Sophisms of the Protectionists :: IV. INFERIOR COUNCIL OF LABOR.

IV. INFERIOR COUNCIL OF LABOR.

"What! You have the assurance to demand for every citizen the right to buy, sell, trade, exchange, and to render service for service according to his own discretion, on the sole condition that he will conduct himself honestly, and not defraud the revenue? Would you rob the workingman of his labor, his wages and his bread?"

This is what is said to us. I know what the general opinion is; but I have desired to know what the laborers themselves think. I have had an excellent opportunity of finding out.

It was not one of those Superior Councils of Industry (Committee on the Revision of the Tariff), where large manufacturers, who style themselves laborers, influential ship-builders who imagine themselves seamen, and wealthy bondholders who think themselves workmen, meet and legislate in behalf of that philanthropy with whose nature we are so well acquainted.

No, they were workmen "to the manor born," real, practical laborers, such as joiners, carpenters, masons, tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, grocers, etc., etc., who had established in my village a Mutual Aid Society. Upon my own private authority I transformed it into an Inferior Council of Labor (People's Committee for Revising the Tariff), and I obtained a report which is as good as any other, although unencumbered by figures, and not distended to the proportions of a quarto volume and printed at the expense of the State.

The subject of my inquiry was the real or supposed influence of the protective system upon these poor people. The President, indeed, informed me that the institution of such an inquiry was somewhat in contravention of the principles of the society. For, in France, the land of liberty, those who desire to form associations must renounce political discussions—that is to say, the discussion of their common interests. However, after much hesitation, he made the question the order of the day.

The assembly was divided into as many sub-committees as there were different trades represented. A blank was handed to each sub-committee, which, after fifteen days' discussion, was to be filled and returned.

On the appointed day the venerable President took the chair (official style, for it was only a stool) and found upon the table (official style, again, for it was a deal plank across a barrel) a dozen reports, which he read in succession.

The first presented was that of the tailors. Here it is, as accurately as if it had been photographed:

RESULTS OF PROTECTION—REPORT OF THE TAILORS.

Disadvantages.	Advantages.
1. On account of the protective tariff, we pay more for our own bread, meat, sugar, thread, etc., which is equivalent to a considerable diminution of our wages.	None.
2. On account of the protective tariff, our patrons are also obliged to pay more for everything, and have less to spend for clothes, consequently we have less work and smaller profits.	1. We have examined the question in every light, and have been unable to perceive a single point in regard to which the protective system is advantangeous our trade.
3. On account of the protective tariff clothes, are expensive, and people make them wear longer, which results in a loss of work, and compels us to offer our services at greatly reduced rates.

Here is another report:

EFFECTS OF PROTECTION—REPORT OF THE BLACKSMITHS.

Disadvantages.	Advantages.
1. The protective system imposes a tax (which does not get into the Treasury) every time we eat, drink, warm, or clothe ourselves.	None.
2. It imposes a similar tax upon our neighbors, and hence, having less money, most of them use wooden pegs, instead of buying nails, which deprives us of labor.
3. It keeps the price of iron so high that it can no longer be used in the country for plows, or gates, or house fixtures, and our trade, which might give work to so many who have none, does not even give ourselves enough to do.
4. The deficit occasioned in the Treasury by those goods which do not enter is made up by taxes on our salt.

The other reports, with which I will not trouble the reader, told the same story. Gardeners, carpenters, shoemakers, boatmen, all complained of the same grievances.

I am sorry there were no day laborers in our association. Their report would certainly have been exceedingly instructive. But, unfortunately, the poor laborers of our province, all protected as they are, have not a cent, and, after having taken care of their cattle, cannot go themselves to the Mutual Aid Society. The pretended favors of protection do not prevent them from being the pariahs of modern society.

What I would especially remark is the good sense with which our villagers have perceived not only the direct evil results of protection, but also the indirect evil which, affecting their patrons, reacts upon themselves.

This is a fact, it seems to me, which the economists of the school of the Moniteur Industriel do not understand.

And possibly some men, who are fascinated by a very little protection, the agriculturists, for instance, would voluntarily renounce it if they noticed this side of the question. Possibly, they might say to themselves: "It is better to support one's self surrounded by well-to-do neighbors, than to be protected in the midst of poverty." For to seek to encourage every branch of industry by successively creating a void around them, is as vain as to attempt to jump away from one's shadow.

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