To say in the first case
that they place the country which pays them in more disadvantageous
conditions for production, than the country which is free from them,
is a Sophism. We pay, it is true, so many millions for the
administration of justice, and the maintenance of order, but we have
justice and order; we have the security which they give, the time
which they save for us; and it is most probable that production is
neither more easy nor more active among nations, where (if there be
such) each individual takes the administration of justice into his own
hands. We pay, I grant, many millions for roads, bridges, ports,
steamships; but we have these steamships, these ports, bridges, and
roads; and unless we maintain that it is a losing business to
establish them, we cannot say that they place us in a position
inferior to that of nations who have, it is true, no budget of public
works, but who likewise have no public works. And here we see why
(even while we accuse taxes of being a cause of industrial
inferiority) we direct our tariffs precisely against those nations
which are the most taxed.
Pages:
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68