ck them in their
very cause of being. The protective system, closely followed up, would
bring men to live like snails, in a state of complete isolation. In
short, there is not one of its sophisms, which, if carried through by
vigorous deductions, would not end in destruction and annihilation.

2. _It is not true that the labor of one country can be crushed by the
competition of more favored climates._ The statement is not true that
the unequal facility of production, between two similar branches of
industry, should necessarily cause the destruction of the one which is
the least fortunate. On the turf, if one horse gains the prize, the
other loses it; but when two horses work to produce any useful
article, each produces in proportion to his strength; and because the
stronger is the more useful it does not follow that the weaker is good
for nothing. Wheat is cultivated in every section of the United
States, although there are great differences in the degree of
fertility existing among them. If it happens that there be one which
does not cultivate it, it is because, even to itself, such cultivation
is not useful. Analogy will show us, that under the influences of an
unshackled trade, notwithstanding similar differences, wheat would be
produced in every portion of the world; and if any nation were induced
to entirely abandon the cultivation of it, this would only be because
it would _be her interest_ to otherwise employ her lands, her capital,
and her labor. And why does not the fertility of one department
paralyze the agriculture of a neighboring and less favored one?
Because the phenomena of political economy have a suppleness, an
elasticity, and, so to speak, _a self-levelling power_, which seems to
escape the attention of the school of protectionists. They accuse us
of being theoretic, but it is themselves who are so to a supreme
degree, if the being theoretic consists in building up systems upon
the experience of a single fact, instead of profiting by the
experience of a series of facts. In the above example, it is the
difference in the value of lands which compensates for the difference
in their fertility. Your field produces three times as much as mine.
Yes. But it has cost you ten times as much, and therefore I can still
compete with you: this is the sole mystery. And observe how the
advantage on one point leads to disadvantage on the other. Precisely
because your soil is more fruitful it is more dear. It is not
_a