Tariffs are not only a mean of taxation, they should also and mainly be a mean of protecting industry.

Napoléon Bonaparte, quoted by Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 71 to 77 (in French)
Courrier français, April 11th, 1846

This article reacts to an article published in the Constitutionnel, which announced on one hand that Adolphe Thiers was joining the ranks of the protectionists and accused on the other hand the liberals to be misleading about the reform of tariffs in England. This country continues to perceive from “tariffs a revenue amounting to 450 to 500 million francs”, which seem to prove for the Constitutionnel that the reforms are not as liberal as expected. It quotes particularly high tariffs on “tobacco, tea, spirits and wines” to support this position.

Frédéric Bastiat exposes the mistake, which consists in confusing fiscal tariffs (aimed at increasing the revenue to the Treasury) and protective tariffs (that increase the price of products to the benefit of the industrialists) as he will explain again in his answer to the National a year later. Today’s quote constitute the essence of the disagreement between Napoléon Bonaparte and Jean-Baptiste Say, whose Treatise on Political Economy published in 1803 will not see a second edition before 1814 in France. The protectionists see the tariffs as a mean to implement a policy granting privileges to some industrialists while liberals accept it only to the extent that it is a mean, like any other, to collect taxes, which are ultimately supposed to benefit society as a whole.