XV. THE LITTLE ARSENAL OF THE FREE TRADER.

 —If they say to you: There are no absolute principles; prohibition¹ may be bad, and restriction² good—

 

Reply: Restriction prohibits all that it keeps from coming in.

 

—If they say to you: Agriculture is the nursing mother of the country—

 

Reply: That which feeds a country is not exactly agriculture, but grain.

 

—If they say to you: The basis of the sustenance³ of the people is agriculture—

 

Reply: The basis of the sustenance of the people is grain. Thus a law which causes two bushels of grain to be obtained by agricultural labor⁴ at the expense of four bushels, which the same labor would have produced but for it, far from being a law of sustenance, is a law of starvation.

 

—If they say to you: A restriction on the admission of foreign grain leads to more cultivation⁵, and, consequently, to a greater home production—

 

Reply: It leads to sowing on the rocks of the mountains and the sands of the sea. To milk and steadily⁶ milk, a cow gives more milk; for who can tell the moment when not a drop more can be obtained? But the drop costs dear.

 

—If they say to you: Let bread be dear, and the wealthy farmer will enrich the artisans—

 

Reply: Bread is dear when there is little of it, a thing which can make but poor, or, if you please, rich people who are starving.

 

—If they insist on it, saying: When food is dear, wages rise—

 

Reply by showing that in April, 1847, five-sixths of the workingmen were beggars.

 

—If they say to you: The profits of the workingmen must rise with the dearness of food—

 

Reply: This is equivalent to saying that in an unprovisioned vessel⁷ everybody has the same number of biscuits whether he has any or not.

 

—If they say to you: A good price must be secured for those who sell grain—

 

Reply: Certainly; but good wages must be secured to those who buy it.

 

—If they say to you: The land owners, who make the law, have raised the price of food without troubling themselves about wages, because they know that when food becomes dear, wages naturally rise—

 

Reply: On this principle, when workingmen come to make the law, do not blame them if they fix a high rate of wages without troubling themselves to protect grain, for they know that if wages are raised, articles of food will naturally rise in price.

 

—If they say to you: What, then, is to be done?

 

Reply: Be just to everybody.

 

—If they say to you: It is essential that a great country should manufacture iron—

 

Reply: The most essential thing is that this great country should have iron.

 

—If they say to you: It is necessary that a great country should manufacture cloth.

 

Reply: It is more necessary that the citizens of this great country should have cloth.

 

—If they say to you: Labor is wealth—

 

Reply: It is false.

 

And, by way of developing this, add: A bleeding is not health, and the proof of it is, that it is done to restore health.

 

—If they say to you: To compel men to work over rocks and get an ounce of iron from a ton of ore, is to increase their labor, and, consequently, their wealth—

 

Reply: To compel men to dig wells, by denying them the use of river water, is to add to their useless labor, but not their wealth.

 

—If they say to you: The sun gives his heat and light without requiring remuneration—

 

Reply: So much the better for me, since it costs me nothing to see distinctly.

 

—And if they reply to you: Industry in general loses what you would have paid for lights—

 

Retort: No, for having paid nothing to the sun, I use that which it saves me in paying for clothes, furniture and candles.

 

—So, if they say to you: These English rascals⁸ have capital which pays them nothing—

 

Reply: So much the better for us; they will not make us pay interest.

 

—If they say to you: These perfidious⁹ Englishmen find iron and coal at the same spot—

 

Reply: So much the better for us; they will not make us pay anything for bringing them together.

 

—If they say to you: The Swiss have rich pastures which cost little—

 

Reply: The advantage is on our side, for they will ask for a lesser¹⁰ quantity of our labor to furnish our farmers oxen and our stomachs food.

 

—If they say to you: The lands in the Crimea are worth nothing, and pay no taxes—

 

Reply: The gain is on our side, since we buy grain free from those charges.

 

—If they say to you: The serfs of Poland work without wages—

 

Reply: The loss is theirs and the gain is ours, since their labor is deducted¹¹ from the price of the grain which their masters sell us.

 

—Then, if they say to you: Other nations have many advantages over us—

 

Reply: By exchange, they are forced to let us share in them.

 

—If they say to you: With liberty we shall be swamped with bread, beef a la mode, coal, and coats—

 

Reply: We shall be neither cold nor hungry.

 

—If they say to you: With what shall we pay?

 

Reply: Do not be troubled about that. If we are to be inundated¹², it will be because we are able to pay. If we cannot pay we will not be inundated.

 

—If they say to you: I would allow free trade, if a stranger, in bringing us one thing, took away another; but he will carry off our specie—

 

Reply: Neither specie nor coffee grow in the fields of Beauce or come out of the manufactories of Elbeuf. For us to pay a foreigner with specie is like paying him with coffee.

 

—If they say to you: Eat meat—

 

Reply: Let it come in.

 

—If they say to you, like the Presse: When you have not the money to buy bread with, buy beef—

 

Reply: This advice is as wise as that of Vautour to his tenant¹³, "If a person has not money to pay his rent with, he ought to have a house of his own."

 

—If they say to you, like the Presse: The State ought to teach the people why and how it should eat meat—

 

Reply: Only let the State allow the meat free entrance, and the most civilized¹⁴ people in the world are old enough to learn to eat it without any teacher.

 

—If they say to you: The State ought to know everything, and foresee everything, to guide the people, and the people have only to let themselves be guided—

 

Reply: Is there a State outside of the people, and a human foresight¹⁵ outside of humanity? Archimedes might have repeated all the days of his life, "With a lever and a fulcrum¹⁶ I will move the world," but he could not have moved it, for want of those two things. The fulcrum of the State is the nation, and nothing is madder than to build so many hopes on the State; that is to say, to assume a collective science and foresight, after having established individual folly¹⁷ and short-sightedness.

 

—If they say to you: My God! I ask no favors, but only a duty on grain and meat, which may compensate¹⁸ for the heavy taxes to which France is subjected; a mere¹⁹ little duty, equal to what these taxes add to the cost of my grain—

 

Reply: A thousand pardons, but I, too, pay taxes. If, then, the protection which you vote yourself results in burdening for me, your grain with your proportion of the taxes, your insinuating²⁰ demand aims at nothing less than the establishment between us of the following arrangement, thus worded by yourself: "Since the public burdens are heavy, I, who sell grain, will pay nothing at all; and you, my neighbor, the buyer, shall pay two parts, to wit, your share and mine." My neighbor, the grain dealer²¹, you may have power on your side, but not reason.

 

—If they say to you: It is, however, very hard for me, a tax payer, to compete in my own market with foreigners who pay none—

 

Reply: First, This is not your market, but our market. I who live on grain, and pay for it, must be counted for something.

 

Secondly²². Few foreigners at this time are free from taxes.

 

Thirdly. If the tax which you vote repays to you, in roads, canals and safety, more than it costs you, you are not justified²³ in driving away, at my expense, the competition of foreigners who do not pay the tax but who do not have the safety, roads and canals. It is the same as saying: I want a compensating²⁴ duty, because I have fine clothes, stronger horses and better plows²⁵ than the Russian laborer²⁶.

 

Fourthly. If the tax does not repay what it costs, do not vote it.

 

Fifthly. If, after you have voted a tax, it is your pleasure to escape its operation, invent a system which will throw it on foreigners. But the tariff²⁷ only throws your proportion on me, when I already have enough of my own.

 

—If they say to you: Freedom of commerce is necessary among the Russians that they may exchange their products with advantage (opinion of M. Thiers, April, 1847)—

 

Reply: This freedom is necessary everywhere, and for the same reason.

 

—If they say to you: Each country has its wants; it is according to that that it must act (M. Thiers)—

 

Reply: It is according to that that it acts of itself when no one hinders it.

 

—If they say to you: Since we have no sheet iron, its admission must be allowed (M. Thiers)—

 

Reply: Thank you, kindly²⁸.

 

—If they say to you: Our merchant marine²⁹ must have freight; owing to the lack of return cargoes³⁰ our vessels³¹ cannot compete with foreign ones—

 

Reply: When you want to do everything at home, you can have cargoes neither going nor coming. It is as absurd to wish for a navy under a prohibitory system as to wish for carts where all transportation is forbidden.

 

—If they say to you: Supposing that protection is unjust, everything is founded on it; there are moneys invested, and rights acquired, and it cannot be abandoned without suffering—

 

Reply: Every injustice³² profits some one (except, perhaps, restriction, which in the long run profits no one), and to use as an argument the disturbance³³ which the cessation of the injustice causes to the person profiting by it, is to say that an injustice, only because it has existed for a moment, should be eternal.

 

1 prohibition   

n.禁止；禁令，禁律

参考例句：

• The prohibition against drunken driving will save many lives.禁止酒后开车将会减少许多死亡事故。
• They voted in favour of the prohibition of smoking in public areas.他们投票赞成禁止在公共场所吸烟。

2 restriction   

n.限制，约束

参考例句：

• The park is open to the public without restriction.这个公园对公众开放，没有任何限制。
• The 30 mph speed restriction applies in all built-up areas.每小时限速30英里适用于所有建筑物聚集区。

3 sustenance   

n.食物，粮食；生活资料；生计

参考例句：

• We derive our sustenance from the land.我们从土地获取食物。
• The urban homeless are often in desperate need of sustenance.城市里无家可归的人极其需要食物来维持生命。

4 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

5 cultivation   

n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成

参考例句：

• The cultivation in good taste is our main objective.培养高雅情趣是我们的主要目标。
• The land is not fertile enough to repay cultivation.这块土地不够肥沃，不值得耕种。

6 steadily   

adv.稳定地；不变地；持续地

参考例句：

• The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
• Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

7 vessel   

n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管

参考例句：

• The vessel is fully loaded with cargo for Shanghai.这艘船满载货物驶往上海。
• You should put the water into a vessel.你应该把水装入容器中。

8 rascals   

流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人

参考例句：

• "Oh, but I like rascals. "唔，不过我喜欢流氓。
• "They're all second-raters, black sheep, rascals. "他们都是二流人物，是流氓，是恶棍。

9 perfidious   

adj.不忠的，背信弃义的

参考例句：

• Their feet will trample on the dead bodies of their perfidious aggressors.他们将从背信弃义的侵略者的尸体上踏过。
• Your perfidious gossip is malicious and dangerous.你说的那些背信弃义的话是很刻毒险恶的。

10 lesser   

adj.次要的，较小的；adv.较小地，较少地

参考例句：

• Kept some of the lesser players out.不让那些次要的球员参加联赛。
• She has also been affected,but to a lesser degree.她也受到波及，但程度较轻。

11 deducted   

v.扣除，减去( deduct的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The cost of your uniform will be deducted from your wages. 制服费将从你的工资中扣除。
• The cost of the breakages will be deducted from your pay. 损坏东西的费用将从你的工资中扣除。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 inundated   

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

参考例句：

• We have been inundated with offers of help. 主动援助多得使我们应接不暇。
• We have been inundated with every bit of information imaginable. 凡是想得到的各种各样的信息潮水般地向我们涌来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 tenant   

n.承租人；房客；佃户；v.租借，租用

参考例句：

• The tenant was dispossessed for not paying his rent.那名房客因未付房租而被赶走。
• The tenant is responsible for all repairs to the building.租户负责对房屋的所有修理。

14 civilized   

a.有教养的，文雅的

参考例句：

• Racism is abhorrent to a civilized society. 文明社会憎恶种族主义。
• rising crime in our so-called civilized societies 在我们所谓文明社会中日益增多的犯罪行为

15 foresight   

n.先见之明，深谋远虑

参考例句：

• The failure is the result of our lack of foresight.这次失败是由于我们缺乏远虑而造成的。
• It required a statesman's foresight and sagacity to make the decision.作出这个决定需要政治家的远见卓识。

16 fulcrum   

n.杠杆支点

参考例句：

• Give me a fulcrum on which to rest,and I will move the earth.给我一个支承的支点，我就会搬动地球。
• The decision is the strategic fulcrum of the budget.这一决定是预算案的战略支点。

17 folly   

n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话

参考例句：

• Learn wisdom by the folly of others.从别人的愚蠢行动中学到智慧。
• Events proved the folly of such calculations.事情的进展证明了这种估计是愚蠢的。

18 compensate   

vt.补偿，赔偿；酬报 vi.弥补；补偿；抵消

参考例句：

• She used her good looks to compensate her lack of intelligence. 她利用她漂亮的外表来弥补智力的不足。
• Nothing can compensate for the loss of one's health. 一个人失去了键康是不可弥补的。

19 mere   

adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过

参考例句：

• That is a mere repetition of what you said before.那不过是重复了你以前讲的话。
• It's a mere waste of time waiting any longer.再等下去纯粹是浪费时间。

20 insinuating   

adj.曲意巴结的，暗示的v.暗示( insinuate的现在分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入

参考例句：

• Are you insinuating that I' m telling a lie ? 你这是意味着我是在说谎吗？ 来自辞典例句
• He is extremely insinuating, but it's a vulgar nature. 他好奉承拍马，那是种庸俗的品格。 来自辞典例句

21 dealer   

n.商人，贩子

参考例句：

• The dealer spent hours bargaining for the painting.那个商人为购买那幅画花了几个小时讨价还价。
• The dealer reduced the price for cash down.这家商店对付现金的人减价优惠。

22 secondly   

adv.第二，其次

参考例句：

• Secondly,use your own head and present your point of view.第二，动脑筋提出自己的见解。
• Secondly it is necessary to define the applied load.其次，需要确定所作用的载荷。

23 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

24 compensating   

补偿，补助，修正

参考例句：

• I am able to set up compensating networks of nerve connections. 我能建立起补偿性的神经联系网。
• It is desirable that compensating cables be run in earthed conduit. 补偿导线最好在地下管道中穿过。

25 plows   

n.犁( plow的名词复数 )；犁型铲雪机v.耕( plow的第三人称单数 )；犁耕；费力穿过

参考例句：

• Alex and Tony were turning awkward hands to plows and hoe handles. 亚历克斯和托尼在犁耙等农活方面都几乎变成新手了。
• Plows are still pulled by oxen in some countries. 在一些国家犁头仍由牛拖拉。

26 laborer   

n.劳动者，劳工

参考例句：

• Her husband had been a farm laborer.她丈夫以前是个农场雇工。
• He worked as a casual laborer and did not earn much.他当临时工，没有赚多少钱。

27 tariff   

n.关税，税率；(旅馆、饭店等)价目表，收费表

参考例句：

• There is a very high tariff on jewelry.宝石类的关税率很高。
• The government is going to lower the tariff on importing cars.政府打算降低进口汽车的关税。

28 kindly   

adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地

参考例句：

• Her neighbours spoke of her as kindly and hospitable.她的邻居都说她和蔼可亲、热情好客。
• A shadow passed over the kindly face of the old woman.一道阴影掠过老太太慈祥的面孔。

29 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

30 cargoes   

n.（船或飞机装载的）货物( cargo的名词复数 )；大量，重负

参考例句：

• This ship embarked cargoes. 这艘船装载货物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The crew lashed cargoes of timber down. 全体船员将木材绑牢。 来自《简明英汉词典》

31 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

32 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

33 disturbance   

n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调

参考例句：

• He is suffering an emotional disturbance.他的情绪受到了困扰。
• You can work in here without any disturbance.在这儿你可不受任何干扰地工作。