Page:Economic Sophisms.djvu/220

208 .—The Agitation. of the octroi duties; let us demand that they be instantly brought down to the former rate. Let every citizen be free to buy his firewood, butter, and butchers' meat where he sees fit.
 * Parisians, let us insist upon a refonn
 * Vive, vive !

that word, liberty. What good can result from liberty to purchase if you want the means—in other words, if you are out of employment? Can Paris produce firewood as cheaply as the Forest of Bondy? meat as cheaply as Poitou? butter as cheaply as Normandy? If you open your gates freely to these rival products, what will become of the cowfeeders, woodcutters, and pork-butchers? They cannot dispense with protection.
 * Parisians, don't allow yourselves to be seduced by


 * Vive, vive !

workmen? Do you not compete with one another? Let the wood-merchants, then, be subject to competition in their turn. They ought not to have right by law to raise the price of firewood, unless the rate of wages is also raised by law. Are you no longer in love with equality?
 * Protection! but who protects you


 * Vive, vive !

raised the price of firewood, butchers' meat, and butter; but we have done so for the express purpose of being enabled to give good wages to the workmen. We are actuated by motives of charity.
 * Don't listen to these agitators. We have, it is true,


 * Vive, vive !

Cause the rate of wages to be raised by the octroi, if you can, or cease by the same means to raise the prices of commodities. We Parisians ask for no charity—we demand justice.


 * Vive, vive !

It is precisely the high price of commodities which will lead, par ricochet, to a rise of wages.


 * Vive, vive !


 * If butter is dear, it is not because you