What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Éconimiques" Designed for the American Reader by Frédéric Bastiat
page 24 of 142 (16%)
page 24 of 142 (16%)
|
manufactures to the West, and the West sends corn to New England, it
is because these two sections are, from different circumstances, induced to turn their attention to the production of different articles. Is there any other rule for international exchanges? Again, to bring against such exchanges the very inequalities of condition which excite and explain them, is to attack them in their very cause of being. The protective system, closely followed up, would bring men to live like snails, in a state of complete isolation. In short, there is not one of its sophisms, which, if carried through by vigorous deductions, would not end in destruction and annihilation. 2. _It is not true that the labor of one country can be crushed by the competition of more favored climates._ The statement is not true that the unequal facility of production, between two similar branches of industry, should necessarily cause the destruction of the one which is the least fortunate. On the turf, if one horse gains the prize, the other loses it; but when two horses work to produce any useful article, each produces in proportion to his strength; and because the stronger is the more useful it does not follow that the weaker is good for nothing. Wheat is cultivated in every section of the United States, although there are great differences in the degree of fertility existing among them. If it happens that there be one which does not cultivate it, it is because, even to itself, such cultivation is not useful. Analogy will show us, that under the influences of an unshackled trade, notwithstanding similar differences, wheat would be produced in every portion of the world; and if any nation were induced to entirely abandon the cultivation of it, this would only be because it would _be her interest_ to otherwise employ her lands, her capital, and her labor. And why does not the fertility of one department |
|