the required effort not double, but 11. The product will then be A+ M. The whole population, both agricultural and mechanical and manufacturing, will then have one third more of M under protection than under free trade, even if the effort necessary be 50 per cent greater to produce M. If the effort (measured by labor and abstinence) be the same, then the product under protection will be A + 2 M.

The mechanical and manufacturing arts then which are introduced under a duty of 50 per cent in such circumstances, will at once give the whole country one third more of their products than can be had under free trade; and, as skill increases, they will give more and more; and their skill will react upon agriculture, rendering its processes more effectual, and enabling a still greater withdrawal of men from agriculture to the arts. And the home market will be always safe against war and against excessive foreign crops; and, moreover, it will grow step by step with the population, which the foreign market never can.

M. Bastiat makes a great friend of Nature: but it is not against Nature that the American protectionist raises his bulwarks. He imports many tropical products free of duty, but he intrenches against the foreign skill which is not natural but purely artificial, and which is speedily overtaken by our own; and he intrenches against the lower wages current abroad, which we do not wish to imitate here. In spite of a 50 per cent duty, the whole country is richer immediately, and gains more and more as skill is acquired.

M. Bastiat says that we call the free traders theorists, and he retorts the accusation; but he mistakes us. We do not complain of them for being theorists, but for being bad theorists, blundering theorists, theorists who use arguments in every case which are only applicable in one of all possible cases, to wit, in the case where the whole population can be fully occupied in those industries in which it has an advantage, and where, also, their whole surplus can find steady, sure, uninterrupted markets. In this very exceptional case, to buy in the cheapest market is best in a purely financial aspect. Their proposition is not universal, not one of even

frequent application. To argue from it as if it were a universal proposition, as the free traders do, is to violate one of the fundamental maxims of logic.

Chapter V,-"Our Productions are overloaded with Taxes."

Here is more bad theory. We are taxed heavily, he says. How absurd, then, to add another tax which makes France pay twelve francs for iron which it can get from England for eight. The blunder here consists in not perceiving that, although the extra price of iron may in a certain sense be called a tax, yet it is of an entirely different nature from the other things called by the same name. Suppose, for instance, that France is using 2,000,000 of tons of iron produced in France and costing twelve dollars a ton. Here are $24,000,000 of products which are paid for by other $24,000,000 of various French products. The result is commodities worth $48,000,000, every dollar of which is net individual income to some French citizen, as has been well shown by J. B. Say. The totality of French industries is in equilibrium. Each employs all the capital and all the industry it can, and carries along its normal surplus stock. The expansion of each industry, both as to capital and quantity of labor employed, is limited by the extent of the market. Now open the ports and bring in the 2,000,000 tons of English iron at eight dollars. The immediate effect upon the consumers of iron is that they save $8,000,000 but the general demand for French products is diminished $32,000,000. The importation of iron selling for $16,000,000 provokes a French production of $16,000,000. The home production of the iron, on the contrary, gave a total home product of $48,000,000,- a difference of $32,000,000. It is true that the community saves $8,000,000 in the price of the iron, but on the other hand its aggregate ability to consume is reduced $32,000,000; and under these circumstances it may well happen that its ability to consume imported iron at eight dollars will be less than its ability to consume homemade iron at twelve dollars. The free-traders call the sums collected to pay the interest on the national debt and the ex

penses of government taxes, and they call the extra price (when there is an extra price) paid for home-made products also taxes. But they are entirely different; almost as different as the files of a carpenter and the files of a regiment. The tax arising out of protective laws, in the instance under examination, takes from the French consumers four dollars a ton; but it gives them twelve: the net result is that they are better off by eight, or twice the amount of the so-called tax. This flows inevitably from Say's proposition that the whole price of everything produced in a country is net individual income to some citizen of that country. If the free-traders would make the other "taxes" produce a similar result, we would all clamor for more taxes.

Chapter VI. is called "Balance of Trade." He begins as follows:

"Our adversaries have adopted a system of tactics which embarrasses us not a little. Do we prove our doctrine? They admit the truth of it in the most respectful manner. Do we attack their principles? They abandon them with the best possible grace. They only ask that our doctrine, which they acknowledge to be true, should be confined to books; and that their principles, which they allow to be false, should be established in practice. If we will give up to them the regulation of our tariffs, they will leave us triumphant in the domain of theory."

M. Bastiat was in error as to the attitude of protectionists generally. They do not admit that the theory of the freetraders is correct, nor their own practice wrong; but when worried by much beating of gongs-represented to be logical instruments — and by much assumption of superiority in reasoning, they have often been inclined to reply: "You puzzle us with sophistical riddles. We feel them to be wrong, but have not the time, perhaps not the ability, to show wherein they are wrong. We have seen your own chiefs perplexed with the fallacy of Achilles and the tortoise, and some of them declaring it to be insoluble,- that being an argument known to be erroneous, but one of which no one

has ever yet given a wholly satisfactory explanation. Now, we feel that your arguments are sophistical; we are so sure of it that we are ready to risk our fortunes upon the belief. We are not able to talk you down, and are willing you should theorize to your hearts' content, so long as you will confine yourselves to theory." Such is the feeling of many. It is not the feeling of the writer. It is as absurd as anything well can be to say, "So and so may be very well in theory, but it will not do in practice." If it will not do in practice, it most assuredly is not good in theory. It may be good in pseudo-theory; but true theory must explain practice, or be in accord with it. Sound theory and sound practice are Siamese twins. As was said before, we do not, as you have the presumption to say, object to you as theorists: we only object to you as bad theorists.

M. Bastiat gives us examples in which every merchant will find errors; upon which, however, it is not worth while to expend time and patience, the main object of the chapter being to show, what everybody knew before, namely, that an unusually successful voyage brings into a country a much larger value than it takes out. But there are also very unsuccessful voyages, which bring in much less than they take out; and everybody who knows anything of commerce is aware that the average result is cost, expenses, - and a profit not greater than what is usual in other kinds of business. This is fact; and this also is the result which the reasoning of all respectable economists, from Adam Smith down, points out as what must necessarily be fact. The balance of trade in our days is so complicated by the transfer of securities, and by the remittances of the profits upon foreign investments, that no certain conclusion can be drawn from custom-house statistics; but for all that, an exportation of treasure, exceeding greatly the product of the country, indicates an adverse balance of trade, which cannot exist many years without financial convulsion.

Chapter VII. is entitled "Petition from the Manufacturers of Candles, Wax-lights, Lamps, Chandeliers, Reflectors,

Snuffers, Extinguishers; and from the Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and generally of Everything used for Lights."

This is a petition against sunshine, and regarded as persiflage, it is excellent. Considered as an economical argument, it can impose upon no one who has the least common-sense, or the least logic, which is only common sense put into a formula. As the sun does not give us light, through the twenty-four hours, artificial light must be had and can be had only through labor. If the circumstances are such that by procuring it from abroad the gross annual product is greater than it is by producing it at home, then, financially considered, it is better to procure it from abroad. But this case seldom occurs, as has already been sufficiently

shown.

Chapter VIII. is entitled " Discriminating Duties."

This is a particular case, made up with just such circumstances as might lead a poor wine-grower to draw from it illegitimately an universal conclusion. As rhetoric, intended to deceive, it is very good. It is entirely unworthy of one who is seriously investigating national interests.

Chapter IX. is entitled "Wonderful Discovery."

In this, M. Bastiat discovers that a railroad has been made between Paris and Brussels in order to obviate or overcome natural obstacles to trade, but that the duty on goods between the two places was an artificial obstacle, and consequently absurd. The answer is, that the railroad was built with the intention of removing obstacles from desirable and beneficent communication. It was not built to facilitate the passage of foreign soldiers to Paris, nor to facilitate the invasion of the markets of France by produce that is not desirable. Whether the introduction of the produce be desirable or not, must be determined by other reasons than the fact that a railroad exists by which it can be conveyed. Distance is an obstacle to every sort of communication. That we take measures to overcome the obstacle does not