And this is why you are obliged to repeat daily: "Principles are not in their nature absolute. That which is _well_ in the individual, the family, the county, the state, is _evil_ in the nation. That which is _good_ in detail--such as, to purchase rather than to produce, when purchase is more advantageous than production--is bad in the mass. The political economy of individuals is not that of nations," and other rubbish, _ejusdem farinæ_. And why all this? Look at it closely. It is in order to prove to us that we, consumers, are your property, that we belong to you body and soul, that you have an exclusive right to our stomachs and limbs, and it is for you to nourish us and clothe us at your own price, however great may be your ignorance, your rapacity, or the inferiority of your position. No, you are not men of practice; you are men of abstraction--and of extraction! CHAPTER XIV. CONFLICT OF PRINCIPLES. There is one thing which confounds us, and it is this: Some sincere publicists, studying social economy from the point of view of producers only, have arrived at this double formula: "Governments ought to dispose of the consumers subject to the influence of their laws, in favor of national labor." "They should render distant consumers subject to their laws, in order to dispose of them in favor of national labor." The first of these formulas is termed _protection_; the latter, _expediency_. Both rest on the principle called Balance of Trade; the formula of which is: "A people impoverishes itself when it imports, and enriches itself when it exports." Of course, if every foreign purchase is a tribute paid, a loss, it is perfectly evident we must restrain, even prohibit, importations. And if all foreign sales are tribute received, profit, it is quite natural to create channels of outlet, even by force. Protective System--Colonial System: two aspects of the same theory. To _hinder_ our fellow-citizens purchasing of foreigners, _to force_ foreigners to purchase from our fellow-citizens, are merely two consequences of one identical principle. Now, it is impossible not to recognize that according to this doctrine, general utility rests on _monopoly_, or interior spoliation, and on _conquest_, or exterior spoliation.