Paul: _Mes chers collègues_, Every day there are brought to Paris great
masses of firewood, which drain away large sums of money. At this rate,
we shall all be ruined in three years, and what will become of the
poorer classes? (Cheers) We must prohibit foreign timber. I don't speak
for myself, for all the wood I possess would not make a tooth-pick. In
what I mean to say, then, I am entirely free from any personal interest
or bias. (Hear, hear) But here is my friend Peter, who possesses a park,
and he will guarantee an adequate supply of fuel to our fellow-citizens,
who will no longer be dependent on the charcoal-burners of the Yonne.
Have you ever turned your attention to the risk which we run of dying
of cold, if the proprietors of forests abroad should take it into their
heads to send no more firewood to Paris? Let us put a prohibition, then,
on bringing in wood. By this means we shall put a stop to the draining
away of our money, create an independent interest charged with
supplying the city with firewood, and open up to workmen a new source of
employment and remuneration. (Cheers)
John: I support the proposal of my honourable friend, the preceding
speaker, which is at once so philanthropic, and, as he himself has
explained, so entirely disinterested. It is indeed high time that we
should put an end to this insolent _laissez passer_, which has brought
immoderate competition into our markets, and to such an extent that
there is no province which possesses any special facility for providing
us with a product, be it what it may, which does not immediately
inundate us, undersell us, and bring ruin on the Parisian workman. It
is the duty of Government to equalize the conditions of production by
duties wisely adapted to each case, so as not to allow to enter from
without anything which is not dearer than in Paris, and so relieve us
from an unequal struggle. How, for example, can we possibly produce milk
and butter in Paris, with Brittany and Normandy at our door? Remember,
gentlemen, that the agriculturists of Brittany have cheaper land, a more
abundant supply of hay, and manual labour on more advantageous terms.
Does not common sense tell us that we must equalize the conditions by
a protective octroi tariff? I demand that the duty on milk and butter
should be raised by 1000 per cent., and still higher if necessary. The
workman's breakfast will cost a little more, but see to what extent his
wages will be raised! We shall see rising around us cow-houses, dairies,
and barrel chums, and the foundations laid of new sources of industry.
Not that I have any interest in this proposition. I am not a cowfeeder,
nor have I any wish to be so. The sole motive which actuates me is a
wish to be useful to the working classes. (Applause.)
Peter: I am delighted to see in this assembly statesmen so pure,
so enlightened, and so devoted to the best interests of the people.
(Cheers) I admire their disinterestedness, and I cannot do better than
imitate the noble example which has been set me. I give their motions
my support, and I shall only add another, for prohibiting the entry into
Paris of the pigs of Poitou. I have no desire, I assure you, to become
a pig-driver or a pork-butcher. In that case I should have made it a
matter of conscience to be silent. But is it not shameful, gentlemen,
that we should be the tributaries of the peasants of Poitou, who have
the audacity to come into our own market and take possession of a branch
of industry which we ourselves have no means of carrying on? and who,
after having inundated us with their hams and sausages, take perhaps
nothing from us in return? At all events, who will tell us that the
balance of trade is not in their favour, and that we are not obliged to
pay them a tribute in hard cash? Is it not evident that if the industry
of Poitou were transplanted to Paris, it would open up a steady demand
for Parisian labour? And then, gentlemen, is it not very possible, as M.
Lestiboudois has so well remarked, that we may be buying the salt pork
of Poitou, not with our incomes, but with our capital? Where will
that land us? Let us not suffer, then, that rivals who are at once
avaricious, greedy, and perfidious, should come here to undersell
us, and put it out of our power to provide ourselves with the same
commodities. Gentlemen, Paris has reposed in you her confidence; it is
for you to justify that confidence. The people are without employment;
it is for you to create employment for them; and if salt pork shall cost
them a somewhat higher price, we have, at least, the consciousness of
having sacrificed our own interests to those of the masses, as every
good magistrate ought to do. (Loud and long-continued cheers.)
A Voice: I have heard much talk of the poor; but under pretext of
affording them employment, you begin by depriving them of what is more
valuable than employment itself, namely, butter, firewood, and meat.
Peter, Paul, and John: Vote, vote! Down with Utopian dreamers,
theorists, generalizers! Vote, vote! (_The three motions are carried._)