"In political economy there are no absolute principles."
There are no principles! Why, what does this mean, but that there are no facts? Principles are only formulas, which recapitulate a whole class of well-proved facts.
Machinery and Importation must certainly have effects. These effects must be either good or bad. Here there may be a difference of opinion as to which is the correct conclusion, but whichever is adopted, it must be capable of being submitted to the formula of one or other of these principles, viz.: Machinery is a good, or, Machinery is an evil. Importations are beneficial, or, Importations are injurious. Bat to say there are no principles, is certainly the last degree of debasement to which the human mind can lower itself, and I confess that I blush for my country, when I hear so monstrous an absurdity uttered before, and approved by, the French Chambers, the élite of the nation, who thus justify themselves for imposing upon the country laws, of the merits or demerits of which they are perfectly ignorant.
But, it may be said to me, finish, then, by destroying the Sophism. Prove to us that machines are not injurious to human labor, nor importations to national labor.
In a work of this nature, such demonstrations cannot be very complete. My aim is rather to point out than to explain difficulties, and to excite reflection rather than to satisfy it. The mind never attains to a firm conviction which is not wrought out by its own labor. I will, however, make an effort to put it upon the right track.
The adversaries of importations and of machinery are misled by allowing themselves to form too hasty a judgment from immediate and transitory effects, instead of following these up to their general and final consequences.
The immediate effect of an ingenious piece of machinery, is, that it renders superfluous, in the production of any given result, a certain quantity of manual labor. But its action does not stop here. This result being obtained at less labor, is given to the public at a less price. The amount thus saved to the buyers, enables them to procure other comforts, and thus to encourage general labor, precisely in proportion to the saving they have made upon the one article which the machine has given to them at an easier price. Thus the standard of labor is not lowered, though that of comfort is raised.
Let me endeavor to render this double fact more striking by an example.
I suppose that ten million of hats, at fifteen francs each, are yearly consumed in France. This would give to those employed in this manufacture one hundred and fifty millions. A machine is invented which enables the manufacturer to furnish hats at ten francs. The sum given to the maintenance of this branch of industry, is thus reduced (if we suppose the consumption not to be increased) to one hundred millions. But the other fifty millions are not, therefore, withdrawn from the maintenance of human labor. The buyers of hats are, from the surplus saved upon the price of that article, enabled to satisfy other wants, and thus, in the same proportion, to encourage general industry. John buys a pair of shoes; James, a book; Jerome, an article of furniture, etc. Human labor, as a whole, still receives the encouragement of the whole one hundred and fifty millions, while the consumers, with the same supply of hats as before, receive also the increased number of comforts accruing from the fifty millions, which the use of the machine has been the means of saving to them. These comforts are the net gain which France has received from the invention. It is a gratuitous gift; a tribute exacted from nature by the genius of man. We grant that, during this process, a certain sum of labor will have been displaced, forced to change its direction; but we cannot allow that it has been destroyed or even diminished.
The case is the same with regard to importations. I will resume my hypothesis.