The railroad from Paris to Bayonne ought (he says) to present a break or terminus at Bordeaux, in order that goods and travelers stopping in this city should thus be forced to contribute to the profits of the boatmen, porters, commission merchants, hotel-keepers, etc.
It is very evident that we have here again the interest of the agents of labor put before that of the consumer.
But if Bordeaux would profit by a break in the road, and if such profit be conformable to the public interest, then Angoulème, Poictiers, Tours, Orleans, and still more all the intermediate points, as Ruffec, Châtellerault, etc., etc., would also petition for breaks; and this too would be for the general good and for the interest of national labor. For it is certain, that in proportion to the number of these breaks or termini, will be the increase in consignments, commissions, lading, unlading, etc. This system furnishes us the idea of a railroad made up of successive breaks; a negative railroad.
Whether or not the Protectionists will allow it, most certain it is, that the restrictive principle is identical with that which would maintain this system of breaks: it is the sacrifice of the consumer to the producer, of the end to the means.
XVIII.
"THERE ARE NO ABSOLUTE PRINCIPLES."
The facility with which men resign themselves to ignorance in cases where knowledge is all-important to them, is often astonishing; and we may be sure that a man has determined to rest in his ignorance, when he once brings himself to proclaim as a maxim that there are no absolute principles.
We enter into the legislative halls, and find that the question is, to determine whether the law will or will not allow of international exchanges.
A deputy rises and says, If we tolerate these exchanges, foreign nations will overwhelm us with their produce. We will have cotton goods from England, coal from Belgium, woolens from Spain, silks from Italy, cattle from Switzerland, iron from Sweden, corn from Prussia, so that no industrial pursuit will any longer be possible to us.