Sire, do not wrong us so far as to think that we lightly adopted a measure which, at the first glance, may appear odd. Deep study of the _protective system_ has revealed to us this syllogism, on which it entirely rests: The more one labors, the richer one is. The more difficulties one has to conquer, the more one labors. _Ergo_, the more difficulties one has to conquer, the richer one is. What is _protection_, really, but an ingenious application of this formal reasoning, which is so compact that it would resist the subtlety of M. Billault himself? Let us personify the country. Let us look on it as a collective being, with thirty million mouths, and, consequently, sixty million arms. This being makes a clock, which he proposes to exchange in Belgium for ten quintals of iron. "But," we say to him, "make the iron yourself." "I cannot," says he; "it would take me too much time, and I could not make five quintals while I can make one clock." "Utopist!" we reply; "for this very reason we forbid your making the clock, and order you to make the iron. Do not you see that we create you labor?" Sire, it will not have escaped your sagacity, that it is just as if we said to the country, _Labor with the left hand, and not with the right_. The creation of obstacles to furnish labor an opportunity to develop itself, is the principle of the _restriction_ which is dying. It is also the principle of the _restriction_ which is about to be created. Sire, to make such regulations is not to innovate, but to preserve. The efficacy of the measure is incontestable. It is difficult--much more difficult than one thinks--to do with the left hand what one was accustomed to do with the right. You will convince yourself of it, Sire, if you will condescend to try our system on something which is familiar to you,--like shuffling cards, for instance. We can then flatter ourselves that we have opened an illimitable career to labor. When workmen of all kinds are reduced to their left hands, consider, Sire, the immense number that will be required to meet the present consumption, supposing it to be invariable, which we always do when we compare differing systems of production. So prodigious a demand for manual labor cannot fail to bring about a considerable increase in wages; and pauperism will disappear from the country as if by enchantment. Sire, your paternal heart will rejoice at the thought that the benefits of this regulation will extend over that interesting portion of the great family whose fate excites your liveliest solicitude. What is the destiny of women in France? That sex which is the boldest and most hardened to fatigue, is, insensibly, driving them from all fields of labor.