f other
monopolists, acted only from a _half-motive_; to grant our petition
there is a much _fuller inducement_. To repulse us, precisely for the
reason that our case is a more complete one than any which have
preceded it, would be to lay down the following equation: + x + = -; in
other words, it would be to accumulate absurdity upon absurdity.

"Labor and Nature concur in different proportions, according to
country and climate, in every article of production. The portion of
Nature is always gratuitous; that of labor alone regulates the price.

"If a Lisbon orange can be sold at one hundredth the price of a New
York one, it is because a natural and gratuitous heat does for the
one, what the other only obtains from an artificial and consequently
expensive one.

"When, therefore, we purchase a Portuguese orange, we may say that we
obtain it 99/100 gratuitously and 1/100 by the right of labor; in
other words, at a mere song compared to those of New York.

"Now it is precisely on account of this 99/100 _gratuity_ (excuse the
phrase) that you argue in favor of exclusion. How, you say, could
national labor sustain the competition of foreign labor, when the
first has every thing to do, and the last is rid of nearly all the
trouble, the sun taking the rest of the business upon himself? If then
the 99/100 _gratuity_ can determine you to check competition, on what
principle can the _entire gratuity_ be alleged as a reason for
admitting it? You are no logicians if, refusing the 99/100 gratuity as
hurtful to human labor, you do not _a fortiori_, and with double zeal,
reject the full gratuity.

"Again, when any article, as coal, iron, cheese, or cloth, comes to us
from foreign countries with less labor than if we produced it
ourselves, the difference in price is a _gratuitous gift_ conferred
upon us; and the gift is more or less considerable, according as the
difference is greater or less. It is the quarter, the half, or the
three-quarters of the value of the produce, in proportion as the
foreign merchant requires the three-quarters, the half, or the
quarter of the price. It is as complete as possible when the producer
offers, as the sun does with light, the whole, in free gift. The
question is, and we put it formally, whether you wish for the United
States the benefit of gratuitous consumption, or the supposed
advantages of laborious production. Choose: but be consistent. And
does it not argue the greatest inconsistency to ch