And to what does all this tend? Look at it a little closer. The intention is to prove that we, the consumers, are your property! that we are yours body and soul! that you have an exclusive right over our stomachs and our limbs! that it belongs to you to feed and clothe us on your own terms, whatever be your ignorance, incapacity, or rapacity! No, you are not men of practice; you are men of abstraction--and of extortion. XIV. CONFLICT OF PRINCIPLES. There is one thing which confounds me; and it is this: Sincere publicists, studying the economy of society from the producer's point of view, have laid down this double formula:-- "Governments should order the interests of consumers who are subject to their laws, in such a way as to be favourable to national industry. "They should bring distant consumers under subjection to their laws, for the purpose of ordering their interests in a way favourable to national industry." The first of these formulas gets the name of protection; the second we call _débouchés_, or the creating of markets, or vents, for our produce. Both are founded on the _datum_ which we denominate the _Balance of Trade_. "A nation is impoverished when it imports; enriched when it exports." For if every purchase from a foreign country is a _tribute paid_ and a national loss, it follows, of course, that it is right to restrain, and even prohibit, importations. And if every sale to a foreign country is a _tribute received_, and a national profit, it is quite right and natural to create markets for our products even by force. The _system of protection_ and the _colonial system_ are, then, only two aspects of one and the same theory. To _hinder_ our fellow-citizens from buying from foreigners, and to _force_ foreigners to buy from our fellow-citizens, are only two consequences of one and the same principle. Now, it is impossible not to admit that this doctrine, if true, makes general utility to repose on _monopoly_ or internal spoliation, and on _conquest_ or external spoliation. I enter a cottage on the French side of the Pyrenees.