uying it, with one-tenth of a day's labor, I
am placed exactly in the same condition as the Portuguese producer
himself, excepting the expense of the transportation? It is then certain
that freedom of commerce equalizes the conditions of production direct
or indirect, as much as it is possible to equalize them; for it leaves
but the one inevitable difference, that of transportation.

I will add that free trade equalizes also the facilities for attaining
enjoyments, comforts, and general consumption; the last an object which
is, it would seem, quite forgotten, and which is nevertheless all
important; since consumption is the main object of all our industrial
efforts. Thanks to freedom of trade, we would enjoy here the results of
the Portuguese sun, as well as Portugal itself; and the inhabitants of
Havre, would have in their reach, as well as those of London, and with
the same facilities, the advantages which nature has in a mineralogical
point of view conferred upon Newcastle.

The protectionists may suppose me in a paradoxical humor, for I go
farther still. I say, and I sincerely believe, that if any two countries
are placed in unequal circumstances as to advantages of production,
_that one of the two which is the least favored by nature, will gain
most by freedom of commerce_. To prove this, I shall be obliged to turn
somewhat aside from the form of reasoning which belongs to this work. I
will do so, however; first, because the question in discussion turns
upon this point; and again, because it will give me the opportunity of
exhibiting a law of political economy of the highest importance, and
which, well understood, seems to me to be destined to lead back to this
science all those sects which, in our days, are seeking in the land of
chimeras that social harmony which they have been unable to discover in
nature. I speak of the law of consumption, which the majority of
political economists may well be reproached with having too much
neglected.

Consumption is the _end_, the final cause, of all the phenomena of
political economy, and, consequently, in it is found their final
solution.

No effect, whether favorable or unfavorable, can be arrested permanently
upon the producer. The advantages and the disadvantages, which, from
his relations to nature and to society, are his, both equally pass
gradually from him, with an almost insensible tendency to be absorbed
and fused into the community at large; the community cons