it been so? No, for if the
_supply_ has increased, the _demand_ has increased also.

Thus will it be with cloth; therefore let it come in. It is true that
you will have more competitors, but you will also have more customers,
and richer ones. Did you never think of this when seeing nine-tenths of
your countrymen deprived during the winter of that superior cloth that
you make?

This is not a very long lesson to learn. If you wish to prosper, let
your customers do the same.

When this is once known, each one will seek his welfare in the general
welfare. Then, jealousies between individuals, cities, provinces and
nations, will no longer vex the world.

VI.

TO ARTISANS AND LABORERS.

Many papers have attacked me before you. Will you not read my defense?

I am not mistrustful. When a man writes or speaks, I believe that he
thinks what he says.

What is the question? To ascertain which is the more advantageous for
you, restriction or liberty.

I believe that it is liberty; they believe it is restriction; it is for
each one to prove his case.

Was it necessary to insinuate that we are the agents of England?

You will see how easy recrimination would be on this ground.

We are, they say, agents of the English, because some of us have used
the English words _meeting_, _free trader_!

And do not they use the English words _drawback_ and _budget_?

We imitate Cobden and the English democracy!

Do not they parody Bentinck and the British aristocracy?

We borrow from perfidious Albion the doctrine of liberty.

Do not they borrow from her the sophisms of protection?

We follow the commercial impulse of Bordeaux and the South.

Do not they serve the greed of Lille, and the manufacturing North?

We favor the secret designs of the ministry, which desires to turn
public attention away from the protective policy.

Do not they favor the views of the Custom House officers, who gain more
than anybody else by this protective _regime_?

So you see that if we did not ignore this war of epithets, we should not
be without weapons.

But that is not the point in issue.

The question which I shall not lose sight of is this:

_Which is better for the working-classes, to be free or not to be free
to purchase from abroad?_

Workmen, they say to you, "If you are free to buy from abroad these
things which you now make yourselves, you will no longer make them. You
will be without work, without wages, and without