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Page 20
Our adversaries consider that an activity which is neither aided by
supplies, nor regulated by government, is an activity destroyed. We
think just the contrary. Their faith is in the legislator, not in
mankind; ours is in mankind, not in the legislator.
Thus M. Lamartine said, "Upon this principle we must abolish the public
exhibitions, which are the honour and the wealth of this country." But I
would say to M. Lamartine,--According to your way of thinking, not to
support is to abolish; because, setting out upon the maxim that nothing
exists independently of the will of the State, you conclude that nothing
lives but what the State causes to live. But I oppose to this assertion
the very example which you have chosen, and beg you to remark, that the
grandest and noblest of exhibitions, one which has been conceived in the
most liberal and universal spirit--and I might even make use of the term
humanitary, for it is no exaggeration--is the exhibition now preparing
in London; the only one in which no government is taking any part, and
which is being paid for by no tax.
To return to the fine arts. There are, I repeat, many strong reasons to
be brought, both for and against the system of government assistance.
The reader must see that the especial, object of this work leads me
neither to explain these reasons, nor to decide in their favour, nor
against them.
But M. Lamartine has advanced one argument which I cannot pass by in
silence, for it is closely connected with this economic study. "The
economical question, as regards theatres, is comprised in one
word--labour. It matters little what is the nature of this labour; it is
as fertile, as productive a labour as any other kind of labour in the
nation. The theatres in France, you know, feed and salary no less than
80,000 workmen of different kinds; painters, masons, decorators,
costumers, architects, &c., which constitute the very life and movement
of several parts of this capital, and on this account they ought to have
your sympathies." Your sympathies! say rather your money.
And further on he says: "The pleasures of Paris are the labour and the
consumption of the provinces, and the luxuries of the rich are the wages
and bread of 200,000 workmen of every description, who live by the
manifold industry of the theatres on the surface of the republic, and
who receive from these noble pleasures, which render France illustrious,
the sustenance of their lives and the necessaries of their families and
children. It is to them that you will give 60,000 francs." (Very well;
very well. Great applause.) For my part I am constrained to say, "Very
bad! very bad!" confining this opinion, of course, within the bounds of
the economical question which we are discussing.
Yes, it is to the workmen of the theatres that a part, at least, of
these 60,000 francs will go; a few bribes, perhaps, may be abstracted on
the way. Perhaps, if we were to look a little more closely into the
matter, we might find that the cake had gone another way, and that those
workmen were fortunate who had come in for a few crumbs. But I will
allow, for the sake of argument, that the entire sum does go to the
painters, decorators, &c.
_This is that which is seen._ But whence does it come? This is the other
side of the question, and quite as important as the former. Where do
these 60,000 francs spring from? and where would they go, if a vote of
the legislature did not direct them first towards the Rue Rivoli and
thence towards the Rue Grenelle? This _is what is not seen_. Certainly,
nobody will think of maintaining that the legislative vote has caused
this sum to be hatched in a ballot urn; that it is a pure addition made
to the national wealth; that but for this miraculous vote these 60,000
francs would have been for ever invisible and impalpable. It must be
admitted that all that the majority can do is to decide that they shall
be taken from one place to be sent to another; and if they take one
direction, it is only because they have been diverted from another.
This being the case, it is clear that the tax-payer, who has contributed
one franc, will no longer have this franc at his own disposal. It is
clear that he will be deprived of some gratification to the amount of
one franc; and that the workman, whoever he may be, who would have
received it from him, will be deprived of a benefit to that amount. Let
us not, therefore, be led by a childish illusion into believing that the
vote of the 60,000 francs may add anything whatever to the well-being
of the country, and to national labour. It displaces enjoyments, it
transposes wages--that is all.
Will it be said that for one kind of gratification, and one kind of
labour, it substitutes more urgent, more moral, more reasonable
gratifications and labour? I might dispute this; I might say, by taking
60,000 francs from the tax-payers, you diminish the wages of labourers,
drainers, carpenters, blacksmiths, and increase in proportion those of
the singers.
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