"Raw material," said the other petition, that from Havre, "being the aliment of labor, must be submitted to a _different system_, and admitted at once at the lowest duty." The same petition would have the protection on manufactured articles reduced, not one after another, but at an undetermined time; not to the lowest duty, but to twenty per cent. "Among other articles which necessity requires to be abundant and cheap," said the third petition, that from Lyons, "the manufacturers name all raw material." This all rests on an illusion. We have seen that all _value_ represents labor. Now, it is true that labor increases ten-fold, sometimes a hundred-fold, the value of a rough product, that is to say, expands ten-fold, a hundred-fold, the products of a nation. Thence it is reasoned, "The production of a bale of cotton causes workmen of all classes to earn one hundred dollars only. The conversion of this bale into lace collars raises their profits to ten thousand dollars; and will you dare to say that the nation is not more interested in encouraging labor worth ten thousand than that worth one hundred dollars?" We forget that international exchanges, no more than individual exchanges, work by weight or measure. We do not exchange a bale of cotton for a bale of lace collars, nor a pound of wool in the grease for a pound of wool in cashmere; but a certain value of one of these things _for an equal value_ of the other. Now to barter equal value against equal value is to barter equal work against equal work. It is not true, then, that the nation which gives for a hundred dollars cashmere or collars, gains more than the nation which delivers for a hundred dollars wool or cotton. In a country where no law can be adopted, no impost established, without the consent of those whom this law is to govern, the public cannot be robbed without being first deceived. Our ignorance is the "raw material" of all extortion which is practised upon us, and we may be sure in advance that every sophism is the forerunner of a spoliation. Good public, when you see a sophism, clap your hand on your pocket; for that is certainly the point at which it aims. What was the secret thought which the shipowners of Bordeaux and of Havre, and the manufacturers of Lyons, conceived in this distinction between agricultural products and manufactured articles? "It is principally in this first class (that which comprehends raw material _unmodified by human labor_)," said the Raw-Materialists of Bordeaux, "that the chief aliment of our merchant marine is found. At the outset, a wise economy would require that this class should not be taxed. The second (articles which have received some preparation) may be charged; the third (articles on which no more work has to be done) we consider the most taxable."