In the most complicated, as in the most simple instances, the sophism consists in this: _Judging of the utility of labor by its duration and intensity, and not by its results_, which leads to this economic policy, _a reduction of the results of labor, in order to increase its duration and intensity_.
XV.
THE LITTLE ARSENAL OF THE FREE TRADER.
-- If they say to you: There are no absolute principles; prohibition may be bad, and restriction good-- Reply: Restriction _prohibits_ all that it keeps from coming in.
-- If they say to you: Agriculture is the nursing mother of the country-- Reply: That which feeds a country is not exactly agriculture, but _grain_.
-- If they say to you: The basis of the sustenance of the people is agriculture-- Reply: The basis of the sustenance of the people is _grain_.

Thus a law which causes _two_ bushels of grain to be obtained by agricultural labor at the expense of four bushels, which the same labor would have produced but for it, far from being a law of sustenance, is a law of starvation.
-- If they say to you: A restriction on the admission of foreign grain leads to more cultivation, and, consequently, to a greater home production-- Reply: It leads to sowing on the rocks of the mountains and the sands of the sea.

To milk and steadily milk, a cow gives more milk; for who can tell the moment when not a drop more can be obtained?
But the drop costs dear.
-- If they say to you: Let bread be dear, and the wealthy farmer will enrich the artisans-- Reply: Bread is dear when there is little of it, a thing which can make but poor, or, if you please, rich people who are starving.
-- If they insist on it, saying: When food is dear, wages rise-- Reply by showing that in April, 1847, five-sixths of the workingmen were beggars.
-- If they say to you: The profits of the workingmen must rise with the dearness of food-- Reply: This is equivalent to saying that in an unprovisioned vessel everybody has the same number of biscuits whether he has any or not.
-- If they say to you: A good price must be secured for those who sell grain-- Reply: Certainly; but good wages must be secured to those who buy it.
-- If they say to you: The land owners, who make the law, have raised the price of food without troubling themselves about wages, because they know that when food becomes dear, wages _naturally_ rise-- Reply: On this principle, when workingmen come to make the law, do not blame them if they fix a high rate of wages without troubling themselves to protect grain, for they know that if wages are raised, articles of food will _naturally_ rise in price.
-- If they say to you: What, then, is to be done?
Reply: Be just to everybody.
-- If they say to you: It is essential that a great country should manufacture iron-- Reply: The most essential thing is that this great country _should have iron_.
-- If they say to you: It is necessary that a great country should manufacture cloth.
Reply: It is more necessary that the citizens of this great country _should have cloth_.
-- If they say to you: Labor is wealth-- Reply: It is false.
And, by way of developing this, add: A bleeding is not health, and the proof of it is, that it is done to restore health.
-- If they say to you: To compel men to work over rocks and get an ounce of iron from a ton of ore, is to increase their labor, and, consequently, their wealth-- Reply: To compel men to dig wells, by denying them the use of river water, is to add to their _useless_ labor, but not their wealth.
-- If they say to you: The sun gives his heat and light without requiring remuneration-- Reply: So much the better for me, since it costs me nothing to see distinctly.
-- And if they reply to you: Industry in general loses what you would have paid for lights-- Retort: No, for having paid nothing to the sun, I use that which it saves me in paying for clothes, furniture and candles.
-- So, if they say to you: These English rascals have capital which pays them nothing-- Reply: So much the better for us; they will not make us pay interest.
-- If they say to you: These perfidious Englishmen find iron and coal at the same spot-- Reply: So much the better for us; they will not make us pay anything for bringing them together.
-- If they say to you: The Swiss have rich pastures which cost little-- Reply: The advantage is on our side, for they will ask for a lesser quantity of our labor to furnish our farmers oxen and our stomachs food.
-- If they say to you: The lands in the Crimea are worth nothing, and pay no taxes-- Reply: The gain is on our side, since we buy grain free from those charges.
-- If they say to you: The serfs of Poland work without wages-- Reply: The loss is theirs and the gain is ours, since their labor is deducted from the price of the grain which their masters sell us.
-- Then, if they say to you: Other nations have many advantages over us-- Reply: By exchange, they are forced to let us share in them.
-- If they say to you: With liberty we shall be swamped with bread, beef _a la mode_, coal, and coats-- Reply: We shall be neither cold nor hungry.
-- If they say to you: With what shall we pay?
Reply: Do not be troubled about that.

If we are to be inundated, it will be because we are able to pay.

If we cannot pay we will not be inundated.
-- If they say to you: I would allow free trade, if a stranger, in bringing us one thing, took away another; but he will carry off our specie-- Reply: Neither specie nor coffee grow in the fields of Beauce or come out of the manufactories of Elbeuf.