ays them in more disadvantageous
conditions for production, than the country which is free from them,
is a Sophism. We pay, it is true, so many millions for the
administration of justice, and the maintenance of order, but we have
justice and order; we have the security which they give, the time
which they save for us; and it is most probable that production is
neither more easy nor more active among nations, where (if there be
such) each individual takes the administration of justice into his own
hands. We pay, I grant, many millions for roads, bridges, ports,
steamships; but we have these steamships, these ports, bridges, and
roads; and unless we maintain that it is a losing business to
establish them, we cannot say that they place us in a position
inferior to that of nations who have, it is true, no budget of public
works, but who likewise have no public works. And here we see why
(even while we accuse taxes of being a cause of industrial
inferiority) we direct our tariffs precisely against those nations
which are the most taxed. It is because these taxes, well used, far
from injuring, have ameliorated the _conditions of production_ to
these nations. Thus we again arrive at the conclusion that the
protectionist Sophisms not only wander from, but are the contrary--the
very antithesis--of truth.

As to unproductive taxes, suppress them if you can; but surely it is a
most singular idea to suppose, that their evil effect is to be
neutralized by the addition of individual taxes to public taxes. Many
thanks for the compensation! The State, you say, has taxed us too
much; surely this is no reason that we should tax each other!

A protective duty is a tax directed against foreign produce, but which
returns, let us keep in mind, upon the national consumer. Is it not
then a singular argument to say to him, "Because the taxes are heavy,
we will raise prices higher for you; and because the State takes a
part of your revenue, we will give another portion of it to benefit a
monopoly?"

But let us examine more closely this Sophism so accredited among our
legislators; although, strange to say, it is precisely those who keep
up the unproductive taxes (according to our present hypothesis) who
attribute to them afterwards our supposed inferiority, and seek to
re-establish the equilibrium by further taxes and new clogs.

It appears to me to be evident that protection, without any change in
its nature and effects, might have taken th