But it is answered:  The duty is necessary to protect New York industry.  So be it; but do not then destroy the effect of it by your railway.  For if you persist in your determination to keep the Canadian article on a par with the New York one at forty dollars, you must raise the duty to fifteen dollars, in order to have:—­

   20 dollars—­price at Montreal.
   15 " protective duty.
    5 " transportation by railway.
   —­
   40 dollars—­total, at equalized prices.

And I now ask, of what benefit, under these circumstances, is the railway?

Frankly, is it not humiliating to the nineteenth century, that it should be destined to transmit to future ages the example of such puerilities seriously and gravely practised?  To be the dupe of another, is bad enough; but to employ all the forms and ceremonies of representation in order to cheat oneself—­to doubly cheat oneself, and that too in a mere numerical account—­truly this is calculated to lower a little the pride of this enlightened age.

CHAPTER X.

RECIPROCITY.

We have just seen that all which renders transportation difficult, acts in the same manner as protection; or, if the expression be preferred, that protection tends towards the same result as all obstacles to transportation.

A tariff may be truly spoken of as a swamp, a rut, a steep hill; in a word, an obstacle, whose effect is to augment the difference between the price of consumption and that of production.  It is equally incontestable that a swamp, a bog, &c., are veritable protective tariffs.

There are people (few in number, it is true, but such there are) who begin to understand that obstacles are not the less obstacles because they are artificially created, and that our well-being is more advanced by freedom of trade than by protection; precisely as a canal is more desirable than a sandy, hilly, and difficult road.

But they still say, this liberty ought to be reciprocal.  If we take off our taxes in favor of Canada, while Canada does not do the same towards us, it is evident that we are duped.  Let us, then, make treaties of commerce upon the basis of a just reciprocity; let us yield where we are yielded to; let us make the sacrifice of buying that we may obtain the advantage of selling.

Persons who reason thus, are (I am sorry to say), whether they know it or not, governed by the protectionist principle.  They are only a little more inconsistent than the pure protectionists, as these are more inconsistent than the absolute prohibitionists.

I will illustrate this by a fable: 

There were, it matters not where, two towns, N*w Y*rk and M*ntr**l, which, at great expense, had a road built, which connected them with each other.  Some time after this was done, the inhabitants of N*w Y*rk became uneasy, and said:  “M*ntr**l is overwhelming us with its productions; this must be attended to.”  They established, therefore, a corps of Obstructors, so called, because their business was to place obstacles in the way of the convoys which arrived from M*ntr**l.  Soon after, M*ntr**l also established a corps of Obstructors.