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Above, beneath, around his hapless head,
Trees of all kinds delicious fruitage spread;
There figs, sky-dyed, a purple hue disclose;
Green looks the olive, the pomegranate glows;
There dangling pears exalted scents unfold,
And yellow apples ripen into gold.

The fruit he strives to seize; but blasts arise,

Toss it on high, and whirl it to the skies."-Pope's Odyssey.

For nineteen twentieths, nay the whole of the community, production is the condition precedent of consumption. That which a nation can consume in a year is its annual product. Strike to the earth a third part of its industries, and you by the very act strike off a third of the average individual income. The economist who is not aware of these things has studied to little purpose either Adam Smith or J. B. Say he has gathered in their chaff, and left the wheat untouched. Abundance is impossible to the man of the empty purse.

After the Bastiat fashion, I will offer a dilemma to the free-traders. Either they know the above, or they do not know it. If they know it, they must cease' preaching freetrade; if they do not know it, they should come to the people of the United States to learn, but not to teach, political economy.

Chapter II. is entitled "Obstacle - Cause."

In this chapter Bastiat misses entirely the perception of the protectionist doctrine, which is not that wants are riches, or that labor is riches, but that the ability to satisfy wants is riches. The gross annual product of the nation being A, will not be diminished by the introduction of machinery. It will be diminished by substituting a foreign for a domestic product, unless the foreign product is so much cheaper as to immensely increase consumption in spite of the diminished means of purchase, and unless also the relations of the two nations financially are such that the imports will be paid for by exports: and even then the new arrangement leaves the country less independent; withdraws from it the possi

bility-nay, probability-of afterwards reducing the cost by increased skill and by invention; lessens the diversification of industries; and takes from the nation the incidental advantages which often spring from the stimulating effect of one industry upon others. Who can measure the effect in the United States of the introduction of the cotton manufacture upon the other industries in which machinery assists labor? If we had never had the cotton manufacture, it is not likely that even our agriculture would have reached anything like its present efficiency; and many other arts would probably not have been acquired at all up to the present day.

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In this chapter Bastiat says, with italics, that "labor is never without employment.' This is flying in the face of facts with a vengeance. What can be the value of the method of reasoning which conducts a clever man to such a conclusion in spite of his eyes and ears?

Chapter III. is entitled "Effort - Result.

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In this chapter Bastiat quotes a number of French legislators; and if he quotes them correctly, the reasons they gave for their votes or measures were not very wise, and furnished an opportunity for an easy victory. But it often happens that practical men are not introspective, not accustomed to put into words the real reasons which underlie their actions. When called upon to do so, they fumble about in their minds, and end in producing, not their real reason, but some very inadequate substitute of it. A "smart" writer like M. Bastiat at once falls upon their alleged reasons, demolishes them, and concludes that their authors were fools, when very likely they were in reality far wiser than he who felt himself entitled to sit in judgment. It may well be, taking all things into consideration, that the opulence of France, altogether, is increased rather than diminished by herself producing iron at sixteen francs which she could buy of England at eight: her safety and independence are certainly promoted.

Chapter IV. is entitled "Equalizing of the Facilities of Production."

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M. Bastiat first quarrels with the phrase, which has not certainly mathematical exactitude, but which can easily enough be understood by any one whose object is to get at ideas, and not to triumph over words. It means that where one nation has an advantage over another as to cheapness of production, such as Great Britain has over the United States by reason of cheaper labor, not yet compensated by greater skill upon our part, she can beat down and annihilate our efforts to help ourselves and to acquire greater skill. She has been prevented from doing this by our protective duties; and in many articles we have already acquired a skill sufficient to give us here at home the articles, even at a cheaper monied price than we could import them. In some we have not succeeded as yet so well; and in some we probably never shall, so long as we strive to keep up among us that higher rate of real wages which is our chief hope for the future. But the higher price will be much more than compensated to the nation by the double production provoked by a home exchange, as against the single production provoked by a foreign exchange; as also by our greater security both in peace and in war, and also by the incidental stimulus which one industry gives to others.

Bastiat says that in this case, as in all, "the protectionists favor the producer, while the poor consumer seems entirely to have escaped their attention." He seems to forget that nearly all of the poor consumers are consumers only in consequence of their being able to produce; and that those few who do not produce themselves are dependent upon the profits of productive instruments, which would cease to yield a profit if the producing consumers could not produce, and therefore could not consume. If the consumers' means of buying were rained down miraculously from the sky, the Bastiat philosophy might be excellent; but as long as their means of buying are entirely dependent upon their first producing, it would seem that the individual should be considered in both relations.

Bastiat contends, first, that equalizing the facilities of production is to attack the foundations of all trade.

To attempt to equalize all facilities—say, rather, to counter balance all advantages-might be open to his objection. But the American protectionist, for whose conversion the volume under review was published, does not propose to compensate great differences growing out of soil and climate. He does not propose to grow pineapples under glass at ten times the cost of importation, nor to do any other of the like absurdities imagined by Bastiat. What he does propose is, to balance the altogether artificial advantages arising out of accidental superiority in skill until we can ourselves acquire the like skill; to balance the difference arising out of our dearer labor and capital; and to protect our industries from the mischievous attacks in which products are sold under cost for the very object of destroying competitors. We have full faith that the competition of fifty millions of people will suffice to bring as low prices and as much skill as are possible under the circumstances; and that the result will be that we shall produce everything which our climate and soil permit at considerably less sacrifice of labor and abstinence than the same things cost when brought from abroad.

M. Bastiat says, second, that it is not true that the labor of one country can be crushed by the competition of more favored climates.

But it is quite true that domestic arts and manufactures, which are most important to possess, can be crushed by the competition of countries having cheaper labor and equal or greater skill. If he meant his No. 2 to assert or insinuate the contrary, the hardihood of the assertion or insinuation would hardly require an answer. Deductive reasoning shows that it can, and history shows that it does.

He says, third, that protective duties cannot equalize the facilities of production; fourth, that freedom of trade equalizes these conditions as much as possible; and, fifth, that the countries which are the least favored by nature are those which profit most by freedom of trade.

In all this he chooses to misunderstand what is meant by equalizing the facilities of production. This is simple trifling. Next he exemplifies his position by supposing a case of Pari

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sian speculators producing oranges at ten times the cost of importing them from Portugal, and being protected by a duty of nine hundred per cent. This is also trifling: it has nothing to do whatever with any actual question as to protection. Then follow several excellent paragraphs, showing how any improvement in production spreads itself to the advantage of the whole community, and showing how natural advantages, and also, finally, the advantages arising from inventions, come to be enjoyed by consumers gratis, they paying only the necessary wages of labor and abstinence. But after all those excellent and really eloquent paragraphs comes this:

"Hence we see the enormous absurdity of the consuming country, which rejects produce precisely because it is cheap. It is as though we should say, 'We will have nothing of that which Nature gives you. You ask of us an effort equal to two, in order to furnish ourselves with articles only attainable at home by an effort equal to four. You can do it because with you Nature does half the work. But we will have nothing to do with it; we will wait till your climate, becoming more inclement, forces you to ask of us a labor equal to four, and then we . can treat with you upon an equal footing." "

This is one of Bastiat's extreme cases, but under certain circumstances it would not be altogether so absurd as he appears to imagine, e. g. :

The products in which the United States have an advantage are agricultural. They can produce enough for themselves. and as much more. Call the possible product 2 A. Suppose that what they cannot produce except at a double effort are mechanical and manufactured products. Call these M. There is a foreign demand for A. Under free trade there can be produced and imported 11 A; M imported being equal to

A; and the country will have for consumption A+ M. Now remove one half of the population from agriculture to the mechanical and manufacturing arts. The half who are left can still produce 1 A, or enough agricultural products for the whole population; and the other half can produce M by a double effort. There will then be for consumption A+M, notwithstanding the double effort. But suppose

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