move with prudence,
to avoid a deficit in the revenues.

--Prudence? This leaves you with a deficit of thirty millions.

--Then I will reduce the salt tax to ten francs.

--Good! Here is another deficit of thirty millions. Doubtless you have
invented some new tax.

--Heaven forbid! Besides, I do not flatter myself that I have an
inventive mind.

--It is necessary, however. Oh, I have it. What was I thinking of? You
are simply going to diminish the expense. I did not think of that.

--You are not the only one. I shall come to that; but I do not count on
it at present.

--What! you diminish the receipts, without lessening expenses, and you
avoid a deficit?

--Yes, by diminishing other taxes at the same time.

(Here the interlocutor, putting the index finger of his right hand on
his forehead, shook his head, which may be translated thus: He is
rambling terribly.)

--Well, upon my word, this is ingenious. I pay the Treasury a hundred
francs; you relieve me of five francs on salt, five on postage; and in
order that the Treasury may nevertheless receive one hundred francs, you
relieve me of ten on some other tax?

--Precisely; you understand me.

--How can it be true? I am not even sure that I have heard you.

--I repeat that I balance one remission of taxes by another.

--I have a little time to give, and I should like to hear you expound
this paradox.

--Here is the whole mystery: I know a tax which costs you twenty francs,
not a sou of which gets to the Treasury. I relieve you of half of it,
and make the other half take its proper destination.

--You are an unequaled financier. There is but one difficulty. What tax,
if you please, do I pay, which does not go to the Treasury?

--How much does this suit of clothes cost you?

--A hundred francs.

--How much would it have cost you if you had gotten the cloth from
Belgium?

--Eighty francs.

--Then why did you not get it there?

--Because it is prohibited.

--Why?

--So that the suit may cost me one hundred francs instead of eighty.

--This denial, then, costs you twenty francs?

--Undoubtedly.

--And where do these twenty francs go?

--Where do they go? To the manufacturer of the cloth.

--Well, give me ten francs for the Treasury, and I will remove the
restriction, and you will gain ten francs.

--Oh, I begin to see. The treasury account shows that it loses five
francs on postage and five on salt, and gains ten on cloth. That is
even.