—If they say to you: Each country has its wants; it is according to that that it must act (M. Thiers)—
Reply: It is according to that that it acts of itself when no one hinders it.
—If they say to you: Since we have no sheet iron, its admission must be allowed (M. Thiers)—
Reply: Thank you, kindly.
—If they say to you: Our merchant marine must have freight; owing to the lack of return cargoes our vessels cannot compete with foreign ones—
Reply: When you want to do everything at home, you can have cargoes neither going nor coming. It is as absurd to wish for a navy under a prohibitory system as to wish for carts where all transportation is forbidden.
—If they say to you: Supposing that protection is unjust, everything is founded on it; there are moneys invested, and rights acquired, and it cannot be abandoned without suffering—
Reply: Every injustice profits some one (except, perhaps, restriction, which in the long run profits no one), and to use as an argument the disturbance which the cessation of the injustice causes to the person profiting by it, is to say that an injustice, only because it has existed for a moment, should be eternal.