I suppress the _octroi_. I refund indirect
contributions. I--

_Getting more and more excited:_ I will proclaim religious freedom and
free instruction. There shall be new resources. I will buy the
railroads, pay off the public debt, and starve out the stock gamblers.

--My dear Utopist!

--Freed from too numerous cares, I will concentrate all the resources of
the government on the repression of fraud, the administration of prompt
and even-handed justice. I--

--My dear Utopist, you attempt too much. The nation will not follow you.

--You gave me the majority.

--I take it back.

--Very well; then I am no longer Minister; but my plans remain what they
are--Utopian ideas.

[Footnote 14: The entrance duty levied at the gates of French towns.]

[Footnote 15: I understand M. Bastiat to mean merely that export duties
are not necessarily more onerous than import duties. The statement that
all taxes are paid by the consumer, is liable to important
modifications. An export duty may be laid in such way, and on such
articles, that it will be paid wholly by the foreign consumer, without
loss to the producing country, but it is only when the additional cost
does not lessen the demand, or induce the foreigner to produce the same
article. _Translator._]

XII.

SALT, POSTAGE, AND CUSTOMS.

[This chapter is an amusing dialogue relating principally to English
Postal Reform. Being inapplicable to any condition of things existing in
the United States, it is omitted.--_Translator._]

XIII.

THE THREE ALDERMEN.

A DEMONSTRATION IN FOUR TABLEAUX.

_First Tableau._

[The scene is in the hotel of Alderman Pierre. The window looks out on a
fine park; three persons are seated near a good fire.]

_Pierre._ Upon my word, a fire is very comfortable when the stomach is
satisfied. It must be agreed that it is a pleasant thing. But, alas! how
many worthy people like the King of Yvetot,

"Blow on their fingers for want of wood."

Unhappy creatures, Heaven inspires me with a charitable thought. You see
these fine trees. I will cut them down and distribute the wood among
the poor.

_Paul and Jean._ What! gratis?

_Pierre._ Not exactly. There would soon be an end of my good works if I
scattered my property thus. I think that my park is worth twenty
thousand livres; by cutting it down I shall get much more for it.

_Paul._ A mistake. Your wood as it stands is worth more than that in the
neighboring forests, for i