Here we have clearly the interest of labour put before the interest of consumers. But if Bordeaux has a right to profit by a gap in the line of railway, and if such profit is consistent with the public interest, then Angoulème, Poitiers, Tours, Orleans, nay, more, all the intermediate places, Ruffec, Châtellerault, etc., should also demand gaps, as being for the general interest, and, of course, for the interest of national industry; for the more these breaks in the line are multiplied, the greater will be the increase of consignments, commissions, transhipments, etc., along the whole extent of the railway. In this way, we shall succeed in having a line of railway composed of successive gaps, and which may be denominated a _Negative Railway_. Let the protectionists say what they will, it is not the less certain that _the principle of restriction_ is the very same as the _principle of gaps_; the sacrifice of the consumer's interest to that of the producer,--in other words, the sacrifice of the end to the means. XVIII. THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTE PRINCIPLES. We cannot wonder enough at the facility with which men resign themselves to continue ignorant of what it is most important that they should know; and we may be certain that such ignorance is incorrigible in those who venture to proclaim this axiom: There are no absolute principles. You enter the legislative precincts. The subject of debate is whether the law should prohibit international exchanges, or proclaim freedom. A deputy rises, and says: If you tolerate these exchanges, the foreigner will inundate you with his products: England with her textile fabrics, Belgium with coals, Spain with wools, Italy with silks, Switzerland with cattle, Sweden with iron, Prussia with corn; so that home industry will no longer be possible. Another replies: If you prohibit international exchanges, the various bounties which nature has lavished on different climates will be for you as if they did not exist. You cannot participate in the mechanical skill of the English, in the wealth of the Belgian mines, in the fertility of the Polish soil, in the luxuriance of the Swiss pastures, in the cheapness of Spanish labour, in the warmth of the Italian climate; and you must obtain from a refractory and misdirected production those commodities which, through exchange, would have been furnished to you by an easy production. Assuredly, one of these deputies must be wrong. But which? We must take care to make no mistake on the subject; for this is not a matter of abstract opinion merely. You have to choose between two roads, and one of them leads necessarily to _poverty_. To get rid of the dilemma, we are told that there are no absolute principles. This axiom, which is so much in fashion nowadays, not only countenances indolence, but ministers to ambition.