be reimbursed to us, of taxes
incorporated in the produce, which we will have sold to foreign
consumers; whilst we, on our part, will have made to them only a lesser
reimbursement, because (according to our hypothesis) their produce is
less taxed than ours.

Again, finally, has it ever occurred to you to ask yourself, whether
these heavy taxes which you adduce as a reason for keeping up the
prohibitive system, may not be the result of this very system itself? To
what purpose would be our great standing armies, and our powerful
navies, if commerce were free?

VI.

BALANCE OF TRADE.

Our adversaries have adopted a system of tactics, which embarrasses us
not a little. Do we prove our doctrine? They admit the truth of it in
the most respectful manner. Do we attack their principles? They abandon
them with the best possible grace. They only ask that our doctrine,
which they acknowledge to be true, should be confined to books; and that
their principles, which they allow to be false, should be established in
practice. If we will give up to them the regulation of our tariffs, they
will leave us triumphant in the domain of theory.

"Assuredly," said Mr. Gauthier de Roumilly, lately, "assuredly no one
wishes to call up from their graves the defunct theories of the balance
of trade." And yet Mr. Gauthier, after giving this passing blow to
error, goes on immediately afterwards, and for two hours consecutively,
to reason as though this error were a truth.

Give me Mr. Lestiboudois. Here we have a consistent reasoner! a logical
arguer! There is nothing in his conclusions which cannot be found in his
premises. He asks nothing in practice which he does not justify in
theory. His principles may perchance be false, and this is the point in
question. But he has a principle. He believes, he proclaims aloud, that
if France gives ten to receive fifteen, she loses five; and surely, with
such a belief, nothing is more natural than that he should make laws
consistent with it.

He says: "What it is important to remark, is, that constantly the amount
of importation is augmenting, and surpassing that of exportation. Every
year France buys more foreign produce, and sells less of its own
produce. This can be proved by figures. In 1842, we see the importation
exceed the exportation by two hundred millions. This appears to me to
prove, in the clearest manner, that national labor _is not sufficiently
protected_, that we are provided by