Reply: "Restriction prohibits all that it hinders from being imported.":
If any one says that agriculture is the nursing-mother of the country,
Reply: "What nourishes the country is not exactly agriculture, but corn."
If any one tells you that the basis of the food of the people is agriculture,
Reply: "The basis of the people's food is corn. This is the reason why a law which gives us, by agricultural labour, two quarters of corn, when we could have obtained four quarters without such labour, and by means of labour applied4 to manufactures, is a law not for feeding, but for starving the people." If any one remarks that restriction upon the importation of foreign corn gives rise to a more extensive culture, and consequently to increased home production,
Reply: "It induces men to sow grain on comparatively barren and ungrateful soils. To milk a cow and go on milking her, puts a little more into the pail, for it is difficult to say when you will come to the last drop. But that drop costs dear."
If any one tells you that when bread is dear, the agriculturist, having become rich, enriches the manufacturer,
Reply: "Bread is dear when it is scarce, and then men are poor, or, if you like it better, they become rich starvelings."
If you are further told that when bread gets dearer, wages rise, Reply by pointing out that, in April 1847, five-sixths of our workmen were receiving charity,
If you are told that the wages of labour should rise with the increased price of provisions,
Reply: "This is as much as to say that in a ship without provisions, everybody will have as much biscuit as if the vessel5 were fully6 victualled."
If you are told that it is necessary to secure a good price to the man who sells corn,
Reply: "That in that case it is also necessary to secure good wages to the man who buys it."
If it is said that the proprietors7, who make the laws, have raised the price of bread, without taking thought about wages, because they know that when bread rises, wages naturally rise, Reply: "Upon the same principle, when the workmen come to make the laws, don't blame them if they fix a high rate of wages without busying themselves about protecting corn, because they know that when wages rise, provisions naturally rise also."
If you are asked what, then, is to be done?
Reply: "Be just to everybody."
If you are told that it is essential that every great country should produce iron,
Reply: "What is essential is, that every great country should have iron."
If you are told that it is indispensable that every great country should produce cloth,
Reply: "The indispensable thing is, that the citizens of every great country should have cloth."
If it be said that labour is wealth,
Reply: "This is not true."
And, by way of improvement, add: "Phlebotomy is not health, and the proof of it is that bleeding is resorted to for the purpose of restoring health."
If it is said: "To force men to cultivate rocks, and extract an ounce of iron from a hundredweight of ore, is to increase their labour and consequently their wealth,"
Reply: "To force men to dig wells by prohibiting them from taking water from the brook8, is to increase their useless labour, but not their wealth."
If you are told that the sun gives you his heat and light without remuneration,
Reply: "So much the better for me, for it costs me nothing to see clearly."
And if you are answered that industry in general loses what would have been paid for artificial light,
Rejoin; "No; for having paid nothing to the sun, what he saves me enables me to buy clothes, furniture, and candles."
Reply: "So much the better for us; they will not make us pay interest for it."
If it is said: "These perfidious11 English find coal and iron in the same pit,"
Reply: "So much the better for us; they will charge us nothing for bringing them together."
If you are told that the Swiss have rich pasturages, which cost little:
Reply: "The advantage is ours, for they will demand a smaller amount of our labour in return for giving an impetus12 to our agriculture, and supplying us with provisions."
If they tell you that the lands of the Crimea have no value, and pay no taxes,
Reply: "The profit is ours, who buy corn free from such charges."
If they tell you that the serfs of Poland work without wages,
Reply: "The misfortune is theirs and the profit is ours, since their labour does not enter into the price of the corn which their masters sell us."
Finally, if they tell you that other nations have many advantages over us,
Reply: "By means of exchange, they are forced to allow us to participate in these advantages."
If they tell you that under free-trade we are about to be inundated13 with bread, bouf à la mode, coal, and winter clothing, Reply: "In that case we shall be neither hungry nor thirsty."
If they ask how we are to pay for these things?
Reply: "Don't let that disquiet14 you. If we are inundated, it is a sign we have the means of paying for the inundation15; and if we have not the means of paying, we shall not be inundated."
If any one says: I should approve of free-trade, if the foreigner, in sending us his products, would take our products in exchange; but he carries off our money,
Reply: "Neither money nor coffee grows in the fields of Beauce, nor are they turned out by the workshops of Elbeuf. So far as we are concerned, to pay the foreigner with money is the same thing as paying him with coffee."
If they bid you eat butcher's meat,
Reply: "Allow it to be imported."
If they say to you, in the words of the Presse, "When one has not the means to buy bread, he is forced to buy beef," Reply: "This is advice quite as judicious16 as that given by M. Vautour to his tenant17:
"'Quand on n'a pas de quoi payer son terme,
Il faut avoir une maison à soi.'"
If, again, they say to you, in the words of La Presse, "The government should teach the people how and why they must eat beef,"
Reply: "The government has only to allow the beef to be imported, and the most civilized18 people in the world will know how to use it without being taught by a master."
If they tell you that the government should know everything, and foresee everything, in order to direct the people, and that the people have simply to allow themselves to be led, Reply by asking: "Is there a state apart from the people? is there a human foresight19 apart from humanity? Archimedes might repeat every day of his life, 'With a fulcrum20 and lever I can move the world;' but he never did move it, for want of a fulcrum and lever. The lever of the state is the nation; and nothing can be more foolish than to found so many hopes upon the state, which is simply to take for granted the existence of collective science and foresight, after having set out with the assumption of individual imbecility and improvidence21."
If any one says, "I ask no favour, but only such a duty on bread and meat as shall compensate22 the heavy taxes to which I am subjected; only a small duty equal to what the taxes add to the cost price of my corn,"
Reply: "A thousand pardons; but I also pay taxes. If, then, the protection which you vote in your own favour has the effect of burdening me as a purchaser of corn with exactly your share of the taxes, your modest demand amounts to nothing less than establishing this arrangement as formulated23 by you:
Seeing that the public charges are heavy, I, as a seller of corn, am to pay nothing, and you my neighbour, as a buyer of corn, are to pay double, viz., your own share and mine into the bargain.' Mr Corn-merchant, my good friend, you may have force at your command, but assuredly you have not reason on your side."
If any one says to you, "It is, however, exceedingly hard upon me, who pay taxes, to have to compete in my own market with the foreigner, who pays none,
Reply:
"1st, In the first place, it is not your market, but our market. I who live upon corn and pay for it, should surely be taken into account.
"3d, If the taxes you vote yield you in roads, canals, security, etc., more than they cost you, you are not justified25 in repelling26, at my expense, the competition of foreigners, who, if they do not pay taxes, have not the advantages you enjoy in roads, canals, and security. You might as well say, 'I demand a compensating27 duty because I have finer clothes, stronger horses, and better ploughs than the hard-working peasant of Russia.'
"4th, If the tax does not repay you for what it costs, don't vote it.
"5th, In short, after having voted the tax, do you wish to get free from it? Try to frame a law which will throw it on the foreigner. But your tariff28 makes your share of it fall upon me, who have already my own burden to bear."
If any one says, "For the Russians free-trade is necessary to enable them to exchange their products with advantage," (Opinion de M. Thiers dans les Bureaux, April 1847),
Reply: "Liberty is necessary everywhere, and for the same reason."
If you are told, "Each country has its wants, and we must be guided by that in what we do." (M. Thiers),
Reply: "Each country acts thus of its own accord, if you don't throw obstacles in the way."
If they tell you, "We have no sheet-iron, and we must allow it to be imported," (M. Thiers),
Reply: "Many thanks."
If you are told, "We have no freights for our merchant shipping29. The want of return cargoes30 prevents our shipping from competing with foreigners," (M. Thiers),
Reply: "When a country wishes to have everything produced at home, there can be no freights either for exports or imports. It is just as absurd to desire to have a mercantile marine31 under a system of prohibition, as it would be to have carts when there is nothing to carry."
If you are told that assuming protection to be unjust, everything has been arranged on that footing; capital has been embarked32; rights have been acquired; and the system cannot be changed without suffering to individuals and classes,
Reply: "All injustice33 is profitable to somebody (except, perhaps, restriction, which in the long run benefits no one). To argue from the derangement34 which the cessation of injustice may occasion to the man who profits by it, is as much as to say that a system of injustice, for no other reason than that it has had a temporary existence, ought to exist for ever."
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1
inflexible
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| adj.不可改变的，不受影响的，不屈服的 | |
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prohibition
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| n.禁止；禁令，禁律 | |
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restriction
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| n.限制，约束 | |
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applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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proprietors
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| n.所有人，业主( proprietor的名词复数 ) | |
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brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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rascally
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| adj. 无赖的，恶棍的 adv. 无赖地，卑鄙地 | |
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dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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perfidious
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| adj.不忠的，背信弃义的 | |
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impetus
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| n.推动，促进，刺激；推动力 | |
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inundated
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| v.淹没( inundate的过去式和过去分词 )；（洪水般地）涌来；充满；给予或交予（太多事物）使难以应付 | |
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disquiet
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| n.担心，焦虑 | |
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inundation
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| n.the act or fact of overflowing | |
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judicious
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| adj.明智的，明断的，能作出明智决定的 | |
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tenant
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| n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用 | |
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civilized
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| a.有教养的，文雅的 | |
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foresight
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| n.先见之明，深谋远虑 | |
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fulcrum
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| n.杠杆支点 | |
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improvidence
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| n.目光短浅 | |
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compensate
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| vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消 | |
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formulated
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| v.构想出( formulate的过去式和过去分词 )；规划；确切地阐述；用公式表示 | |
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exempt
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| adj.免除的；v.使免除；n.免税者，被免除义务者 | |
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justified
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| a.正当的，有理的 | |
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repelling
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| v.击退( repel的现在分词 )；使厌恶；排斥；推开 | |
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compensating
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| 补偿，补助，修正 | |
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tariff
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| n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表 | |
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shipping
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| n.船运（发货，运输，乘船） | |
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cargoes
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| n.（船或飞机装载的）货物( cargo的名词复数 )；大量，重负 | |
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marine
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| adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵 | |
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embarked
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| 乘船( embark的过去式和过去分词 )； 装载； 从事 | |
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injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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derangement
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| n.精神错乱 | |
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