monopoly, for the
reason that they produced _by labor_, while the other two-thirds,
that is to say the agriculturists, would be abandoned to competition,
under pretext that they produced without labor.

It will be urged that it is of more advantage to a nation to import
the materials called raw, whether they are or are not the product of
labor, and to export manufactured articles.

This is a strongly accredited opinion.

"The more abundant raw materials are," said the petition from
Bordeaux, "the more manufactories are multiplied and extended." It
said again, that "raw material opens an unlimited field of labor to
the inhabitants of the country from which it is imported."

"Raw material," said the other petition, that from Havre, "being the
aliment of labor, must be submitted to a _different system_, and
admitted at once at the lowest duty." The same petition would have the
protection on manufactured articles reduced, not one after another,
but at an undetermined time; not to the lowest duty, but to twenty per
cent.

"Among other articles which necessity requires to be abundant and
cheap," said the third petition, that from Lyons, "the manufacturers
name all raw material."

This all rests on an illusion. We have seen that all _value_
represents labor. Now, it is true that labor increases ten-fold,
sometimes a hundred-fold, the value of a rough product, that is to
say, expands ten-fold, a hundred-fold, the products of a nation.
Thence it is reasoned, "The production of a bale of cotton causes
workmen of all classes to earn one hundred dollars only. The
conversion of this bale into lace collars raises their profits to ten
thousand dollars; and will you dare to say that the nation is not
more interested in encouraging labor worth ten thousand than that
worth one hundred dollars?"

We forget that international exchanges, no more than individual
exchanges, work by weight or measure. We do not exchange a bale of
cotton for a bale of lace collars, nor a pound of wool in the grease
for a pound of wool in cashmere; but a certain value of one of these
things _for an equal value_ of the other. Now to barter equal value
against equal value is to barter equal work against equal work. It is
not true, then, that the nation which gives for a hundred dollars
cashmere or collars, gains more than the nation which delivers for a
hundred dollars wool or cotton.

In a country where no law can be adopted, no impost established,
w