case of the unfortunate
consumer, who seems to have entirely escaped their attention. They
compare the field of protection to the _turf_. But on the turf, the
race is at once a _means and an end_. The public has no interest in
the struggle, independent of the struggle itself. When your horses are
started in the course with the single object of determining which is
the best runner, nothing is more natural than that their burdens
should be equalized. But if your object were to send an important and
critical piece of intelligence, could you without incongruity place
obstacles to the speed of that one whose fleetness would secure you
the best means of attaining your end? And yet this is your course in
relation to industry. You forget the end aimed at, which is the
_well-being_ of the community; you set it aside; more, you sacrifice
it by a perfect _petitio principii_.

But we cannot lead our opponents to look at things from our point of
view; let us now take theirs: let us examine the question as
producers.

I will seek to prove:

1. That equalizing the facilities of production is to attack the
foundations of mutual exchange.

2. That it is not true that the labor of one country can be crushed by
the competition of more favored climates.

3. That, even were this the case, protective duties cannot equalize
the facilities of production.

4. That freedom of trade equalizes these conditions as much as
possible; and

5. That the countries which are the least favored by nature are those
which profit most by mutual exchange.

1. _Equalizing the facilities of production is to attack the
foundations of mutual exchange._ The equalizing of the facilities of
production, is not only the shackling of certain articles of commerce,
but it is the attacking of the system of mutual exchange in its very
foundation principle. For this system is based precisely upon the very
diversities, or, if the expression be preferred, upon the inequalities
of fertility, climate, temperature, capabilities, which the
protectionists seek to render null. If New England sends its
manufactures to the West, and the West sends corn to New England, it
is because these two sections are, from different circumstances,
induced to turn their attention to the production of different
articles. Is there any other rule for international exchanges?

Again, to bring against such exchanges the very inequalities of
condition which excite and explain them, is to atta