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..