us spend two or three millions in railways,
and we will reduce it one-half. Evidently the result of such a course
will be to get the Canadian article at New York for thirty-five
dollars, viz.:

20 dollars--price at Montreal.
10 " duty.
5 " transportation by railway.
--
35 dollars--total, or market price at New York.

Could we not have attained the same end by lowering the tariff to five
dollars? We would then have--

20 dollars--price at Montreal.
5 " duty.
10 " transportation on the common road.
--
35 dollars--total, or market price at New York.

And this arrangement would have saved us the $2,000,000 spent upon the
railway, besides the expense saved in custom-house surveillance, which
would of course diminish in proportion as the temptation to smuggling
would become less.

But it is answered: The duty is necessary to protect New York
industry. So be it; but do not then destroy the effect of it by your
railway. For if you persist in your determination to keep the Canadian
article on a par with the New York one at forty dollars, you must
raise the duty to fifteen dollars, in order to have:--

20 dollars--price at Montreal.
15 " protective duty.
5 " transportation by railway.
--
40 dollars--total, at equalized prices.

And I now ask, of what benefit, under these circumstances, is the
railway?

Frankly, is it not humiliating to the nineteenth century, that it
should be destined to transmit to future ages the example of such
puerilities seriously and gravely practised? To be the dupe of
another, is bad enough; but to employ all the forms and ceremonies of
representation in order to cheat oneself--to doubly cheat oneself, and
that too in a mere numerical account--truly this is calculated to
lower a little the pride of this _enlightened age_.

CHAPTER X.

RECIPROCITY.

We have just seen that all which renders transportation difficult,
acts in the same manner as protection; or, if the expression be
preferred, that protection tends towards the same result as all
obstacles to transportation.

A tariff may be truly spoken of as a swamp, a rut, a steep hill; in a
word, an _obstacle_, whose effect is to augment the difference between
the price of consumption and that of production. It is equally
incontestable that a swamp, a bog, &c., are veritable protective
tariffs.

There are people (few in number, it i