A piece of cloth is worth a hundred francs at Bordeaux. It is impossible to sell it below that without loss. It is impossible to sell it for more than that, for the competition between merchants forbids. Under these circumstances, if a Frenchman desires to buy the cloth, he must pay a hundred francs, or do without it. But if an Englishman comes, the government interferes, and says to the merchant: "Sell your cloth, and I will make the tax-payers give you twenty francs (through the operation of the drawback)." The merchant, who wants, and can get, but one hundred francs for his cloth, delivers it to the Englishman for eighty francs. This sum added to the twenty francs, the product of the bounty robbery, makes up his price. It is then precisely as if the tax-payers had given twenty francs to the Englishman, on condition that he would buy French cloth at twenty francs below the cost of manufacture,—at twenty francs below what it costs us. Then bounty robbery has this peculiarity, that the robbed are inhabitants of the country which allows it, and the robbers are spread over the face of the globe.
It is truly wonderful that they should persist in holding this proposition to have been demonstrated: All that the individual robs from the mass is a general gain. Perpetual motion, the philosopher's stone, and the squaring of the circle, are sunk in oblivion; but the theory of progress by robbery is still held in honor. A priori, however, one might have supposed that it would be the shortest lived of all these follies.
Some say to us: You are, then, partisans of the let alone policy? economists of the superannuated school of the Smiths and the Says? You do not desire the organization of labor? Why, gentlemen, organize labor as much as you please, but we will watch to see that you do not organize robbery.
Others say, bounties, tariffs, all these things may have been overdone. We must use, without abusing them. A wise liberty, combined with moderate protection, is what serious and practical men claim. Let us beware of absolute principles. This is exactly what they said in the Kingdom of A——, according to the Spanish traveler. "Highway robbery," said the wise men, "is neither good nor bad in itself; it depends on circumstances. Perhaps too much freedom of pillage has been given; perhaps not enough. Let us see; let us examine; let us balance the accounts of each robber. To those who do not make enough, we will give a little more road to work up. As for those who make too much, we will reduce their share."
Those who spoke thus acquired great fame for moderation, prudence, and wisdom. They never failed to attain the highest offices of the State.
As for those who said, "Let us repress injustice altogether; let us allow neither robbery, nor half robbery, nor quarter robbery," they passed for theorists, dreamers, bores—always parroting the same thing. The people also found their reasoning too easy to understand. How can that be true which is so very simple?
X.
THE TAX COLLECTOR.
Jacques Bonhomme, Vine-grower.
M. Lasouche, Tax Collector.