And since a large number of your fellow-legislators, with whom you seem to have an excellent understanding, take away from me a cent or two each, under pretext of protecting somebody's coal, or oil, or wheat, when the balance is struck, I find that of my thirty cents I have only fifteen left from the pillage.
Possibly, you may answer that those few pennies which pass thus, without compensation, from my pocket to yours, support a number of people about your chateau, and at the same time assist you in keeping up your establishment. To which, if you would permit me, I would reply, they would likewise support a number of persons in my cottage.
However this may be, Hon. Minister-Manufacturer, knowing that I should meet with a cold reception were I to ask you to renounce the restriction imposed upon your customers, as I have a right to, I prefer to follow the fashion, and to demand for myself, also, a little morsel of protection.
To this, doubtless you will interpose some objections. "Friend," you will say, "I would be glad to protect you and your colleagues; but how can I confer such favors upon the labor of carpenters? Shall I prohibit the importation of houses by land and by sea?"
This would seem sufficiently ridiculous, but by giving much thought to the subject, I have discovered a way to protect the children of St. Joseph, and you will, I trust, the more readily grant it since it differs in no respect from the privilege which you vote for yourself every year. This wonderful way is to prohibit the use of sharp hatchets in France.
I say that this restriction would be neither more illogical nor arbitrary than that which you subject us to in regard to your cloth.
Why do you drive away the Belgians? Because they sell cheaper than you do. And why do they sell cheaper than you do? Because they are in some way or another your superiors as manufacturers.
Between you and the Belgians, then, there is exactly the same difference that there is between a dull hatchet and a sharp one. And you compel me, a carpenter, to buy the workmanship of your dull hatchet!
Consider France a laborer, obliged to live by his daily toil, and desiring, among other things, to purchase cloth. There are two means of doing this. The first is to card the wool and weave the cloth himself; the second is to manufacture clocks, or wines, or wall-paper, or something of the sort, and exchange them in Belgium for cloth.
The process which gives the larger result may be represented by the sharp hatchet; the other process by the dull one.