Project Gutenberg
Economic Sophisms
Frédéric Bastiat
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English
Scene I.--House of Master Peter.--Window looking out on a fine park.--Three gentlemen seated near a good fire
Scene I.--House of Master Peter.--Window looking out on a fine park.--Three gentlemen seated near a good fire
PeterBravo! Nothing like a good fire after a good dinner. It does feel so comfortable. But, alas! how many honest folks, like the Boi d'Yvetot,
"Soufflent, faute de bois, Dans leurs doigts." Miserable creatures! A charitable thought has just come into my head. You see these fine trees; I am about to fell them, and distribute the timber among the poor.
Paul and JohnWhat! gratis?
PeterNot exactly. My good works would soon have an end were I to dissipate my fortune. I estimate my park as worth £1000. By cutting down the trees I shall pocket a good sum.
PaulWrong. Your wood as it stands is worth more than that of the neighbouring forests, for it renders you services which they cannot render. When cut down it will be only good for firewood, like any other, and will not bring a penny more the load.
PeterOh! oh! Mr Theorist, you forget that I am a practical man. My reputation as a speculator is sufficiently well established, I believe, to prevent me from being taken for a noodle. Do you imagine I am going to amuse myself by selling my timber at the price of float-wood?
PaulIt would seem so.
PeterSimpleton! And what if I can hinder float-wood from being brought into Paris?
PaulThat alters the case. But how can you manage it?
PeterHere is the whole secret. You know that float-wood, on entering the city, pays 5d. the load. To-morrow, I induce the commune to raise the duty to £4, £8, £12,--in short, sufficiently high to prevent the entry of a single log. Now, do you follow me? If the good people are not to die of cold, they have no alternative but to come to my woodyard. They will bid against each other for my wood, and I will sell it for a high price; and this act of charity, successfully carried out, will put me in a situation to do other acts of charity.
PaulA fine invention, truly! It suggests to me another of the same kind.
Scene I.--House of Master Peter.--Window looking out on a fine park.--Three gentlemen seated near a good fire
JohnAnd what is that? Is philanthropy to be again brought into play?
PaulHow do you like this Normandy butter?
JohnExcellent.
PaulHitherto I have thought it passable. But do you not find that it takes you by the throat? I could make better butter in Paris. I shall have four or five hundred cows, and distribute milk, butter, and cheese among the poor.
Peter and JohnWhat! in charity?
PaulBah! let us put charity always in the foreground. It is so fine a figure that its very mask is a good passport. I shall give my butter to the people, and they will give me their money. Is that what is called selling?
JohnNo; not according to the Bourgeois Gentilhomme. But, call it what you please, you will ruin yourself. How can Paris ever compete with Normandy in dairy produce?
PaulI shall be able to save the cost of carriage.
JohnBe it so. Still, while paying that cost, the Normans can beat the Parisians.
PaulTo give a man something at a lower price--is that what you call beating him?
JohnIt is the usual phrase; and you will always find yourself beaten.
PaulYes; as Don Quixote was beaten. The blows will fall on Sancho. John, my friend, you forget the octroi.
JohnThe octroi! What has that to do with your butter?
PaulTo-morrow, I shall demand protection, and induce the commune to prohibit butter being brought into Paris from Normandy and Brittany. The people must then either dispense with it, or purchase mine, and at my own price, too.
JohnOn my honour, gentlemen, your philanthropy has quite made a convert of me.
Scene I.--House of Master Peter.--Window looking out on a fine park.--Three gentlemen seated near a good fire
"On apprend à hurler, dit l'autre, avec les loups." My mind is made up. I shall not be thought unworthy of my colleagues. Peter, this sparkling fire has inflamed your soul. Paul, this butter has lubricated the springs of your intelligence. I, too, feel stimulated by this piece of powdered pork; and tomorrow I shall vote, and cause to be voted, the exclusion of swine, dead and alive. That done, I shall construct superb sheds in the heart of Paris, "Pour l'animal immonde aux Hébreux défendu." I shall become a pig-driver and pork-butcher. Let us see how the good people of Paris can avoid coming to provide themselves at my shop.
PeterSoftly, my good friends; if you enhance the price of butter and salt meat to such an extent, you cut down beforehand the profit I expect from my wood.
PaulAnd my speculation will be no longer so wondrously profitable, if I am overcharged for my firewood and bacon.
JohnAnd I, what shall I gain by overcharging you for my sausages, if you overcharge me for my faggots and bread and butter?
PeterVery well, don't let us quarrel Let us rather put our heads together and make reciprocal concessions. Moreover, it is not good to consult one's self-interest exclusively--we must exercise humanity, and see that the people do not want fuel.
PaulVery right; and it is proper that the people should have butter to their bread.
JohnUndoubtedly; and a bit of bacon for the pot.
AllThree cheers for charity; three cheers for philanthropy; and to-morrow we take the octroi by assault.
PeterAh! I forgot. One word more; it is essential. My good friends, in this age of egotism the world is distrustful, and the purest intentions are often misunderstood. Paul, you take the part of pleading for the wood; John will do the same for the butter; and I shall devote myself to the home-bred pig. It is necessary to prevent malignant suspicions.
Paul and John (leaving)On my word, that is a clever fellow.
Scene II.--Council Chamber
Scene II.--Council Chamber
PaulMes chers collègues, Every day there are brought to Paris great masses of firewood, which drain away large sums of money. At this rate, we shall all be ruined in three years, and what will become of the poorer classes? (Cheers) We must prohibit foreign timber. I don't speak for myself, for all the wood I possess would not make a tooth-pick. In what I mean to say, then, I am entirely free from any personal interest or bias. (Hear, hear) But here is my friend Peter, who possesses a park, and he will guarantee an adequate supply of fuel to our fellow-citizens, who will no longer be dependent on the charcoal-burners of the Yonne. Have you ever turned your attention to the risk which we run of dying of cold, if the proprietors of forests abroad should take it into their heads to send no more firewood to Paris? Let us put a prohibition, then, on bringing in wood. By this means we shall put a stop to the draining away of our money, create an independent interest charged with supplying the city with firewood, and open up to workmen a new source of employment and remuneration. (Cheers)
JohnI support the proposal of my honourable friend, the preceding speaker, which is at once so philanthropic, and, as he himself has explained, so entirely disinterested. It is indeed high time that we should put an end to this insolent laissez passer, which has brought immoderate competition into our markets, and to such an extent that there is no province which possesses any special facility for providing us with a product, be it what it may, which does not immediately inundate us, undersell us, and bring ruin on the Parisian workman. It is the duty of Government to equalize the conditions of production by duties wisely adapted to each case, so as not to allow to enter from without anything which is not dearer than in Paris, and so relieve us from an unequal struggle. How, for example, can we possibly produce milk and butter in Paris, with Brittany and Normandy at our door? Remember, gentlemen, that the agriculturists of Brittany have cheaper land, a more abundant supply of hay, and manual labour on more advantageous terms.
Scene II.--Council Chamber
Does not common sense tell us that we must equalize the conditions by a protective octroi tariff? I demand that the duty on milk and butter should be raised by 1000 per cent., and still higher if necessary. The workman's breakfast will cost a little more, but see to what extent his wages will be raised! We shall see rising around us cow-houses, dairies, and barrel chums, and the foundations laid of new sources of industry. Not that I have any interest in this proposition. I am not a cowfeeder, nor have I any wish to be so. The sole motive which actuates me is a wish to be useful to the working classes. (Applause.)
Scene II.--Council Chamber
PeterI am delighted to see in this assembly statesmen so pure, so enlightened, and so devoted to the best interests of the people. (Cheers) I admire their disinterestedness, and I cannot do better than imitate the noble example which has been set me. I give their motions my support, and I shall only add another, for prohibiting the entry into Paris of the pigs of Poitou. I have no desire, I assure you, to become a pig-driver or a pork-butcher. In that case I should have made it a matter of conscience to be silent. But is it not shameful, gentlemen, that we should be the tributaries of the peasants of Poitou, who have the audacity to come into our own market and take possession of a branch of industry which we ourselves have no means of carrying on? and who, after having inundated us with their hams and sausages, take perhaps nothing from us in return? At all events, who will tell us that the balance of trade is not in their favour, and that we are not obliged to pay them a tribute in hard cash? Is it not evident that if the industry of Poitou were transplanted to Paris, it would open up a steady demand for Parisian labour? And then, gentlemen, is it not very possible, as M. Lestiboudois has so well remarked, that we may be buying the salt pork of Poitou, not with our incomes, but with our capital? Where will that land us? Let us not suffer, then, that rivals who are at once avaricious, greedy, and perfidious, should come here to undersell us, and put it out of our power to provide ourselves with the same commodities. Gentlemen, Paris has reposed in you her confidence; it is for you to justify that confidence. The people are without employment; it is for you to create employment for them; and if salt pork shall cost them a somewhat higher price, we have, at least, the consciousness of having sacrificed our own interests to those of the masses, as every good magistrate ought to do. (Loud and long-continued cheers.)
Scene II.--Council Chamber
A VoiceI have heard much talk of the poor; but under pretext of affording them employment, you begin by depriving them of what is more valuable than employment itself, namely, butter, firewood, and meat.
Peter, Paul, and JohnVote, vote! Down with Utopian dreamers, theorists, generalizers! Vote, vote! (The three motions are carried.)
Scene III.--Twenty years afterwards
Scene III.--Twenty years afterwards
SonFather, make up your mind; we must leave Paris. Nobody can any longer live there--no work, and everything dear.
FatherYou don't know, my son, how much it costs one to leave the place where he was born.
SonThe worst thing of all is to perish from want.
FatherGo you, then, and search for a more hospitable country. For myself, I will not leave the place where are the graves of your mother, and of your brothers and sisters. I long to obtain with them that repose which has been denied me in this city of desolation.
SonCourage, father; we shall find employment somewhere else--in Poitou, or Normandy, or Brittany. It is said that all the manufactures of Paris are being removed by degrees to these distant provinces.
FatherAnd naturally so. Not being able to sell firewood and provisions, the people of these provinces have ceased to produce them beyond what their own wants call for. The time and capital at their disposal are devoted to making for themselves those articles with which we were in use to furnish them.
SonJust as at Paris they have given up the manufacture of elegant dress and furniture, and betaken themselves to the planting of trees, and the rearing of pigs and cows. Although still young, I have lived to see vast warehouses, sumptuous quarters of the city, and quays once teeming with life and animation on the banks of the Seine, turned into meadows and copses.
FatherWhile towns are spread over the provinces, Paris is turned into green fields. What a deplorable revolution! And this terrible calamity has been brought on us by three magistrates, backed by public ignorance.
SonPray relate to me the history of this change.