ggerating the relative value of the services
they render one another. I cannot, indeed, see any other limit to these
claims than the free acceptance or free refusal of those to whom these
services are offered.

Hence it comes that certain men resort to the law to curtail the natural
prerogatives of this liberty. This kind of spoliation is called
privilege or monopoly. We will carefully indicate its origin and
character.

Every one knows that the services which he offers in the general market
are the more valued and better paid for, the scarcer they are. Each one,
then, will ask for the enactment of a law to keep out of the market all
who offer services similar to his.

This variety of spoliation being the chief subject of this volume, I
will say little of it here, and will restrict myself to one remark:

When the monopoly is an isolated fact, it never fails to enrich the
person to whom the law has granted it. It may then happen that each
class of workmen, instead of seeking the overthrow of this monopoly,
claim a similar one for themselves. This kind of spoliation, thus
reduced to a system, becomes then the most ridiculous of mystifications
for every one, and the definite result is that each one believes that he
gains more from a general market impoverished by all.

It is not necessary to add that this singular _regime_ also brings about
an universal antagonism between all classes, all professions, and all
peoples; that it requires the constant but always uncertain interference
of government; that it swarms with the abuses which have been the
subject of the preceding paragraph; that it places all industrial
pursuits in hopeless insecurity; and that it accustoms men to place upon
the law, and not upon themselves, the responsibility for their very
existence. It would be difficult to imagine a more active cause of
social disturbance.

JUSTIFICATION.

It may be asked, "Why this ugly word--spoliation? It is not only coarse,
but it wounds and irritates; it turns calm and moderate men against you,
and embitters the controversy."

I earnestly declare that I respect individuals; I believe in the
sincerity of almost all the friends of Protection, and I do not claim
that I have any right to suspect the personal honesty, delicacy of
feeling, or philanthropy of any one. I also repeat that Protection is
the work, the fatal work, of a common error, of which all, or nearly
all, are at once victims and accomplices. But I can