And where did you see, my lords, that the freedom of transactions principle was purely, exclusively English?

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 2, pages 170 to 177 (in French)
March 7th, 1847

In this article addressed to the Moniteur Industriel newspaper, Frédéric Bastiat protests against its ad hominem attacks.

Concerning the profound reasons explaining why he is advocating free-trade in order to favour peace between nations, he refers the reader to the last sophism of the second series, Domination through Work. Here, he does not develop his ideas explaining why he prefers freedom to oppression but focuses on the tactics of his adversaries. Indeed, the Association for Free-Trade is regularly blamed for being a supporter of England, which engaged its policies towards free-trade in order to harm its commercial competitors. Frédéric Bastiat recognises that this unilateral free-trade policy aims at enriching Great-Britain. This is also one of the reasons why he would like to see the same policies implemented in France. If freedom of transactions reaches its aims across the Channel, it is absurd to accuse its proponents on this side of the Channel of being traitors for advocating it, unless one is keen to let our neighbour getting rich while continuing to suffer from self-imposed restrictions.