There is nothing that is not pretended by the writers in favor of
protection to be established as an aid to the working classes — there is
positively no exception, not even the custom house. You fancy, perhaps, that
the custom house is merely an instrument of taxation like property taxes or the
toll bar! Nothing of the kind. It is essentially an institution for promoting
the march of civilization, fraternity, and equality. What would you be at? It
is the fashion to introduce, or affect to introduce, sentiment and
sentimentalism everywhere, even into the toll gatherer's booth.
The custom house, we must allow, has a very singular machinery for
realizing philanthropical aspirations.
It includes an army of directors, subdirectors, inspectors, subinspectors,
comptrollers, examiners, heads of departments, clerks, supernumeraries,
aspirant supernumeraries, not to speak of the officers of the active service;
and the object of all this complicated machinery is to exercise over the
industry of the people a negative action, which is summed up in the word obstruct.
Observe, I do not say that the object is to tax, but to obstruct. To
prevent, not acts that are repugnant to good morals or public order, but
transactions that are in themselves not only harmless but fitted to maintain
peace and union among nations.
And yet the human race is so flexible and elastic that it always surmounts
these obstructions. And then we hear of the labor market being glutted.
If you hinder a people from obtaining its subsistence from abroad it will
produce it at home. The labor is greater and more painful, but subsistence
must be had. If you hinder a man from traversing the valley he must cross the
hills. The road is longer and more difficult, but he must get to his
journey's end.
This is lamentable, but we come now to what is ludicrous. When the law has
thus created obstacles, and when in order to overcome them society has
diverted a corresponding amount of labor from other employments, you are no
longer permitted to demand a reform. If you point to the obstacle you are
told of the amount of labor to which it has given employment. And if you
rejoin that this labor is not created, but displaced, you are answered in the
words of the Esprit Public, "The impoverishment alone is certain
and immediate; as to our enrichment, it is more than problematical."
This reminds me of a Chinese story, which I will relate to you.
There were in China two large towns, called Tchin and Tchan. A magnificent
canal united them. The emperor thought fit to order enormous blocks of stone
to be thrown into it for the purpose of rendering it useless.
On seeing this, Kouang, his first mandarin, said to him, "Son of
Heaven! This is a mistake."
To which the emperor replied, "Kouang, you talk nonsense."
I give you only the substance of their conversation.
At the end of three months the celestial emperor sent again for the
mandarin, and said to him, "Kouang, behold!"
And Kouang opened his eyes, and looked.
And he saw at some distance from the canal a multitude of men at work.
Some were excavating, others were filling up hollows, leveling and paving.
And the mandarin, who was very cultivated, said to himself, They are
making a highway.
When another three months had elapsed, the emperor again sent for Kouang
and said to him, "Look!"
And Kouang looked.
And he saw the road completed, and from one end of it to the other he saw
here and there inns for travelers erected. Crowds of pedestrians, carts,
litters, came and went, and innumerable Chinese, overcome with fatigue,
carried back and forth heavy burdens from Tchin to Tchan, and from Tchan to
Tchin. And Kouang said to himself, It is the destruction of the canal that
gives employment to these poor people. But the idea never struck him that
their labor was simply diverted from other employments.
Three months more passed, and the emperor said to Kouang,
"Look!"
And Kouang looked. And he saw that the hostelries were full of travelers,
and that to supply their wants there were grouped around them butchers' and
bakers' stalls, shops for the sale of edible bird nests. He also saw that,
the artisans having need of clothing, there had settled among them tailors,
shoemakers, and those who sold parasols and fans; and as they could not sleep
in the open air, even in the Celestial Empire, there were also masons,
carpenters, and slaters. Then there were officers of police, judges, fakirs;
in a word, a town with its suburbs had risen round each hostelry.
And the emperor asked Kouang what he thought of all this.
And Kouang said that he never could have imagined that the destruction of
a canal could have provided employment for so many people; for the thought
never struck him that this was not employment created but labor diverted from
other employments, and that men would have eaten and drunk in passing along
the canal as well as in passing along the highroad.
However, to the astonishment of the Chinese, the Son of Heaven at length
died and was buried.
His successor sent for Kouang, and ordered him to have the canal cleared
out and restored.
And Kouang said to the new emperor, "Son of Heaven! You commit a
blunder."
And the emperor replied, "Kouang, you talk nonsense."
But Kouang persisted, and said, "Sire, what is your object?"
"My object is to facilitate the transit of goods and passengers
between Tchin and Tchan, to render carriage less expensive, in order that the
people may have tea and clothing cheaper."
But Kouang was ready with his answer. He had received the night before several
numbers of the Moniteur Industriel, a Chinese newspaper. Knowing his
lesson well, he asked and obtained permission to reply, and after having
prostrated himself nine times, he said, "Sire, your object is, by
increased facility of transit, to reduce the price of articles of
consumption, and bring them within reach of the people; and to effect that
you begin by taking away from them all the employment to which the
destruction of the canal had given rise. Sire, in political economy, nominal
cheapness—"
The emperor: "I believe you are repeating by rote."
Kouang: "True, Sire; and it will be better to read what I have to
say."
So, producing the Esprit Public, he read as follows:
In political economy, the nominal cheapness of articles of consumption is
only a secondary question. The problem is to establish an equilibrium between
the price of labor and that of the means of subsistence. The abundance of
labor constitutes the wealth of nations; and the best economic system is that
which supplies the people with the greatest amount of employment. The
question is not whether it is better to pay four or eight cash for a cup of
tea, or five or ten taels (Chinese money) for a shirt. These are puerilities
unworthy of a thinking mind. Nobody disputes your proposition. The question
is whether it is better to pay dearer for a commodity you want to buy, and
have, through the abundance of employment and the higher price of labor, the
means of acquiring it; or whether it is better to limit the sources of
employment, and with them the mass of the national population, in order to
transport, by improved means of transit, the objects of consumption, cheaper,
it is true, but taking away at the same time from many of our people the
means of purchasing these objects even at their reduced price.
Seeing the emperor still unconvinced, Kouang added, "Sire, deign to
give me your attention. I have still the Moniteur Industriel to bring
under your notice."
But the emperor said, "I don't require your Chinese journals to
enable me to find out that to create obstacles is to divert and misapply
labor. But that is not my mission. Go and clear out the canal; and we shall
reform the custom house afterwards."
And Kouang went away tearing his beard, and appealing to his God, "O
Fo! Take pity on thy people; for we have now got an emperor of the English
school, and I see clearly that in a short time we shall be in want of
everything, for we shall no longer require to do anything."
