verburthened with taxes, and deduce thence the
conclusion that it is necessary to protect such and such an article of
produce. But protection does not relieve us from the payment of these
taxes. If, then, individuals devoting themselves to any one object of
industry, should advance this demand: "We, from our participation in the
payment of taxes, have our expenses of production increased, and
therefore ask for a protective duty which shall raise our price of
sale;" what is this but a demand on their part to be allowed to free
themselves from the burthen of the tax, by laying it on the rest of the
community? Their object is to balance, by the increased price of their
produce, the amount which _they_ pay in taxes. Now, as the whole amount
of these taxes must enter into the treasury, and the increase of price
must be paid by society, it follows that (where this protective duty is
imposed) society has to bear, not only the general tax, but also that
for the protection of the article in question. But it is answered, let
_every thing_ be protected. Firstly, this is impossible; and, again,
were it possible, how could such a system give relief? _I_ will pay for
you, _you_ will pay for me; but not the less, still there remains the
tax to be paid.

Thus you are the dupes of an illusion. You determine to raise taxes for
the support of an army, a navy, the church, university, judges, roads,
etc. Afterwards you seek to disburthen from its portion of the tax,
first one article of industry, then another, then a third; always adding
to the burthen of the mass of society. You thus only create interminable
complications. If you can prove that the increase of price resulting
from protection, falls upon the foreign producer, I grant something
specious in your argument. But if it be true that the French people paid
the tax before the passing of the protective duty, and afterwards that
it has paid not only the tax, but the protective duty also, truly I do
not perceive wherein it has profited.

But I go much further, and maintain that the more oppressive our taxes
are, the more anxiously ought we to open our ports and frontiers to
foreign nations, less burthened than ourselves. And why? In order that
we may share with them, as much as possible, the burthen which we bear.
Is it not an incontestable maxim in political economy, that taxes must,
in the end, fall upon the consumer? The greater then our commerce, the
greater the portion which will