There have even been men who wrote with their backs.

You see, Sire, that we do not lack means of increasing national labor.

If they do begin to fail us, there remains the boundless resource of amputation.
If this report, Sire, was not intended for publication, we would call your attention to the great influence which systems analogous to the one we submit to you, are capable of giving to men in power.

But this is a subject which we reserve for consideration in private counsel.
XVII.
SUPREMACY BY LABOR.
"As in a time of war, supremacy is attained by superiority in arms, can, in a time of peace, supremacy be secured by superiority in labor ?" This question is of the greatest interest at a time when no one seems to doubt that in the field of industry, as on that of battle, _the stronger crushes the weaker_.
This must result from the discovery of some sad and discouraging analogy between labor, which exercises itself on things, and violence, which exercises itself on men; for how could these two things be identical in their effects, if they were opposed in their nature?
And if it is true that in manufacturing as in war, supremacy is the necessary result of superiority, why need we occupy ourselves with progress or social economy, since we are in a world where all has been so arranged by Providence that one and the same result, oppression, necessarily flows from the most antagonistic principles?
Referring to the new policy toward which commercial freedom is drawing England, many persons make this objection, which, I admit, occupies the sincerest minds.

"Is England doing anything more than pursuing the same end by different means?
Does she not constantly aspire to universal supremacy?
Sure of the superiority of her capital and labor, does she not call in free competition to stifle the industry of the continent, reign as a sovereign, and conquer the privilege of feeding and clothing the ruined peoples ?" It would be easy for me to demonstrate that these alarms are chimerical; that our pretended inferiority is greatly exaggerated; that all our great branches of industry not only resist foreign competition, but develop themselves under its influence, and that its infallible effect is to bring about an increase in general consumption capable of absorbing both foreign and domestic products.
To-day I desire to attack this objection directly, leaving it all its power and the advantage of the ground it has chosen.