hampers of game cost us six hours' labor. The stranger gives them to us for two baskets of vegetables, which take us but three hours. Thus three hours remain at our disposal. Robinson-Say rather that they are taken from our activity. There is our loss. Labor is wealth, and if we lose a fourth of our time we are one-fourth poorer. Friday-Friend, you make an enormous mistake. The same amount of game and vegetables and three free hours to boot make progress, or there is none in the world. Robinson -Mere generalities. What will we do with these three hours? Friday -We will do something else. Robinson-Ah, now I have you. You can specify nothing. It is very easy to say something else— something else. Friday-We will fish. We will adorn our houses. We will read the Bible. Robinson-Utopia! Is it certain that we will do this rather than that? FridayWell, if we have no wants, we will rest. Is rest nothing? Robinson -When one rests one dies of hunger.

Friday-Friend, you are in a vicious circle. I speak of a rest which diminishes neither our gains nor our vegetables. You always forget that by means of our commerce with this stranger nine hours of labor will give us as much food as twelve now do. Robinson-It is easy to see that you were not reared in Europe. Perhaps you have never read the Moniteur Industriel? It would have taught you this: "All time saved is a dear loss. Eating is not the important matter, but working. Nothing which we consume counts if it is not the product of our labor. Do you wish to know whether you are rich? Do not look at your comforts, but at your trouble." This is what the Moniteur Industriel would have taught you. I, who am not a theorist, see but the loss of our hunting.

Friday What a strange perversion of ideas. ButRobinson-No buts. Besides, there are political reasons for rejecting the interested offers of this perfidious stranger. Friday-Political reasons! Robinson-Yes. In the first place,

he makes these offers only because they are for his advantage. Friday-So much the better, since they are for ours also. Robinson - Then by these exchanges we shall become dependent on him. Friday-And he on us. We need his game, he our vegetables, and we will live in good friendship. Robinson-Fancy! Do you want I should leave you without an answer? Friday-Let us see; I am still waiting a good reason. Robinson -Supposing that the stranger learns to cultivate a garden, and that his island is more fertile than ours. Do you see the consequences? Friday-Yes. Our relations with the stranger will stop. He will take no more vegetables from us, since he can get them at home with less trouble. He will bring us no more game, since we will have nothing to give in exchange, and we will be then just where you want us to be now. Robinson-Short-sighted savage! You do not see that after having destroyed our hunting by inundating us with game, he will kill our gardening by overwhelming us with vegetables. Friday-But he will do that only so long as we give him something else; that is to say, so long as we find something else to produce, which will economize our labor. Robinson-Something else—something else! You always come back to that. You are very vague, friend Friday, there is nothing practical in your views.

The contest lasted a long time, and, as often happens, left each one convinced that he was right. However, Robinson having great influence over Friday, his views prevailed, and when the stranger came for an answer, Robinson said to him: "Stranger, in order that your proposition may be accepted, we must be quite sure of two things: The first is that your island is not richer in game than ours, for we will struggle but with equal arms. The second is, that you will lose by the bargain. For, as in every exchange there is necessarily a gainer and a loser, we would be cheated if you were not. What have you to say?" "Nothing, nothing," replied the stranger, who burst out laughing, and returned to his canoe.

CHAPTER XXIX.

FREE TRADE.

BY PROF. EMILE DE LAVELEYE.*

MERCHANT on being asked by the French states

A man, Colbert, what was the best way of favoring

commerce, made answer: "Leave it alone;" and this reply of his has become the watchword of the supporters of freedom of trade, or, as it is sometimes called, free exchange. What, in fact, can be more natural than to allow every one to buy and sell where he can do so most advantageously, whether in or out of his own country?

To raise a revenue, a State is still justified in imposing custom dues on the importation of certain foreign goods, though the tax is a bad one; but to establish these duties under the pretext of protecting national industries is an iniquitous measure, fatal to the general interest. By forcing consumers to buy from the protected manufacturers at higher prices than they would elsewhere have to pay, the gross injustice is committed of taxing one class for the benefit of another. It is in this that the system of protection consists. If it be said that the object is to favor labor, and consequently laborers, a double error is committed.

Error the First.-The aim of economics is not to increase but to diminish labor. If I can obtain a yard of cloth from a foreigner by means of one day's work, it is contrary to this aim to force me to spend two. The eagerness to increase

*Elements of Political Economy. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1884.

labor without augmenting production has been well called "Sisyphism," for it chains humanity to efforts that lead to no result, just as Sisyphus was compelled to roll to the summit of a hill a stone that always fell back again. The goal we should pursue is the increase of commodities and diminution of toil.

Error the Second.—No service, but an injury, is done to workmen in thrusting them into manufactories by force of law and in spite of nature. Thus in the case of Italy it is a thousand pities that the custom house should have snatched workmen and work women from their open air tasks in this lovely country with its genial climate, to chain them in gloomy work-shops for twelve or fourteen hours a day to the monotonous movements of machines.

Free trade by applying to whole peoples the principle of the division of labor, assures them all the benefits it can bestow, and thus greatly increases their welfare. If in a family each member is employed at what he can do best, it is clear that the total product, and consequently the individual shares, will be as great as can be attained. On the contrary, if each is forced by legislative restrictions to devote a part of his time to a labor for which he has no aptitude, each and all will be worse off. Apply this principle to nations, and it is plain that when each country devotes its energies to the tasks which its nature most favors, not only will it bring to the international market the maximum of products obtained with the minimum of toil, but the welfare of humanity at large will be increased in proportion to the increase of the productivity of each country's labor.

A man who, in the wish to be self-sufficing, should constrain himself to manufacture everything he needed, food, clothing, furniture, and books, would plainly be extremely foolish, nor is a nation that imitates him any wiser.

If the soil of my farm is sandy, and so better suited for rye than for wheat, the least laborious way of obtaining

wheat is, not to cultivate it myself, but to ask for it in exchange for my rye of those who have a clay soil. This plain truth demonstrates the absurdity of the system of protection which would oblige me to grow wheat even upon sand.

ment.

The upholders of protection make the further objection. that foreigners will inundate us with their produce. Such a fear is quite idle, since foreigners will not give us their goods for nothing, but will be willing to take ours in payCommerce is always an exchange of produce against produce. So much imported, so much exported. If imports exceed exports, all the better; the foreigner is paying us a tribute, and we shall have more to consume. If exports exceed imports, all the worse, it is now we who are paying a tribute. Here, however, we are touching on the difficult question of the balance of commerce, the discussion of which we defer to a later paragraph.

Protectionists are anxious to sell much and buy little, in order that the foreigner may be forced to pay the excess of his purchases in cash. These aims involve a great contradiction. It is clearly impossible for the different countries in their exchanges with one another always to sell more than they buy.

The principal cause of industrial progress in a country, is, as we have seen, the competition between manufacturers, each of whom strives to improve, and, above all, to cheapen, his fabrics, in order to extend his business. The more widely competition is extended, the greater will be everyone's profit. Do not, therefore, limit it by the frontiers of a state, but extend it from country to country. Monopoly begets sloth, and protection, routine. On the other hand, the manufacturer who is forced to carry everything to perfection in endeavoring to keep his hold of the home market will conquer that of the world.

A railroad uniting two countries facilitates exchanges.