Page:Economic Sophisms.djvu/233

221 Reply: "The misfortune is theirs and the profit is ours, since their labour does not enter into the price of the corn which their masters sell us."

Finally, if they tell you that other nations have many advantages over us,

Reply: "By means of exchange, they are forced to allow us to participate in these advantages." If they tell you that under free-trade we are about to be inundated with bread, bœuf à la mode, coal, and winter clothing,

Reply: "In that case we shall be neither hungry nor thirsty." If they ask how we are to pay for these things?

Reply: "Don't let that disquiet you. If we are inundated, it is a sign we have the means of paying for the inundation; and if we have not the means of paying, we shall not be inundated." If any one says: I should approve of free-trade, if the foreigner, in sending us his products, would take our products in exchange; but he carries off our money,

Reply: "Neither money nor coffee grows in the fields of Beauce, nor are they turned out by the workshops of Elbeuf. So far as we are concerned, to pay the foreigner with money is the same thing as paying him with coffee."

If they bid you eat butcher's meat,

Reply: "Allow it to be imported."

If they say to you, in the words of the Presse, "When one has not the means to buy bread, he is forced to buy beef,"

Reply: "This is advice quite as judicious as that given by M. Vautour to his tenant:

If, again, they say to you, in the words of La Presse, "The government should teach the people how and why they must eat beef," Reply: "The government has only to allow the beef to be imported, and the most civilized people in the world will know how to use it without being taught by a master."

If they tell you that the government should know