This is what these petitioners
termed _a wise economy_. Why did they not demand that the firs of
Russia should be brought to them with their branches, bark, and roots;
the gold of California in its mineral state, and the hides from Buenos
Ayres still attached to the bones of the tainted skeleton?
Industry, the navy, labor, have for their end, the general good, the
public good. To create a useless industry, in order to favor
superfluous transportation; to feed superfluous labor, not for the
good of the public, but for the expense of the public--this is to
realize a veritable begging the question. Work, in itself, is not a
desirable thing; its result is; all work without result is a loss. To
pay sailors for carrying useless waste matter across the sea is like
paying them for skipping stones across the surface of the water. So we
arrive at this result: that all economical sophisms, despite their
infinite variety, have this in common, that they confound the means
with the end, and develop one at the expense of the other.
CHAPTER XXII.
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