Mr. Culver recommended his keeping quiet, and, if there was no foundation for the report, it would soon blow over. "_If_ there was no foundation!" The same doubt appeared on every hand. "Just tell me," asked Gaubion, "why I should drive a contraband trade, when I might legally import, if I chose?" "The duty is high enough still, sir, to induce smuggling in certain favourable cases. I was an advocate for the trade being thrown open; and being so, I am now for such a duty as shall put us on a par with your countrymen. I think a duty of twelve or fifteen per cent. would do this, and leave no temptation to cheat us out of our market. I should have advised a higher duty some time ago; but smuggling is made easier now by so much silk being brought in legally; and I think we should be better protected by the lower duty than the higher." "I see," observed the Frenchman, "that in this case, as in others, some of those who are the very parties supposed to be protected are the most willing to resign the protection. It is declared to be a difficult thing to get a protection repealed; but the difficulty does not always rest with the protected party." "That entirely depends on the state of his affairs," replied Mr. Culver. "If the protection leaves him his business in a flourishing state,--which seldom happens for many years together,--or even permits it to remain in a state which barely justifies its being carried on, he may dread something worse happening by the removal of protecting duties; but if, for a length of time, his trade declines, and the faster the more government meddles with it, he will quickly learn, as I have learned, to preach from the text, 'Protect the people's pockets, and we shall have as fair a chance as we want.' The difficulty, sir, arises from the number of interests mixed up in an arbitrary system like that of protections. While people and money are wasted in spying, and threatening, and punishing, when they ought to be producing, there will be many an outcry against a change which would deprive them of their office, though it would set them free for one much more profitable to the people. Then again, if persons have been bribed to pay a new tax by the promise of protection, it is difficult to oblige them to go on paying the tax, and give up the bribe, unless they have a mind so to do. They talk of injustice; and with some reason. The long and short of the matter is, that once having got into an unnatural system, it costs a world of pains and trouble to get out of it again." "The only way is to go back to some plain clear principle, and keep it in view while loosening the entanglements which have been twisted about it." "When do you find governments willing to do that?" asked Mr. Culver.