: Harmonies of Political Economy Translated from the Third French Edition with a Notice of the Life and Writings of the Author by Bastiat Fr D Ric Stirling Patrick James Translator - Economics

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NOTICE OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF FR?D?RIC BASTIAT.

, whose last and greatest, though, alas! unfinished work--the --I now venture to introduce to the English public, was born at Bayonne, on the 19th of June 1801. His father, an eminent merchant of Bayonne, died young, and his wife having died before him, Fr?d?ric, their only child, was left an orphan at the early age of nine years.

The care of his education devolved on his paternal grandfather, who was proprietor of a land estate near Mugron, in the arrondissement of Saint-Sever. His aunt, Mademoiselle Justine Bastiat, acted towards him the part of a mother, and her affection was warmly reciprocated by Bastiat, who, to the day of his death, never ceased to regard her with filial love and reverence.

Bastiat's education was begun at Bayonne, continued at Saint-Sever, and finished at the College of Sor?ze. Here his course of study was occasionally interrupted by indisposition; but, on his recovery, his quick parts and steady application soon enabled him to overtake and keep pace with his fellow-students. At Sor?ze. Bastiat formed a boyish friendship with M. Calm?tes, to whom his earliest letters are addressed. The attachment of the youths was so remarkable, that the masters permitted them to prepare their exercises together, and sign them with their joint names. In this way they gained a prize for poetry. The prize was a gold medal, which, of course, could not be divided. "Keep it," said Bastiat to his friend: "I am an orphan; you have both father and mother, and the medal of right falls to them."

In 1818, Bastiat left College, and, in compliance with the wishes of his family, entered his uncle's counting-house at Bayonne. His tastes, however, were for study rather than for business, and while at Bayonne he devoted his leisure hours by turns to French, English, and Italian literature. "I aim at nothing less," he said, "than to become acquainted with politics, history, geography, mathematics, mechanics, natural history, botany, and four or five languages." He was fond of music, sang agreeably, and played well on the violoncello.

In 1824, he began to study the works of the leading Economists of France and England--Adam Smith, Jean Baptiste Say, and Destutt de Tracy; and even at this early period he took an interest in the English free-trade measures of Mr Huskisson. From this time he may be said to have devoted his life to his favourite science.

On the death of his grandfather, in 1825, he gave up commerce as a profession, and took up his residence on his paternal estate at Mugron, in the cultivation of which he was at first induced to engage, but without much success, and he soon relinquished agriculture, as he had before abandoned trade. Business, in truth, was not his vocation; he had no turn for details; he cared little for money; his wants were few and simple; and he had no intention, as he says in one of his letters, to undergo irksome labour for three-fourths of his life to ensure for the remainder a useless superfluity.

It was at this period, and at Mugron, that he formed his lifelong friendship with M. Felix Coudroy, to whom so much of his correspondence is addressed, and to whom, a short time before his death, he had thought of committing the task of finishing the second volume of the . The two friends, whose tastes and pursuits were the same, were constantly together,--reading, walking, or conversing. If Bastiat, whose ardent nature was impatient of plodding and systematic application, received a new book from Paris, he immediately carried it to Coudroy, who examined it, and noted the remarkable passages, which he read afterwards to his friend. Bastiat would often content himself with such fragments; and it was only when the book interested him deeply, that he would carry it off to read it carefully by himself. On these days, says his biographer, music was laid aside, and the violoncello was mute. It was thus, he continues, that the two friends passed their lives together, lodging a few paces from each other, seeing one another three times a-day, sometimes in their chambers, sometimes in long walks, sauntering together, book in hand. Works of philosophy, history, politics, religion, poetry, travels, biography, political economy, socialist works of the day,--all passed under the ordeal of this double intelligence. It was in these conversations that the ideas of Bastiat were developed, and his thoughts matured. When anything struck him particularly, he would set to work of a morning and put it into shape without effort. In this way he wrote his , his article on the French and English tariffs, etc. It was this literary friendship, which lasted for more than twenty years, without being once clouded by the slightest disagreement, which prepared the mind of Bastiat for the gigantic efforts he was destined afterwards to make, and enabled him, during the last five years of his life, amid disease and distraction, to give to the world that mass of original and varied ideas which compose the six volumes of his collected works.

In the events to which the expulsion of the elder branch of the Bourbons gave rise in 1830, Bastiat took an active interest. Bayonne had pronounced in favour of the new order of things. The citadel alone held out, and continued to display the white flag; and a concentration of Spanish troops on the frontier was spoken of. Bastiat did not hesitate. Quitting Mugron, he hurried to Bayonne to take part in the movement. In conjunction with some of his friends, he prepared a proclamation, formed an association of six hundred determined young men, and did not despair of reducing the citadel by a . Happily their martial ardour was not put to the proof. Before the march of events all resistance gave way, and that same day the citadel opened its gates. In place of a battle, there was a feast;--punch, wine, and B?ranger enlivened the evening;--and the officers, like horses just let loose from the stable, were the merriest of the party. Such was the beginning and the end of Bastiat's military career.

In 1831, he became of the Canton of Mugron, and, in 1832, a Member of the Council-General of the Landes. The confidence and esteem of his neighbourhood would have invested him with a trust still more important, by sending him as a representative to the Chamber of Deputies; but in this, after three fruitless attempts, his friends were defeated, and Bastiat did not succeed in becoming a legislator until after the Revolution of February 1848.

He published, in 1834, ,--a brochure of great vigour, and which contains the germ of the theory of Value developed fifteen years afterwards in the .

In 1840, Bastiat visited Spain and Portugal; and after a sojourn of some months at Madrid, and afterwards at Lisbon, with great benefit to his health, he sailed thence for England, and spent a few weeks in London. On his return to Mugron, he wrote his pamphlet, , in which he protests against certain new duties with which the wine-trade of his native province was threatened. In this brochure he gives a characteristic anecdote of Napoleon. At the outset, the duties imposed were so moderate that the receipts would scarcely defray the cost of collection. The Minister of Finance remonstrated, and represented that these imposts were making the Government unpopular, without any benefit to the revenue. "You are a noodle, Monsieur Maret," said the Emperor; "since the nation grumbles at some light burdens, what would have been the consequence had I added heavy taxes? Accustom them, first of all, to the exercise; and then we can reform the tariff." The great captain, adds Bastiat, was also a skilful financier. Begin by inserting the thin end of the wedge--accustom them to the exercise--such is the history of all taxes.

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