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.
For if prohibition had never existed, labor would have classed itself in accordance with the law of exchange, and no displacement would have taken place.

If, on the contrary, prohibition has brought in an artificial and unproductive kind of work, it is prohibition, and not free trade, which is responsible for the inevitable displacement, in the transition from wrong to right.
Unless, indeed, it should be contended that, because an abuse cannot be destroyed without hurting those who profit by it, its existence for a single moment is reason enough why it should endure forever..