第88章

If France rejects from her frontiers German fat cattle, orcorn, what will she effect thereby? In the first place, Germanywill thereby be unable to buy French wines.France will thereforehave to use those portions of her soil which are fitted for thecultivation of the vine less profitably in proportion as thisdestruction of commercial interchange lessens her exportation ofwines.So many fewer persons will be exclusively occupied with thecultivation of the vine, and therefore so much less nativeagricultural products will be required, which these persons wouldhave consumed, who would have otherwise devoted themselvesexclusively to vine culture.This will be the case in theproduction of oil as well as in that of wine.France will thereforealways lose in her agricultural power on other points much morethan she gains on one single point, because by her exclusion of theGerman cattle she protects a trade in the rearing and fattening ofcattle which had not been spontaneously developed, and for which,therefore, probably the agriculture of those districts where thisbranch of industry has had to be artificially developed is notadapted.Thus will it be if we consider France merely as anagricultural State opposed to Germany as a merely agriculturalState, and if we also assume that Germany will not retaliate onthat policy by a similar one.This policy, however, appears stillmore injurious if we assume that Germany, as she will be compelledto out of regard to her own interests, adopts similarly restrictivemeasures, and if we consider that France is not merely anagricultural, but also a manufacturing State.Germany will, namely,not merely impose higher duties on French wines, but on all thoseFrench products which Germany either produces herself, or can moreor less do without, or procure elsewhere; she will further restrictthe importation of those manufactured goods which she cannot atpresent produce with special benefit, but which she can procurefrom other places than from France.The disadvantage which Francehas brought upon herself by those restrictions, thus appears twiceor three times greater than the advantage.It is evident that inFrance only so many persons can be employed in the cultivation ofthe vine, in the cultivation of olives, and in manufacturingindustry, as the means of subsistence, and raw materials whichFrance either produces herself or procures from abroad, are able tosupport and employ.But we have seen that the restriction ofimportation has not increased the agricultural production, but hasmerely transferred it from one district to another.If free coursehad been permitted to the interchange of products, the importationof products and raw materials, and consequently the sale of wine,oil, and manufactured goods, would have continually increased, andconsequently the number of persons employed in the cultivation ofthe vine and olives, and in manufactures; while with the increasingtraffic, on the one hand, the means of subsistence and rawmaterials, and, on the other hand, the demand for her manufacturedproducts, would have augmented.The augmentation of this populationwould have produced a larger demand for those provisions and rawmaterials which cannot easily be imported from abroad, and forwhich the native agriculture possesses a natural monopoly; thenative agriculture therefore would thus have obtained a far greaterprofit.The demand for those agricultural products for which thecharacter of the French soil is specially adapted, would be muchmore considerable under this free interchange than that producedartificially by restriction.One agriculturist would not have lostwhat another gained; the whole agriculture of the country wouldhave gained, but still more the manufacturing industry.Throughrestriction, the agricultural power of the country therefore is notincreased, but limited; and besides this, that manufacturing poweris annihilated which would have grown up from the augmentation ofthe internal agriculture, as well as from the foreign importationof provisions and raw materials.All that has been attained throughthe restriction is an increase of prices in favour of theagriculturists of one district at the expense of the agriculturistsof another district, but above all, at the expense of the totalproductive force of the country.