Sophisms of the Protectionists Part 29

--Ah, I forgot, I cannot help admiring the ease with which, in certain countries, the most unpopular things are perpetuated by giving them other names.

--Like _consolidated duties_, which have become _indirect contributions_.

--And the _gendarmes_, who have taken the name of _munic.i.p.al guards_.

--In short, trusting to Utopia, you disarm the country.

--I said that I would muster out the army, not that I would disarm the country. I intend, on the contrary, to give it invincible power.

--How do you harmonize this ma.s.s of contradictions?

--I call all the citizens to service.

--Is it worth while to relieve a portion from service in order to call out everybody?

--You did not make me Minister in order that I should leave things as they are. Thus, on my advent to power, I shall say with Richelieu, "the State maxims are changed." My first maxim, the one which will serve as a basis for my administration, is this: Every citizen must know two things--How to earn his own living, and defend his country.

--It seems to me, at the first glance, that there is a spark of good sense in this.

--Consequently, I base the national defense on a law consisting of two sections.

Section First. Every able-bodied citizen, without exception, shall be under arms for four years, from his twenty-first to his twenty-fifth year, in order to receive military instruction.--

--This is pretty economy! You send home four hundred thousand soldiers and call out ten millions.

--Listen to my second section:

SEC. 2. _Unless_ he proves, at the age of twenty-one, that he knows the school of the soldier perfectly.

--I did not expect this turn. It is certain that to avoid four years'

service, there will be a great emulation among our youth, to learn _by the right flank_ and _double quick, march_. The idea is odd.

--It is better than that. For without grieving families and offending equality, does it not a.s.sure the country, in a simple and inexpensive manner, of ten million defenders, capable of defying a coalition of all the standing armies of the globe?

--Truly, if I were not on my guard, I should end in getting interested in your fancies.

_The Utopist, getting excited:_ Thank Heaven, my estimates are relieved of a hundred millions! I suppress the _octroi_. I refund indirect contributions. I--

_Getting more and more excited:_ I will proclaim religious freedom and free instruction. There shall be new resources. I will buy the railroads, pay off the public debt, and starve out the stock gamblers.

--My dear Utopist!

--Freed from too numerous cares, I will concentrate all the resources of the government on the repression of fraud, the administration of prompt and even-handed justice. I--

--My dear Utopist, you attempt too much. The nation will not follow you.

--You gave me the majority.

--I take it back.

--Very well; then I am no longer Minister; but my plans remain what they are--Utopian ideas.

[Footnote 14: The entrance duty levied at the gates of French towns.]

[Footnote 15: I understand M. Bastiat to mean merely that export duties are not necessarily more onerous than import duties. The statement that all taxes are paid by the consumer, is liable to important modifications. An export duty may be laid in such way, and on such articles, that it will be paid wholly by the foreign consumer, without loss to the producing country, but it is only when the additional cost does not lessen the demand, or induce the foreigner to produce the same article. _Translator._]

XII.

SALT, POSTAGE, AND CUSTOMS.

[This chapter is an amusing dialogue relating princ.i.p.ally to English Postal Reform. Being inapplicable to any condition of things existing in the United States, it is omitted.--_Translator._]

XIII.

THE THREE ALDERMEN.

A DEMONSTRATION IN FOUR TABLEAUX.

_First Tableau._

[The scene is in the hotel of Alderman Pierre. The window looks out on a fine park; three persons are seated near a good fire.]

_Pierre._ Upon my word, a fire is very comfortable when the stomach is satisfied. It must be agreed that it is a pleasant thing. But, alas! how many worthy people like the King of Yvetot,

"Blow on their fingers for want of wood."

Unhappy creatures, Heaven inspires me with a charitable thought. You see these fine trees. I will cut them down and distribute the wood among the poor.

_Paul and Jean._ What! gratis?

_Pierre._ Not exactly. There would soon be an end of my good works if I scattered my property thus. I think that my park is worth twenty thousand livres; by cutting it down I shall get much more for it.

_Paul._ A mistake. Your wood as it stands is worth more than that in the neighboring forests, for it renders services which that cannot give.

When cut down it will, like that, be good for burning only, and will not be worth a sou more per cord.

_Pierre._ Oh! Mr. Theorist, you forget that I am a practical man. I supposed that my reputation as a speculator was well enough established to put me above any charge of stupidity. Do you think that I shall amuse myself by selling my wood at the price of other wood?

_Paul._ You must.

_Pierre._ Simpleton!--Suppose I prevent the bringing of any wood to Paris?

_Paul._ That will alter the case. But how will you manage it?

_Pierre._ This is the whole secret. You know that wood pays an entrance duty of ten sous per cord. To-morrow I will induce the Aldermen to raise this duty to one hundred, two hundred, or three hundred livres, so high as to keep out every f.a.got. Well, do you see? If the good people do not want to die of cold, they must come to my wood-yard. They will fight for my wood; I shall sell it for its weight in gold, and this well-regulated deed of charity will enable me to do others of the same sort.