"

Restriction has for its avowed object, and acknowledged effect, the
augmentation of labor. And again, equally avowed and acknowledged, its
object and effect are, the increase of prices;--a synonymous term for
scarcity of produce. Pushed then to its greatest extreme, it is pure
_Sisyphism_ as we have defined it: _labor infinite; result nothing_.

Baron Charles Dupin, who is looked upon as the oracle of the peerage in
the science of political economy, accuses railroads of _injuring
shipping_, and it is certainly true that the most perfect means of
attaining an object must always limit the use of a less perfect means.
But railways can only injure shipping by drawing from it articles of
transportation; this they can only do by transporting more cheaply; and
they can only transport more cheaply, by _diminishing the proportion of
the effort employed to the result obtained_; for it is in this that
cheapness consists. When, therefore, Baron Dupin laments the suppression
of labor in attaining a given result, he maintains the doctrine of
_Sisyphism_. Logically, if he prefers the vessel to the railway, he
should also prefer the wagon to the vessel, the pack-saddle to the
wagon, and the wallet to the pack-saddle; for this is, of all known
means of transportation, the one which requires the greatest amount of
labor, in proportion to the result obtained.

"Labor constitutes the riches of the people," said Mr. de Saint Cricq, a
minister who has laid not a few shackles upon our commerce. This was no
elliptical expression, meaning that the "results of labor constitute the
riches of the people." No,--this statesman intended to say, that it is
the _intensity_ of labor, which measures riches; and the proof of this
is, that from step to step, from restriction to restriction, he forced
on France (and in so doing believed that he was doing well) to give to
the procuring, of, for instance, a certain quantity of iron, double the
necessary labor. In England, iron was then at eight francs; in France it
cost sixteen. Supposing the day's work to be worth one franc, it is
evident that France could, by barter, procure a quintal of iron by eight
days' labor taken from the labor of the nation. Thanks to the
restrictive measures of Mr. de Saint Cricq, sixteen days' work were
necessary to procure it, by direct production. Here then we have double
labor for an identical result; therefore double riches; and riches,
measured not by the result, but by t