So spoke the diplomatist.  Fooltown asked for time to consider the proposal, and proceeded to consult in succession her manufacturers and agriculturists.  At length, after the lapse of some years, she declared that the negotiations were broken off.  On receiving this intimation, the inhabitants of Babytown held a meeting.  An old gentleman (they always suspected he had been secretly bought by Fooltown) rose and said:—­“The obstacles created by Fooltown injure our sales, which is a misfortune.  Those which we have ourselves created injure our purchases, which is another misfortune.  With reference to the first, we are powerless; but the second rests with ourselves.  Let us at least get quit of one, since we cannot rid ourselves of both evils.  Let us suppress our obstructives without requiring Fooltown to do the same.  Some day, no doubt, she will come to know her own interests better.”

A second counselor, a practical, matter-of-fact man, guiltless of any acquaintance with principles, and brought up in the ways of his forefathers, replied—­

“Don’t listen to that Utopian dreamer, that theorist, that innovator, that economist; that Stultomaniac.  We shall all be undone if the stoppages of the road are not equalized, weighed, and balanced between Fooltown and Babytown.  There would be greater difficulty in going than in coming, in exporting than in importing.  We should find ourselves in the same condition of inferiority relatively to Fooltown, as Havre, Nantes, Bordeaux, Lisbon, London, Hamburg, and New Orleans, are with relation to the towns situated at the sources of the Seine, the Loire, the Garonne, the Tagus, the Thames, the Elbe, and the Mississippi; for it is more difficult for a ship to ascend than to descend a river. [A Voice—­’Towns at the embouchures of rivers prosper more than towns at their source.’] This is impossible. [Same Voice—­’But it is so.’] Well, if it be so, they have prospered contrary to rules.”

Reasoning so conclusive convinced the assembly, and the orator followed up his victory by talking largely of national independence, national honor, national dignity, national labor, inundation of products, tributes, murderous competition.  In short, he carried the vote in favor of the maintenance of obstacles; and if you are at all curious on the subject, I can point out to you countries, where you will see with your own eyes Roadmakers and Obstructives working together on the most friendly terms possible, under the orders of the same legislative assembly, and at the expense of the same taxpayers, the one set endeavoring to clear the road, and the other set doing their utmost to render it impassable.

INAPPLICABLE TERMS

From ‘Economic Sophisms’

Let us give up ... the puerility of applying to industrial competition phrases applicable to war,—­a way of speaking which is only specious when applied to competition between two rival trades.  The moment we come to take into account the effect produced on the general prosperity, the analogy disappears.