--Exactly, and with what?

--With specie.

--But you did not make the specie, nor did France.

--We bought it.

--With what?

--With our products which went to Peru.

--Then it is in reality your labor that you exchange for cloth, and
French labor that is exchanged for coffee?

--Certainly.

--Then it is not absolutely necessary to make what one consumes?

--No, if one makes _something else_, and gives it in exchange.

--In other words, France has two ways of procuring a given quantity of
cloth. The first is to make it, and the second is to make _something
else_, and exchange _that something else_ abroad for cloth. Of these two
ways, which is the best?

--I do not know.

--Is it not that which, _for a fixed amount of labor, gives the greatest
quantity of cloth_?

--It seems so.

--Which is best for a nation, to have the choice of these two ways, or
to have the law forbid its using one of them at the risk of rejecting
the best?

--It seems to me that it would be best for the nation to have the
choice, since in these matters it always makes a good selection.

--The law which prohibits the introduction of foreign cloth, decides,
then, that if France wants cloth, it must make it at home, and that it
is forbidden to make that _something else_ with which it could purchase
foreign cloth?

--That is true.

--And as it is obliged to make cloth, and forbidden to make _something
else_, just because the other thing would require less labor (without
which France would have no occasion to do anything with it), the law
virtually decrees, that for a certain amount of labor, France shall
have but one yard of cloth, making it itself, when, for the same amount
of labor, it could have had two yards, by making _something else_.

--But what other thing?

--No matter what. Being free to choose, it will make _something else_
only so long as there is _something else_ to make.

--That is possible; but I cannot rid myself of the idea that the
foreigners may send us cloth and not take something else, in which case
we shall be prettily caught. Under all circumstances, this is the
objection, even from your own point of view. You admit that France will
make this _something else_, which is to be exchanged for cloth, with
less labor than if it had made the cloth itself?

--Doubtless.

--Then a certain quantity of its labor will become inert?

--Yes; but people will be no worse clothed--a little circumstance which
cau