'It is, then, a grave mistake to lay the blame upon competition, and not to have perceived that if the people are the producers, they are also the consumers, and that receiving less on one side,' (which I deny, and which you deny yourself some lines lower down,) 'paying less on the other, there remains then, for the advantage of all, the difference between a system which restrains human activity, and a system which places it in its proper course, and inspires it with ceaseless energy.' I defy you to say that this argument does not apply with equal force to foreign as to domestic competition. Let us try again. At page 325, we find: 'Men either possess certain rights, or they do not. If they do--if these rights exist, they entail certain inevitable consequences.... But more than this, they must be the same at all times; they are entire and absolute--past, present, and to come--in all seasons; and not only when it may please you to declare them to be, but when it may please the workmen to appeal to them.' Will you maintain that an iron-master has an undefined right to hinder me for ever from producing indirectly two hundredweight of iron in my manufactory, for the sake of producing one hundred-weight in a direct manner in his own? This right, also, I repeat, either exists, or it does not. If it does exist, it must be absolute at all times and in all seasons; not only when it may please you to declare it to be so, but when it may please the iron-masters to claim its protection. Let us again try our luck. At page 63, I read,-- 'Property does not exist, if I cannot _give_ as well as _consume_ it.' We say so likewise. 'Property does not exist, if I cannot _exchange_ as well as _consume_ it;' and permit me to add, that the _right of exchange_ is at least as valuable, as important in a social point of view, as characteristic of property, as the _right of gift_. It is to be regretted, that in a work written for the purpose of examining property under all its aspects, you have thought it right to devote two chapters to an investigation of the latter right, which is in but little danger, and not a line to that of exchange, which is so boldly attacked, even under the shelter of the laws. Again, at page 47:-- 'Man has an absolute property in his person and in his faculties. He has a derivative one, less inherent in his nature, but not less sacred, in what these faculties may produce, which embraces all that can be called the wealth of this world, and which society is in the highest degree interested in protecting; for without this protection there would be no labour; without labour, no civilization, not even the necessaries of life--nothing but misery, robbery, and barbarism.'*