Frederic Bastiat wrote the following in response to new legislation in the 1840s on higher duties on all foreign goods in order to protect French Industry:
Petition of the Manufacturers of Candles, Wax-Lights, Lamps, Candlesticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, Extinguishers, and of the Producers of Oil, Tallow, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally, of Everything Connected with Lighting." To messieurs the members of the Chamber of Deputies.
We are suffering from the intolerable competition of a foreign rival, placed, it would seem, in a condition so far superior to ours for the production of light that he absolutely inundates our national market with it at a price fabulously reduced. The moment he shows himself our trade leaves us— all consumers apply to him; and a branch of native industry, having countless ramifications, is all at once rendered completely stagnant. This rival, who is no other than the sun ....
What we pray for is, that it may please you to pass a law ordering the shutting up of all windows, skylights, dormer-windows, outside and inside shutters, curtains, blinds, bull’s- eyes, in a word, of all openings, holes, chinks, clefts, and fissures...
...if you shut up as much as possible all access to natural light, and create a demand for artificial light, which of our French manufacturers will not be encouraged by it?
... If more tallow is consumed, then there must be more oxen and sheep ... if more oil is consumed, then we shall have extended cultivation of the poppy, of the olive... our hearhs will be covered with resinous trees.
Make your choice, but be logical; for as long as you exclude, as you do, iron, corn, foreign fabrics, in proportion as their prices approximate to zero, what inconsisency it will be to admit the light of the sun, the price of which is already at zero durring the entire day!
And on a lighter note, I thougt this was pretty disturbing.
