ust bear the loss.

We answer:--

You have ceased to have any right to invoke the interest of the
consumer; for whenever his interest is found opposed to that of the
producer, you sacrifice the former. You have done so for the purpose of
_encouraging labor and increasing employment_. For the same reason you
should do so again.

You have yourself refuted this objection. When you are told that the
consumer is interested in the free importation of iron, coal, corn,
textile fabrics--yes, you reply, but the producer is interested in their
exclusion. Well, be it so;--if consumers are interested in the free
admission of natural light, the producers of artificial light are
equally interested in its prohibition.

But again, you may say that the producer and consumer are identical. If
the manufacturer gain by protection, he will make the agriculturist also
a gainer; and if agriculture prosper, it will open a vent to
manufactures. Very well: if you confer upon us the monopoly of
furnishing light during the day,--first of all, we shall purchase
quantities of tallow, coals, oils, resinous substances, wax,
alcohol--besides silver, iron, bronze, crystal--to carry on our
manufactures; and then we, and those who furnish us with such
commodities, having become rich, will consume a great deal, and impart
prosperity to all the other branches of our national industry.

If you urge that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift of nature,
and that to reject such gifts is to reject wealth itself under pretense
of encouraging the means of acquiring it, we would caution you against
giving a death-blow to your own policy. Remember that hitherto you have
always repelled foreign products, _because_ they approximate more nearly
than home products to the character of gratuitous gifts. To comply with
the exactions of other monopolists, you have only _half a motive_; and
to repulse us simply because we stand on a stronger vantage-ground than
others would be to adopt the equation, +X+=--; in other words, it would
be to heap _absurdity_ upon _absurdity_.

Nature and human labor co-operate in various proportions (depending on
countries and climates) in the production of commodities. The part
which nature executes is always gratuitous; it is the part executed by
human labor which constitutes value, and is paid for.

If a Lisbon orange sells for half the price of a Paris orange, it is
because natural and consequently gratuitous heat does for the on