And it is hence concluded:
That the best regulation of duties, would be to give the greatest possible facilities to the importation of raw material, and at the same time to check that of the finished article.
There is, in political economy, no more generally accredited Sophism than this. It serves for argument not only to the protectionists, but also to the pretended free trade school; and it is in the latter capacity that its most mischievous tendencies are called into action. For a good cause suffers much less in being attacked, than in being badly defended.
Commercial liberty must probably pass through the same ordeal as liberty in every other form. It can only dictate laws, after having first taken thorough possession of men's minds. If, then, it be true that a reform, to be firmly established, must be generally understood, it follows that nothing can so much retard it, as the misleading of public opinion. And what more calculated to mislead opinion than writings, which, while they proclaim free trade, support the doctrines of monopoly?
It is some years since three great cities of France, viz., Lyons, Bordeaux, and Havre, combined in opposition to the restrictive system. France, all Europe, looked anxiously and suspiciously at this apparent declaration in favor of free trade. Alas! it was still the banner of monopoly which they followed! a monopoly, only a little more sordid, a little more absurd than that of which they seemed to desire the destruction! Thanks to the Sophism which I would now endeavor to deprive of its disguise, the petitioners only reproduced, with an additional incongruity, the old doctrine of protection to national labor. What is, in fact, the prohibitive system? We will let Mr. de Saint Cricq answer for us.
"Labor constitutes the riches of a nation, because it creates supplies for the gratification of our necessities; and universal comfort consists in the abundance of these supplies." Here we have the principle.
"But this abundance ought to be the result of national labor. If it were the result of foreign labor, national labor must receive an inevitable check." Here lies the error. (See the preceding Sophism).
"What, then, ought to be the course of an agricultural and manufacturing country? It ought to reserve its market for the produce of its own soil and its own industry." Here is the object.
"In order to effect this, it ought, by restrictive, and, if necessary, by prohibitive duties, to prevent the influx of produce from foreign soils and foreign industry." Here is the means.
Let us now compare this system with that of the petition from Bordeaux.