For if you persist in your determination to keep the Belgian article on a par with the Parisian at forty francs, you must raise the duty to fifteen francs, in order to have:—
20 francs—price at Brussels.
15 " protective duty.
5 " transportation by railroad.
—
40 francs—total, at equalized prices.
And I now ask, of what benefit, under these circumstances, is the railroad?
Frankly, is it not humiliating to the nineteenth century, that it should be destined to transmit to future ages the example of such puerilities seriously and gravely practiced? To be the dupe of another, is bad enough; but to employ all the forms and ceremonies of legislation in order to cheat one's self,—to doubly cheat one's self, and that too in a mere mathematical account,—truly this is calculated to lower a little the pride of this enlightened age.
X.
RECIPROCITY.
We have just seen that all which renders transportation difficult, acts in the same manner as protection; or, if the expression be preferred, that protection tends towards the same result as obstacles to transportation.
A tariff may then be truly spoken of, as a swamp, a rut, a steep hill; in a word, an obstacle, whose effect is to augment the difference between the price of consumption and that of production. It is equally incontestable that a swamp, a bog, etc., are veritable protective tariffs.
There are people (few in number, it is true, but such there are) who begin to understand that obstacles are not the less obstacles, because they are artificially created, and that our well-being is more advanced by freedom of trade than by protection; precisely as a canal is more desirable than a sandy, hilly, and difficult road.