_ in the worst sense of the word. You
imagine procedures which are sanctioned by the experience of no living
man, and then call to your aid constraint and prohibition. You cannot
avoid having recourse to force; because, wishing to make men produce
what they can _more advantageously_ buy, you require them to give up an
advantage, and to be led by a doctrine which implies contradiction even
in its terms.

I defy you too, to take this doctrine, which by your own avowal would be
absurd in individual relations, and apply it, even in speculation, to
transactions between families, towns, departments, or provinces. You
yourselves confess that it is only applicable to internal relations.

Thus it is that you are daily forced to repeat:

"Principles can never be universal. What is _well_ in an individual, a
family, commune, or province, is _ill_ in a nation. What is good in
detail--for instance: purchase rather than production, where purchase is
more advantageous--is _bad_ in a society. The political economy of
individuals is not that of nations;" and other such stuff, _ejusdem
farinae_.

And all this for what? To prove to us, that we consumers, we are your
property! that we belong to you, soul and body! that you have an
exclusive right on our stomachs and our limbs! that it is your right to
feed and dress us at your own price, however great your ignorance, your
rapacity, or the inferiority of your work.

Truly, then, your system is one not founded upon practice; it is one of
abstraction--of extortion.

XIV.

CONFLICTING PRINCIPLES.

There is one thing which embarrasses me not a little; and it is this:

Sincere men, taking upon the subject of political economy the point of
view of producers, have arrived at this double formula:

"A government should dispose of consumers subject to its laws in favor
of home industry."

"It should subject to its laws foreign consumers, in order to dispose of
them in favor of home industry."

The first of the formulas is that of _Protection_; the second that of
_Outlets_.

Both rest upon this proposition, called the _Balance of Trade_, that

"A people is impoverished by importations and enriched by exportations."

For if every foreign purchase is a _tribute paid_, a loss, nothing can
be more natural than to restrain, even to prohibit importations.

And if every foreign sale is a _tribute received_, a gain, nothing more
natural than to create _outlets_, even by force.

_