“Since each needs the others in the same proportion, however, it is necessary to remedy these inequalities of production by freedom of trade; if not, assuming that each country uses the same mode of prohibition, famine will destroy a part of the population in one place, while lack of combustibles there will impede the means of locomotion and manufacture in another and thus slow down internal trade; elsewhere, the absence of silver with force the State to issue banknotes, the number of which, surpassing the effective capital that they ought to represent, will lead to bankruptcy. Those are the fatal consequences that protectionism brings with it.
“Internal production is therefore insufficient to the needs of indigenes, who have recourse to imports to make up their deficiencies, as they have recourse to exports to disperse the excess of their production. Now, the taxes imposed on imported foreign merchandise at the frontier force the retailer to raise the price of the merchandise by the extent to the duty that the State has imposed. That duty is sometimes more than the value of the merchandise. The retailer necessarily passes that on to the customer and only the State profits from the rise in price. It is not the foreigner, in view of whom these customs duties are imposed, who bears the cost; it is the indigene, whose interests the State is claiming to protect.
“And the State, which is the only one to profit from it, would gain even more if it halved the tariffs. Three times as much would be consumed and the additional consumption would produce a third as much again.
“Protectionists hide behind the vain pretext that they are reserving the internal market in excluding foreign produce by prohibitive taxes. The truth is that they see these taxes as a benefit to the State, and that that benefit comes back to them one way or another. It is generally governors who are protectionists, having been supporters of free trade before coming to power, just as conservatives become conservatives as soon as they have possessions, having been Republicans when they had none.
“Traders have no advantage in being protectionist. They cannot be content to deal in indigenous products. To respond to the demands of their customers, they need to mingle them with exotic products, and the levy that these products pay to the State at the frontier forces them in order to make a profit on them, to sell them at a price surpassing both the purchase price and the customs duty, sometimes triple their value. The result of this is that the client consumes as little as possible. If, on the other hand, the merchandise were free of duty, the client would consume more, and the State would still benefit from it in one form or another.
“In sum, protection paralyzes progress in every respect. It slows down trade, and prevents manufacturers from taking advantage of the best conditions of localization and manufacture and improving their products. It tends to perpetuate obsolete methods by permitting the sale of indigenous products cheaper than foreign ones. It isolates people. It is a national blockade.
“Free trade, on the other hand, based on the principle of universal solidarity, opens up vast scope for progress. It stimulates the self-respect of nations by competition, and drives improvement by comparison; it develops trade and facilitates means of transport by way of fairly-balanced prices; it cements the fraternity of peoples, which it leads directly toward their objective: relative perfection.
“Since the freedom of commerce has been universally proclaimed and sanctioned by the International Congress, Industry has invented marvels and public wealth has increased by virtue the free circulation of products. Feverish activity is manifest everywhere. The railways are scarcely sufficient to transport merchandise. Ships plow the seas in every direction, their holds laden with specialties from the five continents. They go through straits without any tolls impeding their progress; they come into port under full sail and unload their cargoes without the customs imposing disproportionate taxes on them before knowing whether or not they will be sold.
“Free trade, by eliminating contraband, has vanquished the worst enemy of commerce, fraud, and revived its best agent, mutual confidence.”
Chapter IX
EXTERNAL POLITICS
The International Congress
Monsieur Landet was beginning to experience a certain fatigue in the wake of the somnambulistic sleep. This fatigue made itself manifest in a general numbness of all his limbs and a mental torpor that weakened his intellectual faculties.
Hobson did not think they should take the experiments any further; he invoked his responsibility, and did not want to put the savant’s reason—and perhaps his life—in any more peril.
Monsieur Landet, fanatically avid for the unknown, triumphed over the magnetizer’s scruples, by assuring him that the next séance would be the last.
He said saved external politics until the end because external politics was, within the whole, that which he had examined in particular, because it was the bond of linking nations together...
“All that blood! All that blood! All that blood!” cried Monsieur Landet, as soon as the séance began, making a gesture of horror. “Europe is transformed into an immense battlefield. The countries present a desolate appearance. I see nothing on all sides but massacres, ruins, conflagrations. The plains are covered in white bones. Plague, a consequence of this human butchery, extends its ravages from province to province, its murderous miasmas borne on the wind. Death! Death! The image of death is everywhere; the rivers carry cadavers, their waters are tainted with red gleams, pools of blood dapple the soil. Birds of prey come, flapping their wings, to feast at the hideous banquet. Behold the degree of dementia to which the passions have led humankind.
“Such engines of destruction have been invented that war has been rendered impossible henceforth. We have reached the point of killing one another without seeing or hearing one another, at several leagues’ distance, laying mines, blowing up entire downs, launching bombs that kill thousands of men at a stroke when they explode. What am I saying? These bombs disturb the layers of the atmosphere, provoke earthquakes, divert rivers in their courses and bring down blocks of stone from the summits of mountains.
“Electric sparks set fire to powder at a distance of 2000 leagues and from Paris, by means of submarine cables, blow up a squadron of ships at sea or a district in America. One step further on that fatal path, and all the parts of the terrestrial crust will be breached.
“Finally, a European conflict has taken place. The nations, forming coalitions against one another, have met in a gigantic battle, the last of all.
“All that blood! All that blood! All that blood!
“The battalions disappearing in clouds of powder; shells weighing 60,000 kilograms and slabs of rock launched by balistas are crossing paths in the air; regiments are falling upon regiments, the dead are heaped up on the dead.
“And when arms weary of scything down this human harvest, when no more powder remains to charge the cannons, when the balistas refuse to slide on their springs, set on fire by friction, it stops.
“The spectacle of their folly suddenly sobers up the opposing sides. One of them takes the initiative of conciliation; it sends a negotiator to the enemy camp.
“‘Brothers,’ says the latter, ‘I’ve been sent by my side to propose that we put an end to this bloody conflict. We’ve given the purest blood of our youth to it. When we go back to our homes, victors or vanquished, we’ll find mourning and misery there. No more strong arms to cultivate the earth of aliment commerce and industry; no one is left but old men, women and children. Twenty years will scarcely suffice to repair the damage done in one day of delirium. Industry is mortally wounded; no one thinks about manufacturing any longer, being solely occupied in destruction. Commerce is suspended; labor no longer finds an outlet for its products. What am I saying? There are no more laborers, there are only soldiers. The small quantity of merchandise circulating between nations is seized in transit. No one has any respect for anything any longer. Family, property, the most sacred things of all, are at the mercy of the victor. Rational justice has been overturned; there is but one right now, the righ
t of might. Progress, by dint of civilization, is taking us back to savagery! And why? To avenge the injured self-respect of a sovereign! To protect diplomatic interests by alliance! Shall we suffer that men to whom we are strangers continue to sacrifice us to their individual quarrels?
“‘No, Brothers, let us shake hands before these cadavers. We were not made to kill one another. Death belongs to God. Our duty is to fraternize, to unite ourselves in universal solidarity.’
“The two camps shook hands, and war was abolished, by the unanimous decision of the nations. Then, the belligerent parties immediately constituted an International Congress, and decided that differences between nations would be judged by that tribunal.
“The International Congress is composed of delegates of all the nations, under the direction of a president elected by the delegates. Each nation has four delegates, under the presidency of the Head of State. Thus, the congress is a sort of international parliament in which the debates end in a vote; each delegation is a commission representing a nation.
“The Congress is the central government of the Universal Confederation. It regulates the relationships of nations with one another. The laws particular to each State are transmitted to it; it refers them to the authorities and opposes them with its veto if that veto is considered necessary to the universal interest.
“In brief, all the States are grouped around the International Congress as, in America, the States of the Union are around the Congress in Washington. The Congress possesses a neutral territory called the Territory of Congress, on which is built the International Palace. The delegates of the States meet there regularly, every year, to discuss current affairs, and extraordinarily when there is cause.
“Beside the International Palace is the Universal Exhibition Hall, to which people come every five years to exhibit their products and communicate their inventions. The objective of these quinquennial exhibitions is to accelerate the march of progress by bringing people up to date with innovations in every part of the world.
“Already stimulated by their annual exhibitions, they make improvements, in view of the Universal Exhibition, and further improvements thereafter...”
Chapter X
EPILOGUE
“Sic Itur ad Astra”37
At that point, Monsieur Landet stopped. His lips moved, but no sound came out.
Hobson made a few sweeping passes over him and woke him up, but he could not get anything out of him but unintelligible muttering. The savant had completely lost his memory. Frightened by this mental lethargy, he had him taken back to his own house. Not being able to dissipate the torpor, he sent for a physician and informed the Marquise de la Roche-Houdion.
When the Marquise came into the savant’s room, she found him in bed, his expression bleak and downcast, his arms limp, his eyes staring and bewildered, his lips pated and his face red.
He did not recognize her.
“It’s me, my friend,” she said. “Me, your old enemy. Speak, answer me I beg you.”
No reply.
Finally, the doctor arrived. He was brought to the invalid. After having examined him, he shook his head.
“Well?” said the Marquise and the magnetizer, simultaneously.
“Monsieur Landet won’t last the night,” he replied. “A brain seizure has just become manifest. This torpor is the prelude to a delirium that is bound to carry the invalid away.”
“How much longer will this lethargy last, Doctor?” the Marquis asked.
“Two hours, Madame.”
Hobson and the Marquise waited, without saying a word. They were distressed. A long-standing friendship, one of those profound friendships based on esteem, that can exist between a man and an equally superior woman, united the savant and the Marquise. Mr. Hobson, although he had not known the savant very long, experienced a sympathy for him instilled by working together and reciprocal trust. Magnetism had contributed a great deal to giving that sentiment an appearance of irresistible attachment. How Hobson regretted, now, having yielded to the savant’s insistence!
From time to time, the doctor put his ear to the savant’s chest.
Suddenly, as if he had been activated by a spring, Monsieur Landet sat up straight and waved his arms. His eyes were animated by a spark of vitality and he cried: “My manuscript! My manuscript! I want my manuscript!”
His manuscript was placed in his hands.
“Ah! I can die now that my political testament is complete. I can die, consoled by my posthumous glory; I am leaving the world a constitution.”
His hands clenched upon the manuscript; his eyes were bloodshot.
“Stop—stop the electric current! Can’t you see that it’s killing me? Ah, it’s animal electricity! That’s true—I forgot!
“Oh, the fever’s devouring me, I have fire in my veins! Water! Water!
“Lift the weight that’s pressing on my head! My ideas are getting confused—they’re swarming, seething; my brain’s going to explode! Oh, that weight! Always that weight, crushing me like a stone block!
“Let me be, for mercy’s sake! Don’t torment me!
“No, I haven’t betrayed my mandate; no, I haven’t rebelled against the suffrage of my electors. You say that I took the floor to defend the Finance Minister. That wasn’t me, you’re mistaken. What! You’re taking my income and giving me a piece of paper in exchange! But you’ll ruin me! Give me back my money! I don’t want that!
“Finally, free trade stimulates the activity of peoples. Merchants pass frontiers free of duties. No more flags establishing different tariffs between nationalities. Ships cleave the seas under the protectorate of the Universal Confederation. Liberty! Liberty! Liberty!
“All that blood before getting there! Oh, it sickens me to see it! Take that horrible vision away! I’m suffering! I’m suffering! I can feel the grip of death!
“Dying! While glory awaits me beyond the tomb. What shall I become beyond this life? I shall wander in space, awaiting my return to Earth in a new body. And when will that series of incarnations end? When?
“But what’s that fixed dot advancing toward me? It’s growing, growing, spreading out like a patch of oil; it’s dazzling me, it’s blinding me. Ah! It’s the sun!
“Into what turbulence am I being drawn? I’ve got vertigo. The Earth is worn away by the friction of its atmospheric layers; its orbit is shrinking. It’s getting nearer and nearer to the sun. It’s falling into its sphere of attraction, it’s making contact. Ah! It’s volatilizing it and absorbing it.
“And the soul! My soul! Free! Free! Free of terrestrial attraction, it’s returning to Infinity. Infinity! Infinity! Infinity…!”
He fell back on to his pillow, murmuring that word, which expired on his lips.
The doctor approached, placed one hand on his chest and held a mirror to his lips with the other.
Hobson and the Marquise did not say a word, but their gazes interrogated the doctor.
Slowly, the latter said: “He’s dead.”
Notes
1 Translated as “News from the Moon” in the eponymous collection, Black Coat Press, ISBN 978-1-932983-89-0.
2 Following her return from exile imposed by Napoléon, Madame Récamier (1777-1849), a close friend of Madame de Staël and Chateaubriand, hosted a salon at the Abbaye-aux-Bois in the Rue de Sèvres, where the cream of Restoration society met.
3 The Hôtel de Rambouillet was constructed in the Rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre to a design provided by the Marquise de Rambouillet (1588-1665). The salon the Marquise maintained there, whose regulars included Madame de Sévigné, Malherbe, Corneille, La Rochefoucauld, La Fontaine, Scarron and Bossuet, had a considerable influence on the development of 17th century literature. Its star was the Marquise’s daughter, “the adorable Julie,” who consented to become the Duchesse de Montausier after 14 years of competitive courtship. It was Julie who inspired Molière to write his biting satire about the salon, Les Précieuses ridicules [Ridiculously Precious Women] (1659), although not everyo
ne found her ridiculous.
4 The Comte de Chambord was the grandson of Charles X, who should have succeeded that monarch in 1830 after his father and elder brother stepped aside, but the Duc d’Orléans, whose job it was to proclaim him king Henri V, failed to do so and was given the crown himself, hence giving rise to the “legitimist” opposition. After the fall of the Second Empire, the Legitimistists and the Orléanists settled their differences, the latter consenting to the childless Comte de Chambord taking the throne, on the understanding that their own heir, the Comte de Paris, would succeed him, but the deal fell apart, allegedly—as the present text states—because the Comte de Chambord refused accept the tricolor as the flag of France.
5 The author adds a footnote crediting this quotation to Blaise Pascal’s Discours sur les Passions de l’amour (1652-53).
6 i.e., a bishop without a see, holding the title in name only.
7 The fable in question is attributed to Aesop.
8 In the Proslogium (1077-78), which sets out the most comprehensive version of the ontological argument for the existence of God.
9 The author adds a footnote here crediting this quotation to chapters VIII and IX of Xenophon’s Economics.
10 The author includes a footnote crediting this quotation to Nome-Denis Fustel de Coulanges’ Cité antique, Book III, Chapter IV. That text, first published in 1864, and translated into English as The Ancient City, was one of the most important of the period, attempting to build a theory of social evolution on the basis of historical data regarding the development of the Greek city states and the empires that absorbed them. It is on the basis of a similar theory, taking aboard many of Fustel’s assertions, that the author of the present text is attempting to anticipate the future course of social evolution. A phratry is a subdivision of a tribe identified by the Athenians.
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