We shall all be undone if the stoppages of the road are not equalized, weighed, and balanced between Stulta and Puera. There would be greater difficulty in going than in coming, in exporting than in importing. We should find ourselves in the same condition of inferiority relatively to Stulta, as Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lisbon, London, Hamburg, and New Orleans, are with relation to the towns situated at the sources of the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, the Tagus, the Thames, the Elbe, and the Mississippi, for it is more difficult for a ship to ascend than to descend a river. (_A Voice_: Towns at the _embouchures_ of rivers prosper more than towns at their source.) This is impossible. (Same Voice: But it is so.) Well, if it be so, they have prospered _contrary to rules_. Reasoning so conclusive convinced the assembly, and the orator followed up his victory by talking largely of national independence, national honour, national dignity, national labour, inundation of products, tributes, murderous competition. In short, he carried the vote in favour of the maintenance of obstacles; and if you are at all curious on the subject, I can point out to you countries, where you will see with your own eyes Road-makers and Obstructives working together on the most friendly terms possible, under the orders of the same legislative assembly, and at the expense of the same taxpayers, the one set endeavouring to clear the road, and the other set doing their utmost to render it impassible. XI. NOMINAL PRICES. Do you desire to be in a situation to decide between liberty and protection? Do you desire to appreciate the bearing of an economic phenomenon? Inquire into its effects _upon the abundance or scarcity of commodities_, and not _upon the rise or fall of prices_. Distrust _nominal prices_;* and they will only land you in an inextricable labyrinth. * I have translated the expression des prix absolus, nominal prices, or actual money prices, because the English economists do not, so far as I remember, make use of the term absolute price.--See post, chap. v. of second series, where the author employs the expression in this sense.-- Translator. M. Matthieu de Dombasle, after having shown that protection raises prices, adds-- "The enhancement of price increases the expense of living, and _consequently_ the price of labour, and each man receives, in the enhanced price of his products, compensation for the higher prices he has been obliged to pay for the things he has occasion to buy. Thus, if every one pays more as a consumer, every one receives more as a producer." It is evident that we could reverse this argument, and say--"If every one receives more as a producer, every one pays more as a consumer." Now, what does this prove? Nothing but this, that protection _displaces_ wealth uselessly and unjustly. In so far, it simply perpetrates spoliation.