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.

But they still say, this liberty ought to be reciprocal. If we take off our taxes in favor of Spain, while Spain does not do the same towards us, it is evident that we are duped. Let us then make treaties of commerce upon the basis of a just reciprocity; let us yield where we are yielded to; let us make the sacrifice of buying that we may obtain the advantage of selling.

Persons who reason thus, are (I am sorry to say), whether they know it or not, governed by the protectionist principle. They are only a little more inconsistent than the pure protectionists, as these are more inconsistent than the absolute prohibitionists.

I will illustrate this by a fable.

Stulta and Puera (Fool-town and Boy-town).

There were, it matters not where, two towns, Stulta and Puera, which at great expense had a road built which connected them with each other. Some time after this was done, the inhabitants of Stulta became uneasy, and said: Puera is overwhelming us with its productions; this must be attended to. They established therefore a corps of Obstructors, so called because their business was to place obstacles in the way of the wagon trains which arrived from Puera. Soon after, Puera also established a corps of Obstructors.

After some centuries, people having become more enlightened, the inhabitants of Puera began to discover that these reciprocal obstacles might possibly be reciprocal injuries. They sent therefore an ambassador to Stulta, who (passing over the official phraseology) spoke much to this effect: "We have built a road, and now we put obstacles in the way of this road. This is absurd. It would have been far better to have left things in their original position, for then we would not have been put to the expense of building our road, and afterwards of creating difficulties. In the name of Puera, I come to propose to you, not to renounce at once our system of mutual obstacles, for this would be acting according to a theory, and we despise theories as much as you do; but to lighten somewhat these obstacles, weighing at the same time carefully our respective sacrifices." The ambassador having thus spoken, the town of Stulta asked time to reflect; manufacturers, agriculturists were consulted; and at last, after some years' deliberation, it was declared that the negotiations were broken off.

At this news, the inhabitants of Puera held a council. An old man (who it has always been supposed had been secretly bribed by Stulta) rose and said: "The obstacles raised by Stulta are injurious to our sales; this is a misfortune. Those which we ourselves create, injure our purchases; this is a second misfortune. We have no power over the first, but the second is entirely dependent upon ourselves. Let us then at least get rid of one, since we cannot be delivered from both. Let us suppress our corps of Obstructors, without waiting for Stulta to do the same. Some day or other she will learn to understand better her own interests."

A second counselor, a man of practice and of facts, uncontrolled by theories and wise in ancestral experience, replied: "We must not listen to this dreamer, this theorist, this innovator, this utopian, this political economist, this friend to Stulta. We would be entirely ruined if the embarrassments of the road were not carefully weighed and exactly equalized, between Stulta and Peura. There would be more difficulty in going than in coming; in exportation than in importation. We would be, with regard to Stulta, in the inferior condition in which Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lisbon, London, Hamburg, and New Orleans, are, in relation to cities placed higher up the rivers Seine, Loire, Garonne, Tagus, Thames, the Elbe, and the Mississippi; for the difficulties of ascending must always be greater than those of descending rivers. (A voice exclaims: 'But the cities near the mouths of rivers have always prospered more than those higher up the stream.') This is not possible. (The same voice: 'But it is a fact.') Well, they have then prospered contrary to rule." Such conclusive reasoning staggered the assembly. The orator went on to convince them thoroughly and conclusively by speaking of national independence, national honor, national dignity, national labor, overwhelming importation, tributes, ruinous competition. In short, he succeeded in determining the assembly to continue their system of obstacles, and I can now point out a certain country where you may see road-builders and Obstructors working with the best possible understanding, by the decree of the same legislative assembly, paid by the same citizens; the first to improve the road, the last to embarrass it.