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{
"title": "The Candlemakers' Petition",
"authors": ["Frederic Bastiat"],
"publishdate": "1845-03-01",
"tags": ["Economics", "Law"]
}
From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, Candlesticks,
Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from the Producers of
Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected
with Lighting.
To the Honorable Members of the Chamber of Deputies.
Gentlemen:
You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and have
little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves
mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from
foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for
domestic industry.
We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for applying your—what
shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than
theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike
doctrines, you have a horror of systems, and, as for principles, you
deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call
it your practice—your practice without theory and without principle.
We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a foreign rival who
apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the
production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at
an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease,
all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose
ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete
stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging
war on us so mercilessly that we suspect he is being stirred up
against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!),
particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he
does not show for us.
We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all
windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains,
casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights, and blinds—in short, all openings,
holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont
to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which,
we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that
cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal
a combat.
Be good enough, honorable deputies, to take our request seriously, and
do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to
advance in its support.
First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural
light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry
in France will not ultimately be encouraged?
If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and
sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields,
meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all
agricultural wealth.
If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the
cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and rapeseed. These rich yet
soil-exhausting plants will come at just the right time to enable us
to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of
cattle will impart to the land.
Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees
will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste
their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate. Thus, there
is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great
expansion.
The same holds true of shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in
whaling, and in a short time we shall have a fleet capable of
upholding the honor of France and of gratifying the patriotic
aspirations of the undersigned petitioners, chandlers, etc.
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