It is a gratuitous gift, a tax, which the genius of man has
imposed on Nature. We do not deny that, in the course of the change, a
certain amount of labor may have been _displaced_; but we cannot agree
that it has been destroyed, or even diminished. The same holds true of
importations.
We will resume the hypothesis. America makes ten millions of hats, of
which the price was five dollars each. The foreigner invaded our
market in furnishing us with hats at three dollars. We say that
national labor will be not at all diminished. For it will have to
produce to the amount of thirty millions, in order to pay for ten
millions of hats at three dollars. And then there will remain to each
purchaser two dollars saved on each hat, or a total of twenty
millions, which will compensate for other enjoyments; that is to say,
for other work. So the total of labor remains what it was; and the
supplementary enjoyments, represented by twenty millions economized on
the hats, will form the net profit of the importations, or of free
trade.
No one need attempt to horrify us by a picture of the sufferings,
which, in this hypothesis, will accompany the displacement of labor.
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