Reply: Be just to everybody.
—If they say to you: It is essential that a great country should manufacture iron—
Reply: The most essential thing is that this great country should have iron.
—If they say to you: It is necessary that a great country should manufacture cloth.
Reply: It is more necessary that the citizens of this great country should have cloth.
—If they say to you: Labor is wealth—
Reply: It is false.
And, by way of developing this, add: A bleeding is not health, and the proof of it is, that it is done to restore health.
—If they say to you: To compel men to work over rocks and get an ounce of iron from a ton of ore, is to increase their labor, and, consequently, their wealth—
Reply: To compel men to dig wells, by denying them the use of river water, is to add to their useless labor, but not their wealth.