RECIPROCITY AGAIN.

Mr. de Saint Cricq has asked: “Are we sure that our foreign customers will buy from us as much as they sell us?”

Mr. de Dombasle says: “What reason have we for believing that English producers will come to seek their supplies from us, rather than from any other nation, or that they will take from us a value equivalent to their exportations into France?”

I cannot but wonder to see men who boast, above all things, of being practical, thus reasoning wide of all practice!

In practice, there is perhaps no traffic which is a direct exchange of produce for produce. Since the use of money, no man says, I will seek shoes, hats, advice, lessons, only from the shoemaker, the hatter, the lawyer, or teacher, who will buy from me the exact equivalent of these in corn. Why should nations impose upon themselves so troublesome a restraint?

Suppose a nation without any exterior relations. One of its citizens makes a crop of corn. He casts it into the national circulation, and receives in exchange what? Money, bank bills, securities, divisible to any extent, by means of which it will be lawful for him to withdraw when he pleases, and, unless prevented by just competition from the national circulation, such articles as he may wish. At the end of the operation, he will have withdrawn from the mass the exact equivalent of what he first cast into it, and in value, his consumption will exactly equal his production.

If the exchanges of this nation with foreign nations are free, it is no longer into the national circulation but into the general circulation that each individual casts his produce, and from thence his consumption is drawn. He is not obliged to calculate whether what he casts into this general circulation is purchased by a countryman or by a foreigner; whether the notes he receives are given to him by a Frenchman or an Englishman, or whether the articles which he procures through means of this money are manufactured on this or the other side of the Rhine or the Pyrénées. One thing is certain; that each individual finds an exact balance between what he casts in and what he withdraws from the great common reservoir; and if this be true of each individual, it is not less true of the entire nation.

The only difference between these two cases is, that in the last, each individual has open to him a larger market both for his sales and his purchases, and has, consequently, a more favorable opportunity of making both to advantage.

The objection advanced against us here, is, that if all were to combine in not withdrawing from circulation the produce from any one individual, he, in his turn, could withdraw nothing from the mass. The same, too, would be the case with regard to a nation.

Our answer is: If a nation can no longer withdraw any thing from the mass of circulation, neither will it any longer cast any thing into it. It will work for itself. It will be obliged to submit to what, in advance, you wish to force upon it, viz., Isolation. And here you have the ideal of the prohibitive system.

Truly, then, is it not ridiculous enough that you should inflict upon it now, and unnecessarily, this system, merely through fear that some day or other it might chance to be subjected to it without your assistance?