Destruction of machinery—prohibition of foreign goods. These are two acts proceeding from the same doctrine.

We do meet with men who, while they rejoice over the revelation of any great invention, favor nevertheless the protective policy; but such men are very inconsistent.

What is the objection they adduce against free trade? That it causes us to seek from foreign and more easy production, what would otherwise be the result of home production. In a word, that it injures domestic industry.

On the same principle, can it not be objected to machinery, that it accomplishes through natural agents what would otherwise be the result of manual labor, and that it is thus injurious to human labor?

The foreign laborer, enjoying greater facilities of production than the French laborer, is, with regard to the latter, a veritable economical machine, which crushes him by competition. Thus, a piece of machinery capable of executing any work at a less price than could be done by any given number of hands, is, as regards these hands, in the position of a foreign competitor, who paralyzes them by his rivalry.

If then it be judicious to protect home labor against the competition of foreign labor, it cannot be less so to protect human labor against mechanical labor.

Whoever adheres to the protective system, ought not, if his brain be possessed of any logical powers, to stop at the prohibition of foreign produce, but should extend this prohibition to the produce of the loom and of the plough.

I approve therefore of the logic of those who, whilst they cry out against the inundation of foreign merchandise, have the courage to declaim equally against the excessive production resulting from the inventive power of mind.

Of this number is Mr. de Saint Chamans. "One of the strongest arguments, (says he) which can be adduced against free trade, and the too extensive employment of machines, is, that many workmen are deprived of work, either by foreign competition, which depresses manufactures, or by machinery, which takes the place of men in workshops."

Mr. de St. Chamans saw clearly the analogy, or rather the identity which exists between importation and machinery, and was, therefore, in favor of proscribing both. There is some pleasure in having to do with intrepid arguers, who, even in error, thus carry through a chain of reasoning.

But let us look at the difficulty into which they are here led.

If it be true, À priori, that the domain of invention, and that of labor, can be extended only to the injury of one another, it would follow that the fewest workmen would be employed in countries (Lancashire, for instance) where there is the most machinery. And if it be, on the contrary, proved, that machinery and manual labor coexist to a greater extent among rich nations than among savages, it must necessarily follow, that these two powers do not interfere with one another.

I cannot understand how a thinking being can rest satisfied with the following dilemma:

Either the inventions of man do not injure labor; and this, from general facts, would appear to be the case, for there exists more of both among the English and the French, than among the Sioux and the Cherokees. If such be the fact, I have gone upon a wrong track, although unconscious at what point. I have wandered from my road, and I would commit high treason against humanity, were I to introduce such an error into the legislation of my country.

Or else the results of the inventions of mind limit manual labor, as would appear to be proved from limited facts; for every day we see some machine rendering unnecessary the labor of twenty, or perhaps a hundred workmen. If this be the case, I am forced to acknowledge, as a fact, the existence of a flagrant, eternal, and incurable antagonism between the intellectual and the physical power of man; between his improvement and his welfare. I cannot avoid feeling that the Creator should have bestowed upon man either reason or bodily strength; moral force, or brutal force; and that it has been a bitter mockery to confer upon him faculties which must inevitably counteract and destroy one another.

This is an important difficulty, and how is it put aside? By this singular apothegm:

"In political economy there are no absolute principles."

There are no principles! Why, what does this mean, but that there are no facts? Principles are only formulas, which recapitulate a whole class of well-proved facts.

Machinery and Importation must certainly have effects. These effects must be either good or bad. Here there may be a difference of opinion as to which is the correct conclusion, but whichever is adopted, it must be capable of being submitted to the formula of one or other of these principles, viz.: Machinery is a good, or, Machinery is an evil. Importations are beneficial, or, Importations are injurious. Bat to say there are no principles, is certainly the last degree of debasement to which the human mind can lower itself, and I confess that I blush for my country, when I hear so monstrous an absurdity uttered before, and approved by, the French Chambers, the Élite of the nation, who thus justify themselves for imposing upon the country laws, of the merits or demerits of which they are perfectly ignorant.

But, it may be said to me, finish, then, by destroying the Sophism. Prove to us that machines are not injurious to human labor, nor importations to national labor.

In a work of this nature, such demonstrations cannot be very complete. My aim is rather to point out than to explain difficulties, and to excite reflection rather than to satisfy it. The mind never attains to a firm conviction which is not wrought out by its own labor. I will, however, make an effort to put it upon the right track.

The adversaries of importations and of machinery are misled by allowing themselves to form too hasty a judgment from immediate and transitory effects, instead of following these up to their general and final consequences.

The immediate effect of an ingenious piece of machinery, is, that it renders superfluous, in the production of any given result, a certain quantity of manual labor. But its action does not stop here. This result being obtained at less labor, is given to the public at a less price. The amount thus saved to the buyers, enables them to procure other comforts, and thus to encourage general labor, precisely in proportion to the saving they have made upon the one article which the machine has given to them at an easier price. Thus the standard of labor is not lowered, though that of comfort is raised.

Let me endeavor to render this double fact more striking by an example.

I suppose that ten million of hats, at fifteen francs each, are yearly consumed in France. This would give to those employed in this manufacture one hundred and fifty millions. A machine is invented which enables the manufacturer to furnish hats at ten francs. The sum given to the maintenance of this branch of industry, is thus reduced (if we suppose the consumption not to be increased) to one hundred millions. But the other fifty millions are not, therefore, withdrawn from the maintenance of human labor. The buyers of hats are, from the surplus saved upon the price of that article, enabled to satisfy other wants, and thus, in the same proportion, to encourage general industry. John buys a pair of shoes; James, a book; Jerome, an article of furniture, etc. Human labor, as a whole, still receives the encouragement of the whole one hundred and fifty millions, while the consumers, with the same supply of hats as before, receive also the increased number of comforts accruing from the fifty millions, which the use of the machine has been the means of saving to them. These comforts are the net gain which France has received from the invention. It is a gratuitous gift; a tribute exacted from nature by the genius of man. We grant that, during this process, a certain sum of labor will have been displaced, forced to change its direction; but we cannot allow that it has been destroyed or even diminished.

The case is the same with regard to importations. I will resume my hypothesis.

France, according to our supposition, manufactured ten millions of hats at fifteen francs each. Let us now suppose that a foreign producer brings them into our market at ten francs. I maintain that national labor is thus in no wise diminished. It will be obliged to produce the equivalent of the hundred millions which go to pay for the ten millions of hats at ten francs, and then there remains to each buyer five francs, saved on the purchase of his hat, or, in total, fifty millions, which serve for the acquisition of other comforts, and the encouragement of other labor.

The mass of labor remains, then, what it was, and the additional comforts accruing from the fifty millions saved in the purchase of hats, are the net profit of importation or free trade.

It is no argument to try and alarm us by a picture of the sufferings which, in this hypothesis, would result from the displacement or change of labor.

For, if prohibition had never existed, labor would have classed itself in accordance with the laws of trade, and no displacement would have taken place.

If prohibition has led to an artificial and unproductive classification of labor, then it is prohibition, and not free trade, which is responsible for the inevitable displacement which must result in the transition from evil to good.

It is a rather singular argument to maintain that, because an abuse which has been permitted a temporary existence, cannot be corrected without wounding the interests of those who have profited by it, it ought, therefore, to claim perpetual duration.