The Bordeaux petitioners take no labour into account but that of the manufacturers; and for that reason they would admit them to the benefits of protection.
"Raw materials are commodities upon which no human labour has been bestowed. In principle, we should not tax them. Manufactured products can no longer serve the cause of national industry, and we regard them as the best subjects for taxation."
It is not our business in this place to inquire whether protection to national industry is reasonable. M. de Saint-Cricq and the Bordeaux gentlemen are at one upon this point, and, as we have shown in the preceding chapters, we on this subject differ from both.
Our present business is to discover whether it is by M. de Saint-Cricq, or by the Bordeaux petitioners, that the word labour is used in a correct sense.
Now, in this view of the question, we think that M. de Saint-Cricq has very much the best of it; and to prove this, we may suppose them to hold some such dialogue as the following:—
M. de Saint-Cricq: You grant that national labour should be protected. You grant that the products of no foreign labour can be introduced into our market without superseding a corresponding amount of our national labour. Only, you contend that there are a multiplicity of products possessed of value (for they sell), but upon which no human labour has been bestowed [vierges de tout travail humain]. And you enumerate, among other things, com, flour, meat, cattle, tallow, salt, iron, copper, lead, coal, wools, hides, seeds, etc.
If you will only prove to me that the value of these things is not due to labour, I will grant that it is useless to protect them.
But, on the other hand, if I demonstrate to you that there is as much labour worked up in a 100 fr. worth of wool as in a 100 fr. worth of textile fabrics, you will allow that the one is as worthy of protection as the other.
Now, why is this sack of wool worth 100 fr.? Is it not because that is its cost price? and what does its cost price represent, but the aggregate wages of all the labour, and profits of all the capital, which have contributed to the production of the commodity?
The Bordeaux Petitioners: Well, perhaps as regards wool you may be right. But take the case of a sack of corn, a bar of iron, a hundredweight of coals,—are these commodities produced by labour? Are they not created by nature?