CHAPTER XXI.
RAW MATERIAL.
It is said that the most advantageous commerce consists in the exchange of manufactured goods for raw material, because this raw material is a spur to _national labor_.
And then the conclusion is drawn, that the best custom-house regulation would be that which should give the utmost possible facility to the entry of _raw material_, and oppose the greatest obstacles to articles which have received their first manipulation by labor.
No sophism of political economy is more widely spread than the foregoing.

It supports not only the protectionists, but, much more, and above all, the pretended liberalists.

This is to be regretted; for the worst which can happen to a good cause is not to be severely attacked, but to be badly defended.
Commercial freedom will probably have the fate of all freedom; it will not be introduced into our laws until after it has taken possession of our minds.

But if it be true that a reform must be generally understood, in order that it may be solidly established, it follows that nothing can retard it so much as that which misleads public opinion; and what is more likely to mislead it than those writings which seem to favor freedom by upholding the doctrines of monopoly?
Several years ago, three large cities of France--Lyons, Bordeaux, and Havre--were greatly agitated against the restrictive policy.

The nation, and indeed all Europe, was moved at seeing a banner raised, which they supposed to be that of free trade.