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other men, I have received from the genius of my ancestors. I have two workmen in my field; the one directs the handle of a plough, the other that of a spade. The result of their day's labor is very different, but the price is the same, because the remuneration is proportioned, not to the usefulness of the result, but to the effort, the [time, and] labor given to attain it. I invoke the patience of the reader, and beg him to believe, that I have not lost sight of free trade: I entreat him only to remember the conclusion at which I have arrived: _Remuneration is not proportioned to the usefulness of the articles brought by the producer into the market, but to the [time and] labor required for their production._[B] [Footnote B: It is true that [time and] labor do not receive a uniform remuneration; because labor is more or less intense, dangerous, skilful, &c., [and time more or less valuable.] Competition establishes for each category a price current: and it is of this variable price that I speak.] I have so far taken my examples from human inventions, but will now go on to speak of natural advantages. In every article of production, nature and man must concur. But the portion of nature is always gratuitous. Only so much of the usefulness of an article as is the result of human labor becomes the object of mutual exchange, and consequently of remuneration. The remuneration varies much, no doubt, in proportion to the intensity of the labor, of the skill, which it requires, of its being _a-propos_ to the demand of the day, of the need which exists for it, of the momentary absence of competition, &c. But it is not the less true in principle, that the assistance received from natural laws, which belongs to all, counts for nothing in the price. We do not pay for the air we breathe, although so useful to us, that we could not live two minutes without it. We do not pay for it, because nature furnishes it without the intervention of man's labor. But if we wish to separate one of the gases which compose it for instance, to fill a balloon, we must take some [time and] labor; or if another takes it for us, we must give him an equivalent in something which will have cost us the trouble of production. From which we see that the exchange is between efforts, [time and] labor. It is certainly not for hydrogen gas that I pay, for this is everywhere at my disposal, but for the work that it has been necessary to accomplish in or
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