my side."
"A most dangerous concession, I fear; for it implies that the majority see clearly what is just, see clearly what is useful, and see clearly that both are in perfect harmony."
"And if they see clearly all this, good results will work themselves out, so to speak, of their own accord."
"You always bring me back to this, that no reform is possible apart from the progress of general intelligence."
"Assuming this progress, every needed reform will infallibly follow."
"True; but this presupposed progress is a work of time. Suppose it accomplished, what would you do? I am anxious to see you actually and practically at work."
"I should begin by reducing the rate of postage to a penny."
"I have heard you speak of a halfpenny."[6]
"Yes, but as I have other reforms in view, I should proceed prudently, in the first instance, to avoid any risk of a deficit."
"Fine prudence, to be sure! You have already landed yourself in a deficit of 30 millions of francs."
"Then I should reduce the salt-tax to 10 francs."
"Good. Then you land yourself in a deficit of other thirty millions. You have doubtless invented a new tax?"
"Heaven forbid! And besides, I do not flatter myself with possessing an inventive genius."
"It will be very necessary, however … Ah! I see. What was I thinking of? You intend simply to reduce the expenditure. I did not think of that."
"You are not singular. I shall come to that; but for the present, that is not the resource on which I depend."
"What! you are to diminish the revenue without reducing the expenditure, and withal avoid a deficit!"
"Yes; by diminishing other taxes at the same time."
(Here the interlocutor, raising the forefinger of the right hand to his forehead, tossed his head, as if beating about for ideas.)
"By my faith! a most ingenious process. I pay over 100 francs to the Treasury; you relieve me to the extent of 5 francs upon salt, and 5 francs upon postages; and in order that the Treasury may still receive 100 francs, you relieve me to the extent of 10 francs on some other tax."
"Exactly; I see you understand what I mean."
"The thing seems so strange that I am not quite sure that I even heard you distinctly."
"I repeat, I balance one dégrèvement by another."
"Well, I happen to have a few minutes to spare, and I should like much to hear you explain this paradox."
"Here is the whole mystery. I know a tax which costs the taxpayer 20 francs, and of which not one farthing ever reaches the Treasury. I relieve you of one-half, and I see that the other half finds its way to the Hôtel des Finances."
"Truly you are an unrivalled financier. And what tax, pray, do I pay which does not reach the Treasury?"
"How much does this coat cost you?"
"100 francs."
"And if you procured the cloth from Verviers, how much would it cost you ?"
"80 francs."
"Why, then, did you not order it from Verviers?"
"Because that is forbidden."
"And why is it forbidden?"
"In order that the coat may cost 100 instead of 80 francs."
"This prohibition, then, costs you 20 francs."
"Undoubtedly."
"And where do these 20 francs go to?"
"Where should they go to, but into the pocket of the cloth-manufacturer?"
"Well, then, give me 10 francs for the Treasury, I will abrogate the prohibition, and you will still be a gainer of 10 francs."
"Oh! I begin to follow you. The account with the Treasury will then stand thus: The revenue loses 5 francs upon salt, and 5 upon postages, and gains 10 francs upon cloth. The one balances the other."
"And your own account stands thus: You gain 5 francs upon salt, 5 francs upon postages, and 10 francs upon cloth."
"Total, 20 francs. I like your plan; but what comes of the poor cloth-manufacturer?"
"Oh! I have not lost sight of him. I manage to give him compensation likewise by means of dégrèvement s which are profitable to the revenue; and what I have done for you as regards cloth, I do for him as regards wool, coals, machinery, etc., so that he is enabled to reduce his price without being a loser."
"But are you sure that the one will balance the other?"
"The balance will be in his favour. The 20 francs which I enable you to gain upon cloth, will be augmented by the amount I enable you to save upon corn, meat, fuel, etc. This will amount to a large sum; and a similar saving will be realized by each of your 35 millions of fellow-countrymen. In this way, you will find the means of consuming all the cloth produced at Verviers and Elbeuf. The nation will be better clothed; that is all."
"I shall think over it; for all this, I confess, confuses my head somewhat."
"After all, as regards clothing, the main consideration is to be clothed. Your limbs are your own, and not the property of the manufacturer. To protect them from the cold is your business and not his! If the law takes his part against you, the law is unjust; and we have been reasoning hitherto on the hypothesis that what is unjust is injurious."
"Perhaps I make too free with you; but I beg you to complete the explanation of your financial plan."
"I shall have a new law of Customs."
"In two volumes folio?"
"No, in two articles."
"For once, then, we may dispense with repeating the famous axiom, 'No one is supposed to be ignorant of the law'—Nul n'est censé ignorer la loi; which is a fiction. Let us see, then, your proposed tariff."
"Here it is:
"'ART. 1st—All imported merchandise shall pay a duty of 5 per cent. ad valorem'"
"Even raw materials?"
"Except those which are destitute of value."
"But they are all possessed of value, less or more."
"In that case they must pay duty, less or more."
"How do you suppose that our manufacturers can compete with foreign manufacturers who have their raw materials free?"
"The expenditure of the State being given, if we shut up this source of revenue, we must open another. That will not do away with the relative inferiority of our manufactures, and we shall have an additional staff of officials to create and to pay for."
"True. I reason as if the problem were to do away with taxation, and not to substitute one tax for another. I shall think over it. What is your second article?"
"'ART. 2d.—All merchandise exported shall pay a duty of 5 per cent. ad valorem'"
"Good gracious! Monsieur l'Utopiste. You are going to get yourself pelted, and, if necessary, I myself will cast the first stone."
"We have taken for granted that the majority are enlightened."
"Enlightened! Can you maintain that export duties will not be onerous?"
"All taxes are onerous; but this will be less so than others."
"The carnival justifies many eccentricities. Please to render plausible, if that be possible, this new paradox."
"How much do you pay for this wine?"
"One franc the litre."
"How much would you have paid for it outside the barrier?"
"Half a franc."
"What is the reason of this difference?"
"Ask the octroi, which has imposed a tax of half a franc upon it"
"And who established the octroi?"
"The Commune of Paris, to enable them to pave and light the streets."
"It resolves itself, then, into an import duty. But if the neighbouring communes had erected the octroi for their profit, what would have been the consequence?"
"I should not the less have paid one franc for wine worth half a franc, and the other half franc would have gone to pave and light Montmartre and the Batignoles."
"So that, in effect, it is the consumer who pays the tax."
"That is beyond all doubt."
"Then, in imposing an export duty, you make the foreigner contribute to your expenditure."
"Pardon me, that is unjust."
"Why? Before any commodity can be produced in a country, we must presuppose as existing in that country education, security, roads, which are all things that cost money. Why then should not the foreigner bear the charges necessary to the production of the commodity of which ultimately he is the consumer?"
"That is contrary to received ideas."
"Not in the least. The last buyer must bear the whole cost of production, direct and indirect."
"It is in vain that you argue on this subject. It is self-evident that such a measure would paralyze trade, and shut all markets against us."
"This is a mistake. If you paid this tax over and above all others, you might be right. But if the 100 millions levied by this means relieved the taxpayer to a corresponding extent of other burdens, you would reappear in the foreign market with all your advantages, and even with greater advantages, if this tax shall have given rise to less complication and expense."
"I shall think over it. And now that we have put salt, postages, and customs duties on a new footing, does this end your projected reform?"
"On the contrary, we are only beginning."
"Pray give me some account of your other Utopian schemes."
"We have already given up 60 millions of francs on salt and postages. The Customhouse affords compensation, but it gives also something far more precious."
"And what is that, if you please?"
"International relations founded on justice, and a probability of peace nearly equal to a certainty. I disband the army."
"The whole army?"
"Excepting the special arms, which will be recruited voluntarily like all other professions. You thus see the conscription abolished."
"Be pleased, Sir, to use the word recruitment." "Ah! I had forgotten; how easy it is in some countries to perpetuate and hand down the most unpopular things by changing their names!"
"Thus, droits rSunis have become contributions indirectes."
"And gendarmes have taken the name of gardes municipaux."
"In short, you would disarm the country on the faith of a Utopian theory."
"I said that I should disband the army—not that I would disarm the country. On the contrary, I intend to give it invincible force."
"And how can you give consistency to this mass of contradictions?"
"I should call upon all citizens to take part in the service."
"It would be well worth while to dispense with the services of some of them, in order to enrol all."
"You surely have not made me a minister in order to leave things as they are. On my accession to power, I should say, like Richelieu, 'State maxims are changed.' And my first maxim, the one I should employ as the basis of my administration, would be this: Every citizen must prepare for two things—to provide for his own subsistence, and to defend his country."
"It appears to me, at first sight, that there is some show of common sense in what you say."
"Consequently, I should base the law of national defence on these two enactments:
"'ART. 1st.—Every able-bodied citizen shall remain sous les drapeaux for four years—namely, from 21 to 25—for the purpose of receiving military instruction.'"
"A fine economy, truly! You disband four hundred thousand soldiers to create ten millions."
"Listen to my second article:
"'ART. 2d.—Unless it is proved that at 21 years of age he knows perfectly the platoon drill.'"
"Nor do I stop here. It is certain that in order to get quit of four years' service, there would be a terrible emulation among our youth to learn the par le flanc droit and the charge en douze temps. The idea is whimsical."
"It is better than that. For without bringing families to grief, without encroaching on equality, would it not secure to the country, in a simple and inexpensive manner, 10 millions of defenders capable of setting at defiance all the standing armies of the world?"
"Really, if I were not on my guard, I should end with taking a serious interest in your conceits."
Utopian free-trader getting excited. "Thank Heaven! here is my Budget relieved of 200 millions. I suppress the octroi. I remodel indirect contributions. I … "
"Oh! Monsieur l'Utopiste!"
Utopian free-trader getting more and more excited. "I should proclaim freedom of worship, freedom of teaching, and new resources. I would buy up the railways, pay off the public debt, and starve out stockjobbers."
"Monsieur l'Utopiste!"
"Set free from a multiplicity of cares, I should concentrate all the powers of government in the repression of fraud, and in the administration of prompt and cheap justice; I … "
"Monsieur l'Utopiste, you undertake too many things; the nation will not support you!"
"You have granted me a majority."
"I withdraw it."
"Be it so. Then I am no longer a minister, and my projects will continue to be what they were—UTOPIAS."
WE expected some time ago to see our representative machinery produce an article quite new, the manufacture of which had not as yet been attempted—namely, the relief of the taxpayer.
All was expectation. The experiment was interesting, as well as new. The motion of the machine disturbed nobody. In this respect, its performance was admirable, no matter at what time, in what place, or under what circumstances it was set agoing.
But as regarded those reforms which were to simplify, equalize, and lighten the public burdens, no one has yet been able to find out what has been accomplished.
It was said: You shall soon see; wait a little; this popular result involves the labours of four sessions. The year 1842 gave us railways; 1846 is to give us the reduction of the salt-tax and of the rates of postage; in 1850 we are to have a reformation of the tariff and of indirect taxation. The fourth session is to be the jubilee of the taxpayer.
Men were full of hope, for everything seemed to favour the experiment. The Moniteur had announced that the revenue would go on increasing every quarter, and what better use could be made of these unlooked-for returns than to give the villager a little more salt to his eau tiéde, and an additional letter now and then from the battle-field, where his son was risking his life?
But what has happened? Like the two preparations of sugar which are said to hinder each other from crystallizing, or the Kilkenny cats, which fought so desperately that nothing remained of them but their tails, the two promised reforms have swallowed up each other. Nothing remains of them but the tails; that is to say, we have projets de lois, exposés des motifs, reports, statistical returns, and schedules, in which we have the comfort of seeing our sufferings philanthropicaUy appreciated and homœopathically reckoned up. But as to the reforms Template:Hws Template:Hwe, they have not crystallized. Nothing has come out of the crucible, and the experiment has been a failure.
The chemists will by-and-by come before the jury and explain the causes of the breakdown.
One will say, "I proposed a postal reform; but the Chamber wished first of all to rid us of the salt-tax, and I gave it up."
Another will say, "I voted for doing away with the salt-tax, but the Minister had proposed a postal reform, and my vote went for nothing."
And the jury, finding these reasons satisfactory, will begin the experiment of new on the same data, and remit the work to the same chemists.
This proves that it would be well for us, notwithstanding the sources from which it is derived, to adopt the practice introduced half a century ago on the other side of the Channel, of prosecuting only one reform at a time. It is slow, it is wearisome; but it leads to some result.
Here we have a dozen reforms on the anvil at the same time. They hustle one another, like the ghosts at the Gate of Oblivion, where no one enters.
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Template:FqmOhimè! che lasso! |
Here is what Jacques Bonhomme said, in a dialogue with John Bull, and it is worth being reported:—
JACQUES BONHOMME: Oh! who will deliver me from this hurricane of reforms? My head is in a whirl. A new one seems to be invented every day: university reform, financial reform, sanitary reform, parliamentary reform, electoral reform, commercial reform, social reform, and, last of all, comes postal reform!
JOHN BULL: As regards the last, it is so easy and so useful, as we have found by experience, that I venture to give you some advice upon the subject.
JACQUES: We are told that postal reform has turned out ill in England, and that the Exchequer has lost half a million.
JOHN: And has benefited the public by ten times that sum.
JACQUES: No doubt of that.
JOHN: We have every sign by which the public satisfaction can be testified. The nation, following the lead of Sir Robert Peel and Lord John Russell, have given Rowland Hill, in true British fashion, substantial marks of the public gratitude. Even the poorer classes testify their satisfaction by sealing their letters with wafers bearing this inscription: "Public gratitude for postal reform" The leaders of the Anti-Corn-Law League have proclaimed aloud in their place in Parliament that without cheap postage thirty years would have been required to accomplish their great undertaking, which had for object the removal of duties on the food of the poor. The officers of the Board of Trade have declared it unfortunate that the English coin does not admit of a still greater reduction! What more proofs would you have?
JACQUES: But the Treasury?
JOHN: Do not the Treasury and the public sail in the same boat?
JACQUES: Not quite. And then, is it quite clear that our postal system has need to be reformed?
JOHN: That is the question. Let us see how matters now stand. What is done with the letters that are put into the post-office?
JACQUES: The routine is very simple. The postmaster opens the letter-box at a certain hour, and takes out of it, say, a hundred letters.
JOHN: And then?
JACQUES: Then he inspects them one by one. With a geographical table before him, and a letter-weigher in his hand, he assigns each letter to its proper category, according to weight and distance. There are only eleven postal zones or districts, and as many degrees of weight.
JOHN: That constitutes simply 121 combinations for each letter.
JACQUES: Yes; and we must double that number, because the, letter may, or may not, belong to the service rural.
JOHN: There are, then, 24,200 things to be inquired into with reference to every hundred letters. And how does the postmaster then proceed?
JACQUES: He marks the weight on one corner of the letter, and the postage in the middle of the address, by a hieroglyphic agreed upon at headquarters.
JOHN: And then?
JACQUES: He stamps the letters, and arranges them in ten parcels corresponding with the other post-offices with which he is in communication. He adds up the total postages of the ten parcels.
JOHN: And then? JACQUES: Then he enters the ten sums in a register, with counterfoils. JOHN: And then? JACQUES: Then he writes a letter to each of his ten correspondent postmasters, telling them with what sums he debits them. JOHN: And if the letters are prepaid? JACQUES: Then, I grant you, the service becomes somewhat complicated. He must in that case receive the letter, weigh it, and consign it to its proper category as before, receive payment and give change, select the appropriate stamp among thirty others, mark on the letter its number, weight, and postage; transcribe the full address, first in one register, then in a second, then in a third, then on a detached slip; wrap up the letter in the slip; send the whole, well secured by a string, to the correspondent postmaster; and enter each of these details in a dozen columns, selected from fifty other columns, which indicate the letter-bag in which prepaid letters are put.
JOHN: And all this for forty centimes (4d.)!
JACQUES : Yes, on an average.
JOHN: I see now that the despatch of letters is simple enough. Let us see now what takes place on their arrival.
JACQUES: The postmaster opens the post-bag.
JOHN: And then?
JACQUES: He reads the ten invoices of his correspondents.
JOHN: And after that?
JACQUES: He compares the totals of the invoices with the totals brought out by each of the ten parcels of letters.
JOHN: And after that?
JACQUES: He brings the whole to a grand total to find out with what sum, en bloc, he is to debit each letter-carrier.
JOHN: And after that ?
JACQUES: After that, with a table of distances and Template:Hws Template:Hwe in hand, he verifies or rectifies the postage of each letter.
JOHN: And after that?
JACQCTES: He enters in register after register, and in column after column, the greater or less results he has found.
JOHN: And after that?
JACQUES He puts himself in communication with the ten postmasters, his correspondents, to advise them of errors of 10 or 20 centimes (a penny or twopence).
JOHN: And then?
JACQUES: He collects and arranges all the letters he has received, to hand them to the postman.
JOHN: And after that?
JACQUES: He states the total postages that each postman is charged with.
JOHN: And after that?
JACQUES: The postman verifies, or discusses, the signification of the hieroglyphics. The postman finally advances the amount, and sets out.
JOHN: Go on.
JACQUES: The postman goes to the party to whom a letter is addressed, and knocks at the door. A servant opens. There are six letters for that address. The postages are added up, separately at first, then altogether. They amount to 2 francs 70 centimes (2s. 3d.).
JOHN: Go on.
JACQUES: The servant goes in search of his master. The latter proceeds to verify the hieroglyphics. He mistakes the threes for twos and the nines for fours. He has doubts about the weights and distances. In short, he has to ask the postman to walk upstairs, and on the way he tries to find out the signatures of the letters, thinking it may be prudent to refuse some of them. JOHN: Go on. JACQUES: The postman when he has got upstairs pleads the cause of the post-office. They argue, they examine, they weigh, they calculate distances—at length the party agrees to receive five of the letters, and refuses one. JOHN: Go on.
JACQUES: What remains is to pay the postage. The servant is sent to the grocer for change. After a delay of twenty minutes he returns, and the postman is at length set free, and rushes from door to door, to go through the same ceremony at each.
JOHN: Go on.
JACQUES: He returns to the post-office. He counts and recounts with the postmaster. He returns the letters refused, and gets repayment of his advances for these. He reports the objections of the parties with reference to weight and distance.
JOHN: Go on.
JACQUES: The postmaster has to refer to the registers, letter-bags, and special slips, in order to make up an account of the letters which have been refused.
JOHN: Go on, if you please.
JACQUES: I am thankful I am not a postmaster. We now come to accounts in dozens and scores at the end of the month; to contrivances invented not only to establish, but to check and control a minute responsibility, involving a total of 50 millions of francs, made up of postages amounting on an average to 43 centimes each (less than 4½d.), and of 116 millions of letters, each of which may belong to one or other of 242 categories.
JOHN: A very complicated simplicity truly! The man who has resolved this problem must have a hundred times more genius than your Mons. Piron or our Rowland Hill.
JACQUES: Well, you seem to laugh at our system. Would you explain yours to me?
JOHN: In England, the government causes to be sold all over the country, wherever it is judged useful, stamps, envelopes, and covers at a penny apiece.
JACQUES: And after that?
JOHN: You write your letter, fold it, put it in the envelope, and throw it into the post-office.
JACQUES: And after that?
JOHN: "After that"—why, that is the whole affair. We have nothing to do with distances, bulletins, registers, control, or accounting; we have no money to give or to receive, and no concern with hieroglyphics, discussions, interpretations, etc., etc.
JACQUES: Truly this is very simple. But is it not too much so? An infant might understand it. But such reforms as you describe stifle the genius of great administrators. For my own part, I stick to the French mode of going to work. And then your uniform rate has the greatest of all faults. It is unjust.
JOHN: How so?
JACQUES: Because it is unjust to charge as much for a letter addressed to the immediate neighbourhood, as for one which you carry three hundred miles.
JOHN: At all events you will allow that the injustice goes no further than to the extent of a penny.
JACQUES: No matter—it is still injustice.
JOHN: Besides, the injustice, which at the outside cannot extend beyond a penny in any particular case, disappears when you take into account the entire correspondence of any individual citizen who sends his letters sometimes to a great distance and sometimes to places in the immediate vicinity.
JACQUES: I adhere to my opinion. The injustice is lessened—infinitely lessened, if you will; it is inappreciable, infinitesimal, homœopathic; but it exists.
JOHN: Does your government make you pay dearer for an ounce of tobacco which you buy in the Rue de Clichy than for the same quantity retailed on the Quai d'Orsay?
JACQUES: What connexion is there between the two subjects of comparison?
JOHN: In the one case as in the other, the cost of transport must be taken into account. Mathematically, it would be just that each pinch of snufif should be dearer in the Rue de Clichy than on the Quai d'Orsay by the millionth part of a farthing.
JACQUES: True; I don't dispute that it may be so.
JOHN: Let me add, that your postal system is just only in appearance. Two houses stand side by side, but one of them happens to be within, and the other just outside, the zone or postal district. The one pays a penny more than the other, just equal to the entire postage in England. You see, then, that with you injustice is committed on a much greater scale than with us.
JACQUES: That is so. My objection does not amount to much; but the loss of revenue still remains to be taken into account.
Here I ceased to listen to the two interlocutors. It turned out, however, that Jacques Bonhomme was entirely converted; for some days afterwards, the Report of M. Vuitry having made its appearance, Jacques wrote the following letter to that honourable legislator:—
"MONSIEUR,—Although I am not ignorant of the extreme discredit into which one falls by making oneself the advocate of an absolute theory, I think it my duty not to abandon the cause of a uniform rate of postage, reduced to simple remuneration for the service actually rendered.
"My addressing myself to you will no doubt be regarded as a good joke. On the one side appears a heated brain, a closet-reformer, who talks of overturning an entire system all at once and without any gradual transition; a dreamer, who has never, perhaps, cast his eye on that mass of laws, ordinances, tables, schedules, and statistical details which accompany your report,—in a word, a theorist. On the other appears a grave, prudent, moderate-minded legislator, who has weighed, compared, and shown due respect for the various interests involved, who has rejected all systems, or, which comes to the same thing, has constructed a system of his own, borrowed from all the others. The issue of such a struggle cannot be doubtful.
"Nevertheless, as long as the question is pending, every one has a right to state his opinions. I know that mine are sufficiently decided to expose me to ridicule. All I can expect from the reader of this letter is not to throw ridicule away (if, indeed, there be room for ridicule), before, in place of after, having heard my reasons.
"For I, too, can appeal to experience. A great people has made the experiment. What has been the result? We cannot deny that that people is knowing in such matters, and that its opinion is entitled to weight.
"Very well, there is not a man in England whose voice is not in favour of postal reform. Witness the subscription which has been opened for a testimonial to Mr Rowland Hill. Witness the manner in which John Bull testifies his gratitude. Witness the oft-repeated declaration of the Anti-Corn-Law League: 'Without the penny postage we should never have had developed that public opinion which has overturned the system of protection.' All this is confirmed by what we read in a work emanating from an official source:—
Template:Fs90/s "'The rates of postage should be regulated, not with a view to revenue, but for the sole purpose of covering the expense.' Template:Fs90/e
"To which Mr Macgregor adds : —
Template:Fs90/s "'It is true that the rate having come down to our smallest coin, we cannot lower it further, although it does yield some revenue. But this source of revenue, which will go on constantly increasing, must be employed to improve the service, and to develop our system of mail steamers all over the world.' Template:Fs90/e
"This brings me to examine the leading idea of the commission, which is, on the other hand, that the rate of postage should be a source of revenue to government.
"This idea runs through your entire report, and I allow that, under the influence of this prejudice, you could arrive at nothing great or comprehensive, and you are fortunate if, in trying to reconcile the two systems, you have not fallen into the errors and drawbacks of both.
"The first question we have to consider is this: Is the correspondence which passes between individual citizens a proper subject of taxation?
"I shall not fall back on abstract principles, or remind you that the very essence of society being the communication of ideas, the object of every government should be to facilitate and not impede this communication.
"Let us look to actual facts.
"The total length of our highways and departmental and country roads extends to a million of kilometres (625,000 miles). Supposing that each has cost 100,000 francs (£4000), this makes a capital of 100 milliards (£4,000,000,000) expended by the State to facilitate the transport of passengers and goods.
"Now, put the question, if one of your honourable colleagues asked leave of the Chamber to bring in a bill thus conceived:
Template:Fs90/s "'From and after 1st January next, the Government will levy upon all travellers a tax sufficient not only to cover the expense of maintaining the highways, but to bring back to the Exchequer four or five times the amount of that expense.…' Template:Fs90/e
"Would you not feel such a proposal to be anti-social and monstrous?
"How is it that this consideration of profits, nay, of simple remuneration, never presents itself to our minds when the question regards the circulation of commodities, and yet appears so natural when the question regards the circulation of ideas?
"Perhaps it is the result of habit. If we had a postal system to create, it would most assuredly appear monstrous to establish it on a principle of revenue.
"And yet remark that oppression is more glaring in this case than in the other.
"When Government has opened a new road it forces no one to make use of it. (It would do so undoubtedly if the use of the road were taxed.) But while the Post-office regulations continue to be enforced, no one can send a letter through any other channel, were it to his own mother.
"The rate of postage, then, in principle, ought to be remunerative, and, for the same reason, uniform.
"If we set out with this idea, what marvellous beauty, facility, and simplicity does not the reform I am advocating present !
"Here is the whole thing nearly put into the form of a law.
Template:Fs90/s "'ARTICLE 1. From and after 1st January next there will be exposed to sale, in every place where the Government judges it expedient, stamped envelopes and covers, at the price of a halfpenny or a penny.
"'2. Every letter put into one of these envelopes, and not exceeding the weight of half an ounce, every newspaper or print put into one of these covers, and not exceeding the weight of … will be transmitted, and delivered without cost at its address.
"'3. All Post-office accounting is entirely suppressed. "'4. All pains and penalties with reference to the conveyance of letters are abolished.' Template:Fs90/e
"That is very simple, I admit—much too simple; and I anticipate a host of objections.
"That the system I propose may be attended with drawbacks is not the question; but whether yours is not attended with more.
"In sober earnest, can the two (except as regards revenue) be put in comparison for a moment?
"Examine both. Compare them as regards facility, convenience, despatch, simplicity, order, economy, justice, equality, multiplication of transactions, public satisfaction, moral and Template:Hws Template:Hwe development, civilizing tendency; and tell me honestly if it is possible to hesitate a moment.
"I shall not stop to enlarge on each of these considerations—I give you the headings of twelve chapters, which I leave blank, persuaded that no one can fill them up better than yourself.
"But since there is one objection—namely, revenue—I must say a word on that head.
"You have constructed a table in order to show that even at twopence the revenue would suffer a loss of £880,000.
"At a penny, the loss would be £1,120,000, and at a half-penny, of £1,320,000; hypotheses so frightful that you do not even formulate them in detail.
"But allow me to say that the figures in your report dance about with a little too much freedom. In all your tables, in all your calculations, you have the tacit reservation of cœteris paribus. You assume that the cost will be the same under a simple as under a complicated system of administration—the same number of letters with the present average postage of 4½d. as with the uniform rate of twopence. You confine yourself to this rule of three : if 87 millions of letters at 4½d. yield so much, then at 2d. the same number will yield so much; admitting, nevertheless, certain distinctions when they militate against our proposed reform.
"In order to estimate the real sacrifice of revenue, we must, first of all, calculate the economy in the service which will be effected; then in what proportion the amount of correspondence will be augmented. We take this last datum solely into account, because we cannot suppose that the saving of cost which will be realized will not be met by an increased personnel rendered necessary by a more extended service.
"Undoubtedly, it is impossible to fix the exact amount of increase in the circulation of letters which the reduction of postage would cause, but in such matters a reasonable analogy has always been admitted.
"You yourself admit that in England a reduction of seven-eighths in the rate has caused an increase of correspondence to the extent of 360 per cent.
"Here, the lowering to 5 centimes (a halfpenny) of the rate which is at present at an average of something less than 4½d., would constitute likewise a reduction of seven-eighths. We may therefore be allowed to expect the same result—that is to say, 417 millions of letters, in place of 116 millions.
"But let us count on 300 millions.
"Is there any exaggeration in assuming that with a rate of postage one half less, we shall reach an average of 8 letters to each inhabitant when in England they have reached 13.
Millions. - Now 300 millions of letters, at 5 centimes, give
15 - 100 millions of journals and prints, at 5 centimes, give
5 - Travellers by malles-postes,
4 - Money parcels,
4 — - Total receipts,
28 - The present expense (which may diminish) is
31Template:Gap - Deducting for mail steamers,
5Template:Gap - There remains for despatches, travellers, and money parcels,
—— 26 — - Net product,
2 - At present the net product is
19 — - Loss, or rather reduction of gain,
17
"Now I ask whether the Government, which makes a positive sacrifice of 800 millions (£32,000,000) per annum in order to facilitate the gratuitous transport of passengers, should not make a negative sacrifice of 17 millions, in order not to make a gain upon the transmission and circulation of ideas?
"But the Treasury, I am aware, has its own habits, and with whatever complacence it sees its receipts increase, it feels proportional disappointment in seeing them diminished by a single farthing. It seems to be provided with those admirable valves which in the human frame allow the blood to flow in one direction, but prevent its return. Be it so. The Treasury is perhaps a little too old for us to quicken its pace. We have no hope, therefore, that it will give in to us. But what will be said if I, Jacques Bonhomme, show it a way which is simple, easy, convenient, and essentially practical, of doing a great service to the country without its costing a single farthing?
"The Post-office yields a gross return to the
- Treasury of
50 millions - The salt-tax,
70 Template:Gap - Customs,
160 Template:Gap — Template:Gap - Template:GapTotal yield of these three services,
280 millions
"Now, bring down postages to the uniform rate of 5 centimes (a halfpenny).
"Lower the salt-tax to 10 francs (8s.) the hundredweight, as the Chamber has already voted.
"Give me power to modify the customs tariff in such a way that I shall he peremptorily prohibited from increasing any duty, but that I may lower duties at pleasure.
"And I, Jacques Bonhomme, guarantee you a revenue, not of 280 millions, but of 300 millions. Two hundred French bankers will be my sureties, and all I ask for my reward is as much as these three taxes will produce over and above 300 millions.
"Is it necessary for me to enumerate the advantages of my proposal?
"1. The people will receive all the advantage resulting from cheapness in the price of an article of the first necessity—salt.
"2. Fathers will be able to write to their sons, and mothers to their daughters. Nor will men's affections and sentiments, and the endearments of love and friendship, be stemmed and driven back into their hearts, as at present, by the hand of the tax-gatherer.
"3. To carry a letter from one friend to another will no longer be inscribed in our code as a crime.
"4. Trade will revive with liberty, and our merchant shipping will recover from its humiliation.
"5. The Treasury will gain at first twenty millions, afterwards it will gain all that shall accrue to the revenue from other sources through the saving realized by each citizen on salt, postages, and other things, the duties on which have been lowered.
If my proposal is rejected, what am I to conclude? Provided the bankers I represent offer sufficient security, under what pretext can my proposal be refused acceptance? It is impossible to invoke the equilibrium of budgets. It would indeed be upset, but upset in such a way that the receipts should exceed the expenses. This is no affair of theory, of system, of statistics, of probability, of conjecture; it is an offer, an offer like that of a company which solicits the concession of a line of railway. The Treasury tells me what it derives from postages, salt-tax, and customs. I offer to give it more. The objection, then, cannot come from the Treasury. I offer to reduce the tariff of salt, postages, and customs; I engage not to raise it; the objection, then, cannot come from the taxpayers. From whom does it come, then? From monopolists? It remains to be seen whether their voice shall be permitted in France to drown the voice of the Government and the people. To assure us of this, I beg you to transmit my proposal to the Council of Ministers. float:right;width:Jacques Bonhomme.%
"P.S.—Here is the text of my offer:—
"I, Jacques Bonhomme, representing a company of bankers and capitalists, ready to give all guarantees and deposit whatever security may be necessary,
"Having learnt that the Government derives only 280 millions of francs from customs duties, postages, and salt-tax, by means of the duties at present fixed;
"I offer to give the Government 300 millions from the gross produce of these three sources of revenue;
"And this while reducing the salt-tax from 30fr. to 10fr.;
"Reducing the rate of postage from 42½ centimes, at an average, to a uniform rate of from 5 to 10 centimes,
" On the single condition that I am permitted not to raise (which will be formally prohibited), but to lower as much as I please the duties of customs. Jacques Bonhomme."
"You are a fool," said I to Jacques Bonhomme, when he read me his letter. "You can do nothing with moderation. The other day you cried out against the hurricane of reforms, and here I find you demanding three, making one of them the condition of the other two. You will ruin yourself."
"Be quiet," said he, "I have made all my calculations; I only wish they may be accepted. But they will not be accepted."
Upon this we parted, our heads full, his of figures, mine of reflections which I forbear to inflict upon the reader.
PROTECTION; OR, THE THREE CITY MAGISTRATES.
DEMONSTRATION IN FOUR TABLEAUX.
SCENE I.—House of Master Peter.—Window looking out on a fine park.—Three gentlemen seated near a good fire.PETER: BRAVO! Nothing like a good fire after a good dinner. It does feel so comfortable. But, alas ! how many honest folks, like the Roi d'Yvetot,
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Miserable creatures! A charitable thought has just come into my head. You see these fine trees; I am about to fell them, and distribute the timber among the poor.
PAUL and JOHN: What ! gratis?
PETER: Not exactly. My good works would soon have an end were I to dissipate my fortune. I estimate my park as worth £1000. By cutting down the trees I shall pocket a good sum.
PAUL: Wrong. Your wood as it stands is worth more than that of the neighbouring forests, for it renders you services which they cannot render. When cut down it will be only good for firewood, like any other, and will not bring a penny more the load.
PETER: Oh ! oh ! Mr Theorist, you forget that I am a practical man. My reputation as a speculator is sufficiently well established, I believe, to prevent me from being taken for a noodle. Do you imagine I am going to amuse myself by selling my timber at the price of float-wood?
PAUL: It would seem so.
PETER: Simpleton! And what if I can hinder float-wood from being brought into Paris?
PAUL: That alters the case. But how can you manage it?
PETER: Here is the whole secret. You know that float-wood, on entering the city, pays 5d. the load. To-morrow, I induce the commune to raise the duty to £4, £8, £12,—in short, sufficiently high to prevent the entry of a single log. Now, do you follow me ? If the good people are not to die of cold, they have no alternative but to come to my woodyard. They will bid against each other for my wood, and I will sell it for a high price ; and this act of charity, successfully carried out, will put me in a situation to do other acts of charity.
PAUL: A fine invention, truly ! It suggests to me another of the same kind.
JOHN: And what is that? Is philanthropy to be again brought into play?
PAUL: How do you like this Normandy butter?
JOHN: Excellent.
PAUL: Hitherto I have thought it passable. But do you not find that it takes you by the throat? I could make better butter in Paris. I shall have four or five hundred cows, and distribute milk, butter, and cheese among the poor.
PETER and JOHN: What ! in charity?
PAUL: Bah! let us put charity always in the foreground. It is so fine a figure that its very mask is a good passport. I shall give my butter to the people, and they will give me their money. Is that what is called selling?
JOHN: No; not according to the Bourgeois Gentilhomme. But, call it what you please, you will ruin yourself. How can Paris ever compete with Normandy in dairy produce?
PAUL: I shall be able to save the cost of carriage.
JOHN: Be it so. Still, while paying that cost, the Normans can heat the Parisians.
PAUL: To give a man something at a lower price—is that what you call beating him?
JOHN: It is the usual phrase; and you will always find yourself beaten.
PAUL: Yes; as Don Quixote was beaten. The blows will fall upon Sancho. John, my friend, you forget the octroi.
JOHN: The octroi ! What has that to do with your butter?
PAUL: To-morrow, I shall demand protection, and induce the commune to prohibit butter being brought into Paris from Normandy and Brittany. The people must then either dispense with it, or purchase mine, and at my own price, too.
JOHN: Upon my honour, gentlemen, your philanthropy has quite made a convert of me.
My mind is made up. I shall not be thought unworthy of my colleagues. Peter, this sparkling fire has inflamed your soul. Paul, this butter has lubricated the springs of your intelligence. I, too, feel stimulated by this piece of powdered pork; and tomorrow I shall vote, and cause to be voted, the exclusion of swine, dead and alive. That done, I shall construct superb sheds in the heart of Paris,
I shall become a pig-driver and pork-butcher. Let us see how the good people of Paris can avoid coming to provide themselves at my shop.
PETER: Softly, my good friends; if you enhance the price of butter and salt meat to such an extent, you cut down beforehand the profit I expect from my wood.
PAUL: And my speculation will be no longer so wondrously profitable, if I am overcharged for my firewood and bacon.
JOHN: And I, what shall I gain by overcharging you for my sausages, if you overcharge me for my faggots and bread and butter?
PETER: Very well, don't let us quarrel. Let us rather put our heads together and make reciprocal concessions. Moreover, it is not good to consult one's self-interest exclusively—we must exercise humanity, and see that the people do not want fuel.
PAUL: Very right; and it is proper that the people should have butter to their bread.
JOHN: Undoubtedly; and a bit of bacon for the pot.
ALL: Three cheers for charity; three cheers for philanthropy; and to-morrow we take the octroi by assault.
PETER: Ah! I forgot. One word more; it is essential. My good friends, in this age of egotism the world is distrustful, and the purest intentions are often misunderstood. Paul, you take the part of pleading for the wood; John will do the same for the butter; and I shall devote myself to the home-bred pig. It is necessary to prevent malignant suspicions.
PAUL and JOHN {leaving): Upon my word, that is a clever fellow.
PAUL: Mes chers collégues, Every day there are brought to Paris great masses of firewood, which drain away large sums of money. At this rate, we shall all be ruined in three years, and what will become of the poorer classes? (Cheers) We must prohibit foreign timber. I don't speak for myself, for all the wood I possess would not make a tooth-pick. In what I mean to say, then, I am entirely free from any personal interest or bias. (Hear, hear) But here is my friend Peter, who possesses a park, and he will guarantee an adequate supply of fuel to our fellow-citizens, who will no longer be dependent on the charcoal-burners of the Yonne. Have you ever turned your attention to the risk which we run of dying of cold, if the proprietors of forests abroad should take it into their heads to send no more fire- wood to Paris? Let us put a prohibition, then, on bringing in wood. By this means we shall put a stop to the draining away of our money, create an independent interest charged with supplying the city with firewood, and open up to workmen a new source of employment and remuneration. (Cheers)
JOHN: I support the proposal of my honourable friend, the preceding speaker, which is at once so philanthropic, and, as he himself has explained, so entirely disinterested. It is indeed high time that we should put an end to this insolent laissez passer, which has brought immoderate competition into our markets, and to such an extent that there is no province which possesses any special facility for providing us with a product, be it what it may, which does not immediately inundate us, undersell us, and bring ruin on the Parisian workman. It is the duty of Government to equalize the conditions of production by duties wisely adapted to each case, so as not to allow to enter from without anything which is not dearer than in Paris, and so relieve us from an unequal struggle. How, for example, can we possibly produce milk and butter in Paris, with Brittany and Normandy at our door? Remember, gentlemen, that the agriculturists of Brittany have cheaper land, a more abundant supply of hay, and manual labour on more advantageous terms. Does not common sense tell us that we must equalize the conditions by a protective octroi tariff? I demand that the duty on milk and butter should be raised by 1000 per cent., and still higher if necessary. The workman's breakfast will cost a little more, but see to what extent his wages will be raised! We shall see rising around us cow-houses, dairies, and barrel chums, and the foundations laid of new sources of industry. Not that I have any interest in this proposition. I am not a cowfeeder, nor have I any wish to be so. The sole motive which actuates me is a wish to be useful to the working classes. {Applause)
PETER: I am delighted to see in this assembly statesmen so pure, so enlightened, and so devoted to the best interests of the people. (Cheers) I admire their disinterestedness, and I cannot do better than imitate the noble example which has been set me. I give their motions my support, and I shall only add another, for prohibiting the entry into Paris of the pigs of Poitou. I have no desire, I assure you, to become a pig-driver or a pork-butcher. In that case I should have made it a matter of conscience to be silent. But is it not shameful, gentlemen, that we should be the tributaries of the peasants of Poitou, who have the audacity to come into our own market and take possession of a branch of industry which we ourselves have no means of carrying on? and who, after having inundated us with their hams and sausages, take perhaps nothing from us in return? At all events, who will tell us that the balance of trade is not in their favour, and that we are not obliged to pay them a tribute in hard cash? Is it not evident that if the industry of Poitou were transplanted to Paris, it would open up a steady demand for Parisian labour? And then, gentlemen, is it not very possible, as M. Lestiboudois has so well remarked, that we may be buying the salt pork of Poitou, not with our incomes, but with our capital? Where will that land us? Let us not suffer, then, that rivals who are at once avaricious, greedy, and perfidious, should come here to undersell us, and put it out of our power to provide ourselves with the same commodities. Gentlemen, Paris has reposed in you her confidence; it is for you to justify that confidence. The people are without employment; it is for you to create employment for them; and if salt pork shall cost them a somewhat higher price, we have, at least, the Template:Hws Template:Hwe of having sacrificed our own interests to those of the masses, as every good magistrate ought to do. (Loud and long-continued cheers.)
A VOICE: I have heard much talk of the poor; but under pretext of affording them employment, you begin by depriving them of what is more valuable than employment itself, namely, butter, firewood, and meat.
PETER, PAUL, and JOHN: Vote, vote! Down with Utopian dreamers, theorists, generalizers! Vote, vote! (The three motions are carried.)
SON: Father, make up your mind ; we must leave Paris. Nobody can any longer live there — ^no work, and everything dear.
FATHER: You don't know, my son, how much it costs one to leave the place where he was born.
SON: The worst thing of all is to perish from want.
FATHER: Go you, then, and search for a more hospitable country. For myself, I will not leave the place where are the graves of your mother, and of your brothers and sisters. I long to obtain with them that repose which has been denied ine in this city of desolation.
SON: Courage, father ; we shall find employment somewhere else—in Poitou, or Normandy, or Brittany. It is said that all the manufactures of Paris are being removed by degrees to these distant provinces
FATHER: And naturally so. Not being able to sell firewood and provisions, the people of these provinces have ceased to produce them beyond what their own wants call for. The time and capital at their disposal are devoted to making for themselves those articles with which we were in use to furnish them.
SON: Just as at Paris they have given up the manufacture of elegant dress and furniture, and betaken themselves to the planting of trees, and the rearing of pigs and cows. Although still young, I have lived to see vast warehouses, sumptuous quarters of the city, and quays once teeming with life and Template:Hws Template:Hwe on the banks of the Seine, turned into meadows and copses.
FATHER: While towns are spread over the provinces, Paris is turned into green fields. What a deplorable revolution! And this terrible calamity has been brought upon us by three magistrates, backed by public ignorance.
SON: Pray relate to me the history of this change.
FATHER: It is short and simple. Under pretext of planting in Paris three new branches of industry, and by this means giving employment to the working classes, these men got the commune to prohibit the entry into Paris of firewood, butter, and meat. They claimed for themselves the right of providing for their fellow-citizens. These commodities rose at first to exorbitant prices. No one earned enough to procure them, and the limited number of those who could procure them spent all their income on them, and had no longer the means of buying anything else. A check was thus given to all other branches of industry and production, and all the more quickly that the provinces no longer afforded a market. Poverty, death, and emigration then began to depopulate Paris.
SON: And when is this to stop?
FATHER: When Paris has become a forest and a prairie.
SON: The three magistrates must have made a large fortune?
FATHER: At first they realized enormous profits, but at length they fell into the common poverty.
SON: How did that happen?
FATHER: Look at that ruin. That was a magnificent mansion-house surrounded with a beautiful park. If Paris had continued to progress. Master Peter would have realized more interest than his entire capital now amounts to.
SON: How can that be, seeing he has got rid of competition?
FATHER: Competition in selling has disappeared, but competition in buying has disappeared also, and will continue every day to disappear more and more until Paris becomes a bare field, and until the copses of Master Peter have no more value than the copses of an equal extent of land in the Forest of Bondy. It is thus that monopoly, like every other system of injustice, carries in itself its own punishment.
SON: That appears to me not very clear, but the decadence of Paris is an incontestable fact. Is there no means, then, of counteracting this singular measure that Peter and his colleagues got adopted twenty years ago?
FATHER: I am going to tell you a secret. I remain in Paris on purpose. I shall call in the people to my assistance. It rests with them to replace the octroi on its ancient basis, and get quit of that fatal principle which was engrafted on it, and which still vegetates there like a parasitical fungus.
Son: You must succeed in this at once.
Father: On the contrary, the work will be difficult and laborious. Peter, Paul, and John understand one another marvellously. They will do anything rather than allow firewood, butter, and butchers' meat to enter Paris. They have on their side the people, who see clearly the employment which these three protected branches of industry afford. They know well to what extent the cowfeeders and wood-merchants give employment to labour; but they have by no means the same exact idea of the labour which would be developed in the open air of liberty.
Son: If that is all, you will soon enlighten them.
Father:At your age, my son, no doubts arise. If I write, the people will not read; for, to support their miserable existence, they have not much time at their disposal. If I speak, the magistrates will shut my mouth. The people, therefore, will long remain under their fatal mistake. Political parties, whose hopes are founded on popular passions, will set themselves, not to dissipate their prejudices, but to make merchandise of them. I shall have to combat at one and the same time the great men of the day, the people, and their leaders. In truth, I see a frightful storm ready to burst over the head of the bold man who shall venture to protest against an iniquity so deeply rooted in this country.
Son: You will have truth and justice on your side.
Father: And they will have force and calumny on theirs. Were I but young again! but age and suffering have exhausted my strength.
Son: Very well, father; what strength remains to you, devote to the service of the country. Begin this work of enfranchisement, and leave to me the care of finishing it.
JACQUES BONHOMME: Parisians, let us insist upon a refonn of the octroi duties; let us demand that they be instantly brought down to the former rate. Let every citizen be free to buy his firewood, butter, and butchers' meat where he sees fit.
THE PEOPLE: Vive, vive LA LIBERTÉ!
PETER: Parisians, don't allow yourselves to be seduced by that word, liberty. What good can result from liberty to purchase if you want the means—in other words, if you are out of employment? Can Paris produce firewood as cheaply as the Forest of Bondy? meat as cheaply as Poitou? butter as cheaply as Normandy? If you open your gates freely to these rival products, what will become of the cowfeeders, woodcutters, and pork-butchers? They cannot dispense with protection.
THE PEOPLE: Vive, vive LA PROTECTION!
JACQUES BONHOMME: Protection! but who protects you workmen? Do you not compete with one another? Let the wood-merchants, then, be subject to competition in their turn. They ought not to have right by law to raise the price of firewood, unless the rate of wages is also raised by law. Are you no longer in love with equality?
THE PEOPLE: Vive, vive L'EGALITÉ!
PETER: Don't listen to these agitators. We have, it is true, raised the price of firewood, butchers' meat, and butter; but we have done so for the express purpose of being enabled to give good wages to the workmen. We are actuated by motives of charity.
THE PEOPLE: Vive, vive LA CHARITÉ!
JACQUES BONHOMME. Cause the rate of wages to be raised by the octroi, if you can, or cease by the same means to raise the prices of commodities. We Parisians ask for no charity—we demand justice.
THE PEOPLE: Vive, vive LA JUSTICE!
PETER It is precisely the high price of commodities which will lead, par ricochet, to a rise of wages.
THE PEOPLE: Vive, vive LA CHERTÉ!
JACQUES BONHOMME: If butter is dear, it is not because you pay high wages to the workmen, it is not even because you make exorbitant profits; it is solely because Paris is ill-adapted for that branch of industry; it is because you wish to make in the town what should be made in the country, and in the country what should be made in the town. The people have not more employment—only they have employment of a different kind. They have no higher wages; while they can no longer buy commodities as cheaply as formerly.
THE PEOPLE: Vive, vive LE BON MARCHÉ!
PETER: This man seduces you with fine words. Let us place the question before you in all its simplicity. Is it, or is it not, true, that if we admit firewood, meat, and butter freely or at a lower duty, our markets will be inundated? Believe me there is no other means of preserving ourselves from this new species of invasion but to keep the door shut, and so maintain the prices of commodities by rendering them artificially rare.
SOME VOICES IN THE CROWD : Vive, vive LA RARETÉ!
JACQUES BONHOMME: Let us bring the question to the simple test of truth. You cannot divide among the people of Paris commodities which are not in Paris. If there be less meat, less firewood, less butter, the share falling to each will be smaller. Now there must be less if we prohibit what should be allowed to enter the city. Parisians, abundance for each of you can be secured only by general abundance.
THE PEOPLE: Vive, vive L'ABONDANCE!
PETER: It is in vain that this man tries to persuade you that it is your interest to be subjected to unbridled competition.
THE PEOPLE: A bas, à bas LA CONCURRENCE!
JACQUES BONHOMME: It is in vain that this man tries to make you fall in love with restriction.
THE PEOPLE: A bas, à bas LA RESTRICTION!
PETER: I declare, for my own part, if you deprive the poor cowfeeders and pig-drivers of their daily bread, I can no longer be answerable for public order. Workmen, distrust that man. He is the agent of perfidious Normandy, and derives his inspiration from the provinces. He is a traitor; down with him! (The people preserve silence)
JACQUES BONHOMME: Parisians, what I have told you to-day, I told you twenty years ago, when Peter set himself to work the octroi for his own profit and to your detriment. I am not, then, the agent of Normandy. Hang me up, if you will, but that will not make oppression anything else than oppression. Friends, it is not Jacques or Peter that you must put an end to, but liberty if you fear it, or restriction if it does you harm.
THE PEOPLE: Hang nobody, and set everybody free.
- ↑ "Auriculas asini Mida rex habet"—Persius, sat. i. The line as given in the text is from Dryden's translation.—TRANSLATOR.
- ↑ See Molière's play of The Misanthrope.—Translator.
- ↑ See Molière's play of L'Avare.—TRANSLATOR.
- ↑ Possessing some landed property, on which he lives, he belongs to the protected class. This circumstance should disarm criticism. It shows that if he uses hard words, they are directed against the thing itself, and not against men's intentions or motives.
- ↑ Sophisunes Économiqties, fiivt series, ch. v. ante.
- ↑ See chap. xii. of Sophismes, second series, post.