Gentlemen,—The Repeal of the Corn Laws**’ in England is the 
greatest triumph of Free Trade in the nineteenth century. In every 
country where manufacturers discuss Free Trade, they have in mind 
chiefly Free Trade in corn or raw material generally. To burden 
foreign corn with protective duties is infamous, it is to speculate on 
the hunger of the people. 

Cheap food, high wages,’ for this alone the English Free Traders? 
have spent millions, and their enthusiasm has already infected their 
Continental brethren. And, generally speaking, all those who 
advocate Free Trade do so in the interests of the working _ class.‘ 

But, strange to say, the people for whom cheap food is to be 
procured at all costs are very ungrateful. Cheap food 1s as ill reputed 
in England as is cheap government in France. The people see in 
these self-sacrificing gentlemen, in Bowring, Bright & Co., their 
worst enemies and the most shameless hypocrites. 

Everyone knows that in England the struggle between Liberals 
and Democrats takes the name of the struggle between Free Traders 
and Chartists. Let us see how the English Free Traders have proved 
to the people the good intentions that animate them. 

2 In the 1848 French edition these words are repeated in English after the 
French.—Ed. 

> In the 1848 French edition, here and below, as a rule, the English is used, though 
the French “libre-échangiste” also occurs sometimes.— Ed. 

© In the 1848 French edition the end of this phrase reads: “to ease the condition of 
the working class”.—Ed. 

VISSoVss 

SUR LA QUESTION 

DU LIBRE ECHANGE, 

PRONONCE A 

L’ASSOCIATION DEMOCRATIQUE 

DE BRUXELLES, 
Dans la Séance Publique du 9 Janvier 1848, 

PAR CHARLES MARX. 

Imprimé aux frais de l'Association Deémocratique. 

Messieurs , 

L’abolition des lois céréales en Angleterre est le plus grand 
triomphe que le libre échange ait remporté au 19™¢ siécle. Dans 
tous les pays ou les fabricants parlent de libre échange ils ont 
principalement en vue le libre échange des grains et des matiéres 
premiéres en général. Frapper de droits protecteurs les grains 
étrangers, c'est infame, c'est spéculer sur la famine des peuples. 

First page of a separate edition of Marx’s “Speech on the Question of Free Trade” 
(Brussels, February 1848) 

16— 1826 

Speech on the Question of Free Trade 453 

This is what they said to the factory hands,— 

“The duty on corn is a tax upon wages; this tax vou pay to the 
landlords, those medieval aristocrats; if your position is a wretched 
one, it is so only on account of the high price of the most 
indispensable articles of food.” 

The workers in turn asked of the manufacturers,— 

“How is it that in the course of the last thirty years, while our 
commerce and manufacture? has immensely increased, our wages 
have fallen far more rapidly, in proportion, than the price of corn 
has gone up? 

“The tax which you say we pay the landlords is about three pence a 
week per worker. And yet the wages of the hand-loom weaver fell, 
between 1815 and 1843, from 28s. per week to 5s., and the wages of 
the power-loom weaver, between 1823 and 1843, from 20s. per 
week to 8s. 

“And during the whole of the time that portion of the tax which 
you say we pay the landlord has never exceeded three pence. And, 
then, in the year 1834, when bread was very cheap and business 
lively, what did you tell us? You said, ‘If you are poor, it is only 
because you have too many children, and your marriages are more 
productive than your labor!’ 

“These are the very words you spoke to us, and you set about 
making new Poor Laws, and building workhouses, those bastilles of 
the proletariat.” 

To this the manufacturers replied,— 

“You are right, worthy laborers: it is not the price of corn alone, 
but competition of the hands among themselves as well, which 
determines wages. 

“But just bear in mind the circumstance that our soil consists of 
rocks and sandbanks only. You surely do not imagine that corn can 
be grown in flower-pots! If, instead of wasting our labor and capital 
upon a thoroughly sterile soil, we were to give up agriculture, and 
devote ourselves exclusively to commerce and manufacture, all 
Europe would abandon its factories, and England would form one 
huge factory town, with the whole of the rest of Europe for its 
agricultural districts.” 

While thus haranguing his own workingmen, the manufacturer is 
interrogated by the small tradesmen, who exclaim,— 

“If we repeal the Corn Laws, we shall indeed ruin agriculture; but, 
for all that, we shall not compel other nations to give up their own 

* The 1848 French edition has here and below “industry” instead of “commerce 
and manufacture” .—Ed. 

factories, and buy our goods. What will the consequences be? I lose 
my customers in the country, and the home market is destroyed.” 

The manufacturer turns his back upon the workingmen and 
replies to the shopkeeper,— 

‘As to that, you leave it to us! Once rid of the duty on corn, we 
shall import cheaper corn from abroad. Then we shall reduce wages 
at the very time when they are rising in the countries where we get 
our corn. Thus in addition to the advantages which we already enjoy 
we shall have lower wages, and, with all these advantages, we shall 
easily force the Continent to buy of us.” 

But now the farmers and agricultural laborers join in the 
discussion. 

“And what, pray, is to become of us? Are we to help in passing a 
sentence of death upon agriculture, when we get our living by it? Are 
we to let the soil be torn from beneath our feet?” 

For all answer the Anti-Corn Law League” contented itself with 
offering prizes for the three best essays upon the wholesome 
influence of the Repeal of the Corn Laws on English agriculture. 

These prizes were carried off by Messrs Hope, Morse, and Greg, 
whose essays* were distributed broadcast throughout the agricultural 
districts.” One of the prize essayists devotes himself to proving that 
neither the tenant farmer nor the agricultural laborer would lose by 
the repeal of the Corn Laws, and that the landlord alone would lose. 

“The English tenant farmer,” he exclaims, “need not fear repeal, 
because no other country can produce such good corn so cheaply as 
England. Thus, even if the price of corn fell, it would not hurt you, 
because this fall would only affect rent, which would go down, while 
the profit of capital and the wages of labor remain stationary.” 

The second prize essayist, Mr. Morse, maintains, on the contrary, 
that the price of corn will rise in consequence of repeal. He is at 
infinite pains to prove that protective duties have never been able to 
secure a remunerative price for corn. 

In support of his assertion he quotes the fact that, whenever 
foreign corn has been imported, the price of corn in England has 
gone up considerably, and that when little corn has been imported 
the price has fallen extremely. This prize-winner forgets that the 
importation was not the cause of the high price, but that the high 
price was the cause of the importation. In direct contradiction of his 

4 The Three Prize Essays on Agriculture and the Corn Law. Published by the National 
Anti-Corn Law League.— Ed. 

> The 1848 French edition has: “whose books were circulated in the rural districts 
in thousands of copies.” —Ed. 

Speech on the Question of Free Trade 455 

colleague he asserts that every rise in the price of corn is profitable to 
both the tenant farmer and laborer, but does not benefit the 
landlord. 

The third prize essayist, Mr. Greg, who is a large manufacturer 
and whose work is addressed to the large tenant farmers, could not 
afford to echo such silly stuff. His language is more scientific. 

He admits that the Corn Laws can increase rent only by increasing 
the price of corn, and that they can raise the price of corn only by 
inducing the investment of capital upon land of inferior quality, and 
this is explained quite simply. 

In proportion as population increases, it inevitably follows, if 
foreign corn cannot be imported, that less fruitful soil must be 
placed under cultivation. This involves more expense and the 
product of this soil is consequently dearer. There being a demand 
for all the corn thus produced,’ it will all be sold. The price for all of 
it will of necessity be determined by the price of the product of the 
inferior soil.” The difference between this price and the cost of 
production upon soil of better quality constitutes the rent paid for 
the use of the better soil. 

If, therefore, in consequence of the repeal of the Corn Laws, the 
price of corn falls, and if, as a matter of course, rent falls along with 
it, it is because inferior soil will no longer be cultivated. Thus the 
reduction of rent must inevitably ruin a part of the tenant farmers. 

These remarks were necessary in order to make Mr. Greg’s 
language comprehensible. 

“The small farmers,” he says, “who cannot support themselves by 
agriculture must take refuge in manufacture. As to the large tenant 
farmers, they cannot fail to profit by the arrangement: either the 
landlord will be obliged to sel] them their land very cheap, or leases 
will be made out for long periods. This will enable tenant farmers to 
invest more capital in their farms, to use agricultural machinery ona 
larger scale, and to save manual labor, which will, moreover, be 
cheaper, on account of the general fall in wages, the immediate 
consequence of the repeal of the Corn Laws.” 

Dr. Bowring conferred upon all these arguments the consecration 
of religion, by exclaiming at a public meeting, “Jesus Christ is Free 
Trade, and Free Trade is Jesus Christ.” 

* The 1848 French edition does not have the words “thus produced” .— Ed. 
> The 1848 French edition has here “requiring greater expenses” .— Ed. 

© The 1848 French edition does not have the words “paid for the use of the better 
soil” .— Ed. 

It will be evident that all this cant was not calculated to make cheap 
bread tasteful to workingmen. 

Besides, how should the workingmen understand the sudden 
philanthropy of the manufacturers, the very men still busy fighting 
against the Ten-Hours Bill, which was to reduce the working day of 
the mill hands from twelve hours to ten??* 

To give you an idea of the philanthropy of these manufacturers I 
would remind you of the factory regulations in force in all their mills. 

Every manufacturer has for his own private use a regular penal 
code by means of which fines are inflicted for every voluntary or 
involuntary offence. For instance, the hand pays so much when he 
has the misfortune to sit down on a chair, or whisper, or speak, or 
laugh; if he is a few moments late; if any part of a machine breaks, or 
if he turns out work of an inferior quality, etc. The fines are always 
greater than the damage really done by the workman. And to give 
the workingman every opportunity for incurring fines the factory 
clock is set forward, and he is given bad material to make into good 
stuff. An overseer unskilful in multiplying infractions of rules is soon 
discharged. 

You see, gentlemen, this private legislation is enacted for the 
especial purpose of* creating such infractions, and infractions are 
manufactured for the purpose of making money. Thus the 
manufacturer uses every means of reducing the nominal wage, and 
even profiting by accidents over which the workers have no control. 

And these manufacturers are the same philanthropists who have 
tried to persuade the workers that they were capable of going to 
immense expense for the sole and express purpose of improving the 
condition of these same workingmen! On the one hand they nibble at 
the workers’ wages in the pettiest way, by means of factory 
legislation, and, on the other, they are prepared to make the greatest 
sacrifices to raise those wages by means of the Anti-Corn Law 
League. 

They build great palaces, at immense expense, in which the League 
takes up> its official residence. They send an army of missionaries to 
all corners of England to preach the gospel of Free Trade; they print 
and distribute gratis thousands of pamphlets to enlighten the 
workingman upon his own interests. They spend enormous sums to 
buy over the press to their side. They organize a vast administrative 
system for the conduct of the Free Trade movement, and bestow all 

* The 1848 French edition does not have the words “the especial purpose 
of” .— Ed. 
> The 1848 French edition has here “as it were”. — Ed. 

Speech on the Question of Free Trade 457 

the wealth of their eloquence upon public meetings. It was at one of 
these meetings that a workingman cried out,— 

“Tf the landlords were to sell our bones, you manufacturers would 
be the first to buy them, and to put them through the mill and make 
flour of them.” 

The English workingmen have appreciated to the fullest extent 
the significance of the struggle between the lords of the land and of 
capital. They know very well that the price of bread was to be 
reduced in order to reduce wages, and that the profit of capital 
would rise by as much as rent fell. 

Ricardo, the apostle of the English Free Traders, the leading 
economist of our century, entirely agrees with the workers upon this 
point. 

In his celebrated work upon Political Economy’ he says: 

“If instead of growing our own corn ... we discover a new market from which we 
can supply ourselves ... at a cheaper price, wages will fall and profits rise. The fall in 
the price of agricultural produce reduces the wages, not only of the laborer employed 
in cultivating the soil, but also of all those employed in commerce or manufacture” 

[t. 1, pp. 178-79; Eng. ed., p. 137]. 

And do not believe, gentlemen, that it is a matter of indifference to 
the workingman whether he receives only four francs on account of 
corn being cheaper, when he had been receiving five francs before. 

Have not his wages always fallen in comparison with profit? And is 
it not clear that his social position has grown worse as compared with 
that of the capitalist? Beside which he loses actually. So long as the 
price of corn was higher and wages were also higher, a small saving 
in the consumption of bread sufficed to procure him other 
enjoyments. But as soon as bread is cheap, and wages are therefore 
low, he can save almost nothing on bread, for the purchase of other 
articles. 

The English workingmen have shown the English Free Traders 
that they are not the dupes of their illusions or of their lies; and if, in 
spite of this, the workers have made common cause with the 
manufacturers against the landlords, it is for the purpose of 
destroying the last remnant of feudalism, that henceforth they may 
have only one enemy to deal with. The workers have not 
miscalculated, for the landlords, in order to revenge themselves 
upon the manufacturers, have made common cause with the workers 
to carry the Ten-Hours Bill, which the latter had been vainly 

* D. Ricardo, Des principes de l'économie politique et de Vimpét.— Ed. 
> The 1848 French edition does not have the word “English” .— Ed. 

demanding for thirty years, and which was passed immediately after 
the repeal of the Corn Laws. 

When Dr. Bowring, at the Congress of Economists, drew from his 
pocket a long list to show how many head of cattle, how much ham, 
bacon, poultry, etc., is imported into England, to be consumed—as 
he asserted— by the workers, he forgot to state that at the same time 
the workers of Manchester and other factory towns were thrown out 
of work by the beginning of the crisis. 

As a matter of principle in Political Economy, the figures of a 
single year must never be taken as the basis for formulating general 
laws. We must always take the average of from six to seven years, a 
period during which modern industry passes through the successive 
phases of prosperity, overproduction, crisis,> thus completing the 
inevitable cycle. 

Doubtless, if the price of all commodities falls,—and this is the 
necessary consequence of Free Trade—I can buy far more for a 
franc than before. And the workingman’s franc is as good as any 
other man’s. Therefore, Free Trade must be advantageous to the 
workingman. There is only one little difficulty in this, namely that 
the workman, before he exchanges his franc for other commodities, 
has first exchanged his labor for the money of the capitalist.< If in 
this exchange he always received the said franc 4 while the price of all 
other commodities fell, he would always be the gainer by such a 
bargain. The difficulty does not lie in proving that, the price of all 
commodities falling, more commodities can be bought for the same 
sum of money. 

Economists always take the price of labor at the moment of its 
exchange with other commodities, and altogether ignore the 
moment at which labor accomplishes its own exchange with capital. 
When it costs less to set in motion the machinery which produces 
commodities, then the things necessary for the maintenance of this 
machine, called workman, will also cost less. If all commodities are 
cheaper, labor, which is a commodity too, will also fall in price, and 
we shall see later that this commodity, labor, will fall far lower in 
proportion than all other commodities. If the workingman still pins 
his faith to the arguments of the economists, he will find, one fine 

* See this volume, pp. 274-78 and pp. 282-90.—Ed. 

> The 1848 French edition has “prosperity, overproduction, stagnation, 
crisis” .— Ed. 

© The 1848 French edition has “for capital” instead of “for the money of 
capitalist” — Ed. 

4 The 1848 French edition has “the said franc for the same work”.—Ed. 

Speech on the Question of Free Trade 459 

morning,’ that the franc has dwindled in his pocket, and that he has 
only five sous left. 

Thereupon the economists will tell you,— 

“We admit that competition among the workers will-certainly not 
be lessened under Free Trade, and will very soon bring wages into 
harmony with the low price of commodities. But, on the other hand, 
the low price of commodities will increase consumption, the larger 
consumption will increase production, which will in turn necessitate 
a larger demand for labor and this larger demand will be followed by 
a rise in wages.” 

The whole line of argument amounts to this: Free Trade 
increases productive forces. When manufactures keep advancing, 
when wealth, when the productive forces, when, in a word, 
productive capital increases, the demand for the labor, the price of 
labor, and consequently the rate of wages, rises also. 

The most favorable condition for the workingman is the growth of 
capital. This must be admitted: when capital remains stationary, 
commerce and manufacture are not merely stationary but decline, 
and in this case the workman is the first victim. He goes to the wall 
before the capitalist. And in the case of the growth of capital, under 
the circumstances, which, as we have said, are the best for the 
workingman, what will be his lot? He will go to the wall just the same. 
The growth of capital implies the accumulation and the concentra- 
tion of capital. This centralization involves a greater division of labor 
and a greater use of machinery. The greater division of labor 
destroys the especial skill of the laborer; and by putting in the place 
of this skilled work labor which any one can perform it increases 
competition among the workers. 

This competition becomes more fierce as the division of labor 
enables a single man to do the work of three. Machinery 
accomplishes the same result on a much larger scale. The 
accumulation of productive capital forces the industrial capitalist to 
work with constantly increasing means of production, ruins the small 
manufacturer, and drives him into the proletariat. Then, the rate of 
interest falling in proportion as capital accumulates, the little rentiers 
and retired tradespeople,» who can no longer live upon their small 
incomes, will be forced to look out for some business again and 
ultimately to swell the number of proletarians. Finally, the more 
productive capital grows, the more it is compelled to produce for a 

* The 1848 French edition does not have the words “one fine morning”.—Ed. 
> The 1848 French edition does not have the words “and retired trades- 
people” .—Ed. 

market whose requirements it does not know,—the more supply tries 
to force demand, and consequently crises increase in frequency and 
in intensity. But every crisis in turn hastens the concentration of 
capital, adds to the proletariat. Thus, as productive capital grows, 
competition among the workers grows too, and grows in a far greater 
proportion. The reward of labor is less for all, and the burden of 
labor is increased for some at least. 

In 1829 there were, in Manchester, 1,088 cotton spinners 
employed in 36 factories. In 1841 there were but 448, and they 
tended 53,353 more spindles than the 1,088 spinners did in 1829. If 
manual labor had increased in the same proportion as productive 
force, the number of spinners ought to have risen to 1,848; 
improved machinery had, therefore, deprived 1,400 workers of 
employment. 

We know beforehand the reply of the economists—the people 
thus thrown out of work will find other kinds of employment. Dr. 
Bowring did not fail to reproduce this argument at the Congress of 
Economists. But neither did he fail to refute himself. In 1835, Dr. 
Bowring made a speech in the House of Commons upon the 50,000 
hand-loom weavers of London who have been starving without being 
able to find that new kind of employment which the Free Traders 
hold out to them in the distance. Let us hear the most striking 
portion of this speech of Mr. Bowring. 

“The misery of the hand-loom weavers,” he says, “is the inevitable fate of all kinds 
of labor which are easily acquired, and which may, at any moment, be replaced by less 
costly means. As in these cases competition amongst the work-people is very great, the 
slightest falling-off in demand brings on a crisis. The hand-loom weavers are, in a 
certain sense, placed on the borders of human existence. One step further, and that 
existence becomes impossible. The slightest shock is sufficient to throw them on to the 
road to ruin. By more and more superseding manual labor, the progress of 
mechanical science must bring on, during the period of transition, a deal of temporary 
suffering. National well-being cannot be bought except at the price of some individual 
evils. The advance of industry is achieved at the expense of those who lag behind, and 
of all discoveries that of the power-loom weighs most heavily upon the hand-loom 
weavers. In a great many articles formerly made by hand, the weaver has been placed 
hors de combat; but he is sure to be beaten in a good many more stuffs that are now 
made by hand.” 

Further on he says,—‘I hold in my hand a correspondence of the governor- 
general with the East India Company. This correspondence is concerning the weavers 

of the Dacca district. The governor says in his letter, —A few years ago the East India 
Company received from six to eight million pieces of calico woven upon the looms of 

* The 1848 French edition has: “the more production outstrips consumption, the 
more supply tries to force demand” .—Ed. 
Marx quotes Dr. Bowring according to Principles of Political Economy by 
W. Atkinson.— Ed. 

Speech on the Question of Free Trade 461 

the country. The demand fell off gradually and was reduced to about a million pieces. 
At this moment it has almost entirely ceased. Moreover, in 1800 North America 
received from India nearly 800,000 pieces of cotton goods. In 1830 it did not take 
even 4,000. Finally, in 1800 a million of pieces were shipped for Portugal; in 1830 
Portugal did not receive above 20,000. 

“The reports on the distress of the Indian weavers are terrible. And what is thé 
origin of that distress? The presence on the market of English manufactures, the 
production of the same article by means of the power-loom. A great number of the 
weavers died of starvation; the remainder has gone over to the other employment, 
and chiefly to field labor. Not to be able to change employment amounted to a 
sentence of death. And at this moment the Dacca district is crammed with English 
yarns and calicoes. The Dacca muslin, renowned all over the world for its beauty and 
firm texture, has also been eclipsed by the competition of English machinery. In the 
whole history of commerce, it would, perhaps, be difficult to find suffering equal to 
what these whole classes in India had to submit to” [W. Atkinson, pp. 36-38]. 

Mr. Bowring’s speech is the more remarkable because the facts 
quoted by him are correct, and the phrases with which he seeks to 
palhate them are characterized by the hypocrisy common to all Free 
Trade discourses. He represents the workers as means of production 
which must be.superseded by less expensive means of production, 
pretends to see in the labor of which he speaks a wholly exceptional 
kind of labor, and in the machine which has crushed out the weavers 
an equally exceptional kind of machine. He forgets that there is no 
kind of manual labor which may not any day share the fate of the 
hand-loom weavers. 

“The constant aim and tendency of every improvement of mechanism is indeed to 
do entirely without the labor of men, or to reduce its price, by superseding the labor of 
the adult males by that of women and children, or the work of the skilled by that of the 
unskilled workman. In most of the throstle mills, spinning is now entirely done by girls 
of sixteen years and less. The introduction of the self-acting mule has caused the 
discharge of most of the (adult male) spinners, while the children and young persons 
have been kept on” [p. 34; Eng. ed., p. 23]. 

The above words of the most enthusiastic of Free Traders, 
Dr. Ure, are calculated to complete the confessions of Dr. Bowring. 
Mr. Bowring speaks of certain individual evils, and, at the same time, 
says that these individual evils destroy whole classes; he speaks of the 
temporary sufferings during a transition period, and does not deny 
that these temporary evils have implied for the majority the 
transition from life to death, and for the rest a transition from a 
better to a worse condition. When he asserts, farther on, that the 
sufferings of the working class > are inseparable from the progress of 

4 A. Ure, Philosophie des manufactures, ou Economie industrielle, t. 1— Ed. 
> The 1848 French edition has “these workers” instead of “the working 
class” .—Ed. 

industry, and are necessary to the prosperity of the nation, he simply 
says that the prosperity of the bourgeois class presupposes as 
necessary the suffering of the laboring class. 

All the comfort which Mr. Bowring offers the workers who perish, 
and, indeed, the whole doctrine of compensation which the Free 
Traders propound, amounts to this— 

You thousands of workers who are perishing, do not despair! You 
can die with an easy conscience. Your class will not perish. It will 
always be numerous enough for the capitalist class to decimate it 
without fear of annihilating it. Besides, how could capital be usefully 
applied if it did not take care to keep up its exploitable material, 1.e., 
the workingmen, to be exploited over and over again? 

But, then, why propound as a problem still to be solved the 
question: What influence will the adoption of the Free Trade have 
upon the condition of the working class? All the laws formulated by 
the political economists from Quesnay to Ricardo, have been based 
upon the hypothesis that the trammels which still interfere with 
commercial freedom have disappeared. These laws are confirmed in 
proportion as Free Trade is adopted. The first of these laws is that 
competition reduces the price of every commodity to the minimum 
cost of production. Thus the minimum of wages is the.natural price 
of labor. And what is the minimum of wages? Just so much as is 
required for production of the articles absolutely necessary for the 
maintenance of the worker, for the continuation, by hook or by 
crook, of his own existence and that of his class. 

But do not imagine that the worker receives only this minimum 
wage, and still less that he always receives it. No, according to this law, 
the working class will sometimes be more fortunate, will sometimes 
receive something above the minimum, but this surplus will merely 
make up for the deficit which they will have received below the 
minimum in times of industrial depression. That is to say that within 
a given time which recurs periodically, in other words, in the cycle’ 
which commerce and industry describe while passing through the 
successive phases of prosperity, overproduction, stagnation, and 
crisis, when reckoning all that the working class has had above and 
below mere necessaries, we shall see that, after all, they have received 
neither more nor less than the minimum; 1.e., the working class will 
have maintained itself as a class after enduring any amount of misery 
and misfortune, and after leaving many corpses upon the industrial 
battle-field. But what of that? The class will still exist; nay, more, it 
will have increased. 

* The 1848 French edition has “circle” instead of “cycle”.—FEd. 

Speech on the Question of Free Trade 463 

But this is not all. The progress of industry creates less and less 
expensive means of subsistence. Thus spirits have taken the place of 
beer, cotton that of wool and linen, and potatoes that of bread. 

Thus, as means are constantly being found for the maintenance of 
labor on cheaper and more wretched food, the minimum of wages is 
constantly sinking. If these wages began by letting the man work to 
live, they end by forcing him to live the life of a machine. His 
existence has no other value than that of a simple productive force, 
and the capitalist treats him accordingly. This law of the commodity 
labor, of the minimum of wages will be confirmed in proportion as 
the supposition of the economists, Free Trade, becomes an actual 
fact. Thus, of two things one: either we must reject all political 
economy based upon the assumption of Free Trade, or we must 
admit that under this same Free Trade the whole severity of the 
economic laws will fall upon the workers. 

To sum up, what is Free Trade under the present conditions of 
society? Freedom of Capital. When you have torn down the few 
national barriers which still restrict the free development? of capital, 
you will merely have given it complete freedom of action. So long as 
you let the relation of wages-labor to capita] exist, no matter how 
favorable the conditions under which you accomplish the exchange 
of commodities, there will always be a class which exploits and a class 
which is exploited. It is really difficult to understand the presump- 
tion of the Free Traders who imagine that the more advantageous 
application of capital will abolish the antagonism between industrial 
capitalists and wage-workers. On the contrary. The only result 
will be that the antagonism of these two classes will stand out more 
clearly. 

Let us assume for a moment that there are no more Corn Laws or 
national and municipal import duties’; that in a word all the 
accidental circumstances which to-day the workingman may look 
upon as a cause of his miserable condition have vanished, and we 
shall have removed so many curtains that hide from his eyes his true 
enemy. 

He will see that capital released from all trammels will make him 
no less a slave than capital trammelled by import duties. 

Gentlemen! Do not be deluded by the abstract word Freedom! 
whose freedom? Not the freedom of one individual in relation to 
another, but freedom of Capital to crush the worker 

* The 1848 French edition has “advance” instead of “free development” .—Ed. 
> The 1848 French edition has “no more customs, no more town dues”’ 
(octroi).—Ed. 

Why should you desire farther to sanction unlimited competi- 
tion with this idea of freedom, when the idea of freedom itself is 
only the product of a social condition based upon Free Competi- 
tion? 

We have shown what sort of fraternity Free Trade begets between 
the different classes of one and the same nation. The fraternity 
which Free Trade would establish between the nations of the earth 
would not be more real, to call cosmopolitan exploitation universal 
brotherhood is an idea that could only be engendered in the brain of 
the bourgeoisie. Every one of the destructive phenomena to which 
unlimited competition gives rise within any one nation is 
reproduced in more gigantic proportions in the market of the world. 
We need not pause any longer upon Free Trade sophisms on this 
subject, which are worth just as much as the arguments of our prize 
essayists Messrs Hope, Morse, and Greg. 

For instance, we are told that Free Trade would create an 
international division of labor, and thereby give to each country 
those branches of production most in harmony with its natural 
advantages. 

You believe perhaps, gentlemen, that the production of coffee and 
sugar is the natural destiny of the West Indies. 

Two centuries ago, nature, which does not trouble itself about 
commerce, had planted neither sugar-cane nor coffee trees there. 
And it may be that in less than half a century you will find there 
neither coffee nor sugar, for the East Indies, by means of cheaper 
production, have already successfully broken down this so-called 
natural destiny of the West Indies. 

And the West Indies, with their natural wealth, are as heavy a 
burden for England as the weavers of Dacca, who also were destined 
from the beginning of time to weave by hand. 

One other circumstance must not be forgotten, namely that, just as 
everything has become a monopoly, there are also nowadays some 
branches of industry which prevail over all others, and secure to the 
nations which especially foster them the command of the market of 
the world. Thus in the commerce of the world cotton alone has much 
greater commercial importance than all the other raw materials used 
in the manufacture of clothing. It is truly ridiculous for the Free 
Traders to refer to the few specialties in each branch of industry, 
throwing them into the balance against the product used in everyday 
consumption, and produced most cheaply in those countries in 
which manufacture is most highly developed. 

If the Free Traders cannot understand how one nation can grow 
rich at the expense of another, we need not wonder, since these same 

Speech on the Question of Free Trade 465 

gentlemen also refuse to understand how in the same country one 
class can enrich itself at the expense of another. 

Do not imagine, gentlemen, that in criticising freedom of 
commerce we have the least intention of defending Protection. 

One may be opposed to constitutionalism without being in favor of 
absolutism.? 

Moreover, the Protective system. is nothing but a means of 
establishing manufacture upon a large scale in any given country, 
that is to say, of making it dependent upon the market of the world; 
and from the moment that dependence upon the market of the 
world is established, there is more or less dependence upon Free 
Trade too. Besides this, the Protective system helps to develop free 
competition within a nation. Hence we see that in countries where 
the bourgeoisie is beginning to make itself felt as a class, in Germany 
for example, it makes great efforts to obtain Protective duties. They 
serve the bourgeoisie as weapons against feudalism and absolute 
monarchy,” as a means for the concentration of its own powers for 
the realization of Free Trade within the country. 

But, generally speaking, the Protective system in these days is 
conservative, while the Free Trade system works destructively. It 
breaks up old nationalities and carries antagonism of proletariat and 
bourgeoisie to the uttermost point. In a word, the Free Trade system 
hastens the Social Revolution. In this revolutionary sense alone, 
gentlemen, I am in favor of Free Trade.