Reybaud so bitterly complains is only
a form of commercial liberty. Grant full and entire liberty of
trade, and our flag is driven from the surface of the seas, as
our oils would be from the continent. Therefore we shall pay
dearer for our oil, if we insist on making it ourselves; dearer
for our colonial products, if we wish to carry them ourselves.
To secure cheapness it would be necessary, after having abandoned
our oils, to abandon our marine: as well abandon straightway our
cloths, our linens, our calicoes, our iron products, and then, as
an isolated industry necessarily costs too much, our wines, our
grains, our forage! Whichever course you may choose, privilege
or liberty, you arrive at the impossible, at the absurd.
Undoubtedly there exists a principle of reconciliation; but,
unless it be utterly despotic, it must be derived from a law
superior to liberty itself: now, it is this law which no one has
yet defined, and which I ask of the economists, if they really
are masters of their science. For I cannot consider him a savant
who, with the greatest sincerity and all the wit in the world,
preaches by turns, fifteen lines apart, liberty and monopoly.
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