And if, after a faithful examination, twenty times recommenced, we
should always return to this frightful conclusion, that we must choose
between the advantages and the good--we should thrust science away,
disheartened; we should shut ourselves up in voluntary ignorance;
above all, we should decline all participation in the affairs of our
country, leaving to the men of another time the burden and the
responsibility of a choice so difficult.
CHAPTER XV.
RECIPROCITY AGAIN.
The protectionists ask, "Are we sure that the foreigner will purchase
as much from us, as he will sell to us? What reason have we to think
that the English producer will come to us rather than to any other
nation on the globe to look for the productions he may need; and for
productions equivalent in value to his own exportations to this
country?"
We are surprised that men who call themselves peculiarly _practical_,
reason independent of all practice.
In practice, is there one exchange in a hundred, in a thousand, in ten
thousand perhaps, where there is a direct barter of product for
product? Since there has been money in the world, has any cultivator
ever said, "I wish to buy shoes, hats, advice, instruction, from that
shoemaker, hatter, lawyer, and professor only, who will purchase from
me just wheat enough to make an equivalent value?"
And why should nations impose such a restraint upon themselves?
How is the matter managed?
Suppose a nation deprived of exterior relations.
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