of interests, neutralize the counterpoise, and fence in each nation within its own peculiar advantages and disadvantages.

3. Even were the labor of one country crushed by the competition of more favored climates (which is denied), protective duties cannot equalize the facilities of production. To say that by a protective law the conditions of production are equalized, is to disguise an error under false terms. It is not true that an import duty equalizes the conditions of production. These remain after the imposition of the duty just as they were before. The most that law can do is to equalize the conditions of sale. If it should be said that I am playing upon words, I retort the accusation upon my adversaries. It is for them to prove that production and sale are synonymous terms, which if they cannot do, I have a right to accuse them, if not of playing upon words, at least of confounding them.

Let me be permitted to exemplify my idea.

Suppose that several New York speculators should determine to devote themselves to the production of oranges. They know that the oranges of Portugal can be sold in New York at one cent each, whilst on account of the boxes, hot-houses, &c., which are necessary to ward against the severity of our climate, it is impossible to raise them at less than a dollar apiece. They accordingly demand a duty of ninety-nine cents upon Portugal oranges. With the help of this duty, say they, the conditions of production will be equalized. Congress, yielding as usual to this argument, imposes a duty of ninety-nine cents on each foreign orange.

Now I say that the relative conditions of production are in no wise changed. The law can take nothing from the heat of the sun in Lisbon, nor from the severity of the frosts in New York. Oranges continuing to mature themselves naturally on the banks of the Tagus, and artificially upon those of the Hudson, must continue to require for their production much more labor on the latter than the former. The law can only equalize the conditions of sale. It is evident that while the Portuguese sell their oranges here at a dollar apiece, the ninety-nine cents which go to pay the tax are taken from the American consumer. Now look at the whimsicality of the result. Upon each Portuguese orange, the country loses nothing; for the ninety-nine cents which the consumer pays to satisfy the impost tax, enter into the treasury. There is improper distribution; but no loss. But upon each American orange consumed, there will be about ninety-nine cents lost; for while the buyer very certainly loses them, the seller just as certainly does not gain them; for, even according to the hypothesis, he will receive only the price of production, I will leave it to the protectionists to draw their conclusion.

4. But freedom of trade equalizes these conditions as much as is possible. I have laid some stress upon this distinction between the conditions of production and those of sale, which perhaps the prohibitionists may consider as paradoxical, because it leads me on to what they will consider as a still stranger paradox. This is: If you really wish to equalize the facilities of production, leave trade free.

This may surprise the protectionists; but let me entreat them to listen, if it be only through curiosity, to the end of my argument. It shall not be long. I will now take it up where we left off.

If we suppose for the moment, that the common and daily profits of each American amount to one dollar, it will indisputably follow that to produce an orange by direct labor in America, one day's work, or its equivalent, will be requisite; whilst to produce the cost of a Portuguese orange, only one-hundredth of this day's labor is required; which means simply this, that the sun does at Lisbon what labor does at New York. Now is it not evident, that if I can produce an orange, or, what is the same thing, the means of buying it, with one-hundredth of a day's labor, I am placed exactly in the same condition as the Portuguese producer himself, excepting the expense of the transportation? It therefore follows that freedom of commerce equalizes the conditions of production direct or indirect, as much as it is possible to equalize them; for it leaves but the one inevitable difference, that of transportation.

I will add that free trade equalizes also the facilities for attaining enjoyments, comforts, and general consumption; the last, an object which is, it would seem, quite forgotten, and which is nevertheless all-important; since, in fine, consumption is the main object of all our industrial efforts. Thanks to freedom of trade, we would enjoy here the results of the Portuguese sun, as well as Portugal itself; and the inhabitants of New York would have in their reach, as well as those of London, and with the same facilities, the advantages which nature has in a mineralogical point of view conferred upon Cornwall.

5. Countries least favored by nature (countries not yet cleared of forests, for example) are those which profit most by mutual exchange. The protectionists may suppose me in a paradoxical humor, for I go further still. I say, and I sincerely believe, that if any two countries are placed in unequal circumstances as to advantages of production, the one of the two which is the less favored by nature, will gain more by freedom of commerce. To prove this, I will be obliged to turn somewhat aside from the form of reasoning which belongs to this work. I will do so, however; first, because the question in discussion turns upon this point; and again, because it will give me the opportunity of exhibiting a law of political economy of the highest importance, and which, well understood, seems to me to be destined to lead back to this science all those sects which, in our days, are seeking in the land of chimeras that social harmony which they have been unable to discover in nature. I speak of the law of consumption, which the majority of political economists may well be reproached with having too much neglected.

Consumption is the end, the final cause of all the phenomena of political economy, and, consequently, in it is found their final solution.

No effect, whether favorable or unfavorable, can be vested permanently in the producer. His advantages and disadvantages, derived from his relations to nature and to society, both pass gradually from him; and by an almost insensible tendency are absorbed and fused into the community at large—the community considered as consumers. This is an admirable law, alike in its cause and its effects; and he who shall succeed in making it well understood, will have a right to say, "I have not, in my passage through the world, forgotten to pay my tribute to society."

Every circumstance which favors the work of production is of course hailed with joy by the producer, for its immediate effect is to enable him to render greater services to the community, and to exact from it a greater remuneration. Every circumstance which injures production, must equally be the source of uneasiness to him; for its immediate effect is to diminish his services, and consequently his remuneration. This is a fortunate and necessary law of nature. The immediate good or evil of favorable or unfavorable circumstances must fall upon the producer, in order to influence him invisibly to seek the one and to avoid the other.

Again: when an inventor succeeds in his labor-saving machine, the immediate benefit of this success is received by him. This again is necessary, to determine him to devote his attention to it. It is also just; because it is just that an effort crowned with success should bring its own reward.

But these effects, good and bad, although permanent in themselves, are