If any one says to you, "It is, however, exceedingly hard upon me, who pay taxes, to have to compete in my own market with the foreigner, who pays none,
Reply:
"1st, In the first place, it is not your market, but our market. I who live upon corn and pay for it, should surely be taken into account.
"2d, Few foreigners at the present day are exempt from taxes.
"3d, If the taxes you vote yield you in roads, canals, security, etc., more than they cost you, you are not justified in repelling, at my expense, the competition of foreigners, who, if they do not pay taxes, have not the advantages you enjoy in roads, canals, and security. You might as well say, 'I demand a compensating duty because I have finer clothes, stronger horses, and better ploughs than the hard-working peasant of Russia.'
"4th, If the tax does not repay you for what it costs, don't vote it.
"5th, In short, after having voted the tax, do you wish to get free from it? Try to frame a law which will throw it on the foreigner. But your tariff makes your share of it fall upon me, who have already my own burden to bear."
If any one says, "For the Russians free-trade is necessary to enable them to exchange their products with advantage," (Opinion de M. Thiers dans les Bureaux, April 1847),
Reply: "Liberty is necessary everywhere, and for the same reason."
If you are told, "Each country has its wants, and we must be guided by that in what we do." (M. Thiers),