That is, that foreign superiority prevents national labor, only under some certain form, and makes it superfluous under this form, but by putting at our disposal the very result of the labor thus annihilated.

If men lived in diving-bells, under the water, and had to provide themselves with air by the use of pumps, there would be an immense source of labor.
To destroy this labor, _leaving men in this condition_, would be to do them a terrible injury.

But if labor ceases, because the necessity for it has gone; because men are placed in another position, where air reaches their lungs without an effort, then the loss of this labor is not to be regretted, except in the eyes of those who appreciate in labor, only the labor itself.
It is exactly this sort of labor which machines, commercial freedom, and progress of all sorts, gradually annihilate; not useful labor, but labor which has become superfluous, supernumerary, objectless, and without result.

On the other hand, protection restores it to activity; it replaces us under the water, so as to give us an opportunity of pumping; it forces us to ask for gold from the inaccessible national mine, rather than from our national manufactories.

All its effect is summed up in this phrase--_loss of power_.
It must be understood that I speak here of general effects, and not of the temporary disturbances occasioned by the transition from a bad to a good system.