Sophisms of the Protectionists Part 33

_Friday._ What difference does that make, if we have the game?

_Robinson._ Theory! It will not be the product of our labor.

_Friday._ Yes, it will, since we will have to give vegetables to get it.

_Robinson._ Then what shall we make?

_Friday._ The four hampers of game cost us six hours' labor. The stranger gives them to us for two baskets of vegetables, which take us but three hours. Thus three hours remain at our disposal.

_Robinson._ Say rather that they are taken from our activity. There is our loss. _Labor is wealth_, and if we lose a fourth of our time we are one-fourth poorer.

_Friday._ Friend, you make an enormous mistake. The same amount of game and vegetables and three free hours to boot make progress, or there is none in the world.

_Robinson._ Mere generalities. What will we do with these three hours?

_Friday._ We will do _something else_.

_Robinson._ Ah, now I have you. You can specify nothing. It is very easy to say _something else--something else_.

_Friday._ We will fish. We will adorn our houses. We will read the Bible.

_Robinson._ Utopia! Is it certain that we will do this rather than that?

_Friday._ Well, if we have no wants, we will rest. Is rest nothing?

_Robinson._ When one rests one dies of hunger.

_Friday._ Friend, you are in a vicious circle. I speak of a rest which diminishes neither our gains nor our vegetables. You always forget that by means of our commerce with this stranger, nine hours of labor will give us as much food as twelve now do.

_Robinson._ It is easy to see that you were not reared in Europe.

Perhaps you have never read the _Moniteur Industriel_? It would have taught you this: "All time saved is a dear loss. Eating is not the important matter, but working. Nothing which we consume counts, if it is not the product of our labor. Do you wish to know whether you are rich?

Do not look at your comforts, but at your trouble." This is what the _Moniteur Industriel_ would have taught you. I, who am not a theorist, see but the loss of our hunting.

_Friday._ What a strange perversion of ideas. But--

_Robinson._ No _buts_. Besides, there are political reasons for rejecting the interested offers of this perfidious stranger.

_Friday._ Political reasons!

_Robinson._ Yes. In the first place he makes these offers only because they are for his advantage.

_Friday._ So much the better, since they are for ours also.

_Robinson._ Then by these exchanges we shall become dependent on him.

_Friday._ And he on us. We need his game, he our vegetables, and we will live in good friends.h.i.+p.

_Robinson._ Fancy! Do you want I should leave you without an answer?

_Friday._ Let us see; I am still waiting a good reason.

_Robinson._ Supposing that the stranger learns to cultivate a garden, and that his island is more fertile than ours. Do you see the consequences?

_Friday._ Yes. Our relations with the stranger will stop. He will take no more vegetables from us, since he can get them at home with less trouble. He will bring us no more game, since we will have nothing to give in exchange, and we will be then just where you want us to be now.

_Robinson._ Short-sighted savage! You do not see that after having destroyed our hunting, by inundating us with game, he will kill our gardening by overwhelming us with vegetables.

_Friday._ But he will do that only so long as we give him _something else_; that is to say, so long as we find _something else_ to produce, which will economize our labor.

_Robinson._ _Something else--something else!_ You always come back to that. You are very vague, friend Friday; there is nothing practical in your views.

The contest lasted a long time, and, as often happens, left each one convinced that he was right. However, Robinson having great influence over Friday, his views prevailed, and when the stranger came for an answer, Robinson said to him:

"Stranger, in order that your proposition may be accepted, we must be quite sure of two things:

"The first is, that your island is not richer in game than ours, for we will struggle but with _equal arms_.

"The second is, that you will lose by the bargain. For, as in every exchange there is necessarily a gainer and a loser, we would be cheated, if you were not. What have you to say?".

"Nothing, nothing," replied the stranger, who burst out laughing, and returned to his canoe.

--The story would not be bad if Robinson was not so foolish.

--He is no more so than the committee in Hauteville street.

--Oh, there is a great difference. You suppose one solitary man, or, what comes to the same thing, two men living together. This is not our world; the diversity of occupations, and the intervention of merchants and money, change the question materially.

--All this complicates transactions, but does not change their nature.

--What! Do you propose to compare modern commerce to mere exchanges?

--Commerce is but a mult.i.tude of exchanges; the real nature of the exchange is identical with the real nature of commerce, as small labor is of the same nature with great, and as the gravitation which impels an atom is of the same nature as that which attracts a world.

--Thus, according to you, these arguments, which in Robinson's mouth are so false, are no less so in the mouths of our protectionists?

--Yes; only error is hidden better under the complication of circ.u.mstances.

--Well, now, select some instance from what has actually occurred.

--Very well; in France, in view of custom and the exigencies of the climate, cloth is an useful article. Is it the essential thing _to make it, or to have it_?

--A pretty question! To have it, we must make it.

--That is not necessary. It is certain that to have it some one must make it; but it is not necessary that the person or country using it should make it. You did not produce that which clothes you so well, nor France the coffee it uses for breakfast.

--But I purchased my cloth, and France its coffee.

--Exactly, and with what?