"
The writers of the protectionist school arrive then at this sad
conclusion; that there is a radical incompatibility between justice
and utility.
On the other side, if nations are interested in selling, and not in
buying, violent action and reaction are the natural condition of
their relations, for each will seek to impose its products on all, and
all will do their utmost endeavor to reject the products of each.
As a sale, in effect, implies a purchase, and since, according to this
doctrine, to sell is to benefit, as to buy is to injure, every
international transaction implies the amelioration of one people, and
the deterioration of another.
But, on one side, men are fatally impelled towards that which profits
them: on the contrary, they resist instinctively whatever injures
them; whence we must conclude that every people bears within itself a
natural force of expansion, and a not less natural power of
resistance, which are equally prejudicial to all the others; or, in
other terms, that antagonism and war are the natural constitution of
human society!
So that the theory which we are discussing may be summed up in these
two axioms:
"Utility is incompatible with justice at home,"
"Utility is incompatible with peace abroad.
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