I frankly confess my preference for the second system, which I regard as more just, more economical and more legal. More just, because, if society wishes to give bounties to some of its members, the whole community ought to contribute; more economical, because it would banish many difficulties, and save the expenses of collection; more legal, lastly, because the public would see clearly into the operation, and know what was required of it.
But if the protective system had taken this form, would it not have been laughable enough to hear it said, "We pay heavy taxes for the army, the navy, the judiciary, the public works, the schools, the public debt, etc. These amount to more than a thousand million. It would therefore be desirable that the State should take another thousand million, to relieve the poor iron manufacturers; or the suffering stockholders of coal mines; or those unfortunate lumber dealers, or the useful codfishery."
This, it must be perceived, by an attentive investigation, is the result of the Sophism in question. In vain, gentlemen, are all your efforts; you cannot give money to one without taking it from another. If you are absolutely determined to exhaust the funds of the taxable community, well; but, at least, do not mock them; do not tell them, "We take from you again, in order to compensate you for what we have already taken."
It would be a too tedious undertaking to endeavor to point out all the fallacies of this Sophism. I will therefore limit myself to the consideration of it in three points.
You argue that France is overburthened with taxes, and deduce thence the conclusion that it is necessary to protect such and such an article of produce. But protection does not relieve us from the payment of these taxes. If, then, individuals devoting themselves to any one object of industry, should advance this demand: "We, from our participation in the payment of taxes, have our expenses of production increased, and therefore ask for a protective duty which shall raise our price of sale;" what is this but a demand on their part to be allowed to free themselves from the burthen of the tax, by laying it on the rest of the community? Their object is to balance, by the increased price of their produce, the amount which they pay in taxes. Now, as the whole amount of these taxes must enter into the treasury, and the increase of price must be paid by society, it follows that (where this protective duty is imposed) society has to bear, not only the general tax, but also that for the protection of the article in question. But it is answered, let every thing be protected. Firstly, this is impossible; and, again, were it possible, how could such a system give relief? I will pay for you, you will pay for me; but not the less, still there remains the tax to be paid.
Thus you are the dupes of an illusion. You determine to raise taxes for the support of an army, a navy, the church, university, judges, roads, etc. Afterwards you seek to disburthen from its portion of the tax, first one article of industry, then another, then a third; always adding to the burthen of the mass of society. You thus only create interminable complications. If you can prove that the increase of price resulting from protection, falls upon the foreign producer, I grant something specious in your argument. But if it be true that the French people paid the tax before the passing of the protective duty, and afterwards that it has paid not only the tax, but the protective duty also, truly I do not perceive wherein it has profited.
But I go much further, and maintain that the more oppressive our taxes are, the more anxiously ought we to open our ports and frontiers to foreign nations, less burthened than ourselves. And why? In order that we may share with them, as much as possible, the burthen which we bear. Is it not an incontestable maxim in political economy, that taxes must, in the end, fall upon the consumer? The greater then our commerce, the greater the portion which will be reimbursed to us, of taxes incorporated in the produce, which we will have sold to foreign consumers; whilst we, on our part, will have made to them only a lesser reimbursement, because (according to our hypothesis) their produce is less taxed than ours.
Again, finally, has it ever occurred to you to ask yourself, whether these heavy taxes which you adduce as a reason for keeping up the prohibitive system, may not be the result of this very system itself? To what purpose would be our great standing armies, and our powerful navies, if commerce were free?