7. It is best when the people are free and intelligent that they be governed as little as possible—or rather that they govern themselves as much as possible, and that as few officials as may be live on the fruits of other people’s labor. There must necessarily be an army of them, at the least; but such arrangements should be made that public expenses may be reduced, to the lowest point, and republican simplicity everywhere reign. The principle and habit of public economy should be earnestly insisted on, since the handling of immense sums of public money is much more demoralizing than the acquisition of private wealth in legitimate ways. It is a strong temptation to men of weak moral character; and private property is more likely to be carefully used and economically expended than public funds. The smaller the revenue, consistent with the general development of the country, the better. CHAPTER XI. DUTIES AND TARIFFS. 1. Duty is a term used to designate a sum paid by foreign merchandise coming to our country for sale, for the privilege of entering and being offered to purchasers. Tariff is a rate, or scale, of duties. 2. Ever since intercourse has become frequent between different nations commerce has been occupied in effecting interchanges of the products and industries of each country with others. Each country has peculiarities that specially fit it for the production or manufacture of some article, or list of articles, which others would be unable to produce, or would produce at greater inconvenience and expense, and which is of high value to all, or many of the others. The social principle has proved to be of extreme value to the improvement of men, and to their happiness; and we might say that, in this unequal distribution of capacities in the lands, and the races who inhabit them, the exercise of the social principle, on a broad scale, was made, by nature, indispensable. 3. Each nation, then, devotes itself to its special features of production, and exchanges its surplus with others for what it wants of their different surplus, to mutual profit. Just as A is a farmer, and raises grain, while B is a mechanic. Each has a natural adaptation to the business he pursues, and each needs what the other produces. So they exchange, and each has the full benefit of the success and different genius and resources of the other. Commerce is the same in principle, and interchange becomes constantly more extensive.