--What! you diminish the receipts, without lessening expenses, and you avoid a deficit? --Yes, by diminishing other taxes at the same time. (Here the interlocutor, putting the index finger of his right hand on his forehead, shook his head, which may be translated thus: He is rambling terribly.) --Well, upon my word, this is ingenious. I pay the Treasury a hundred francs; you relieve me of five francs on salt, five on postage; and in order that the Treasury may nevertheless receive one hundred francs, you relieve me of ten on some other tax? --Precisely; you understand me. --How can it be true? I am not even sure that I have heard you. --I repeat that I balance one remission of taxes by another. --I have a little time to give, and I should like to hear you expound this paradox. --Here is the whole mystery: I know a tax which costs you twenty francs, not a sou of which gets to the Treasury. I relieve you of half of it, and make the other half take its proper destination. --You are an unequaled financier. There is but one difficulty. What tax, if you please, do I pay, which does not go to the Treasury? --How much does this suit of clothes cost you? --A hundred francs. --How much would it have cost you if you had gotten the cloth from Belgium? --Eighty francs. --Then why did you not get it there? --Because it is prohibited. --Why? --So that the suit may cost me one hundred francs instead of eighty. --This denial, then, costs you twenty francs? --Undoubtedly. --And where do these twenty francs go? --Where do they go? To the manufacturer of the cloth. --Well, give me ten francs for the Treasury, and I will remove the restriction, and you will gain ten francs. --Oh, I begin to see. The treasury account shows that it loses five francs on postage and five on salt, and gains ten on cloth. That is even. --Your account is--you gain five francs on salt, five on postage, and ten on cloth. --Total, twenty francs. This is satisfactory enough. But what becomes of the poor cloth manufacturer? --Oh, I have thought of him. I have secured compensation for him by means of the tax reductions which are so profitable to the Treasury. What I have done for you as regards cloth, I do for him in regard to wool, coal, machinery, etc., so that he can lower his price without loss. --But are you sure that will be an equivalent? --The balance will be in his favor. The twenty francs that you gain on the cloth will be multiplied by those which I will save for you on grain, meat, fuel, etc. This will amount to a large sum, and each one of your 35,000,000 fellow-citizens will save the same way. There will be enough to consume the cloths of both Belgium and France. The nation will be better clothed; that is all. --I will think on this, for it is somewhat confused in my head.