losses in our own person, or pay another for bearing them for us. Then
come rivers, hills, accidents, heavy and muddy roads. These are so
many _difficulties_ to be overcome; in order to do which, causeways
are constructed, bridges built, roads cut and paved, railroads
established, &c. But all this is costly, and the article transported
must bear its portion of the expense. There are robbers, too, on the
roads, sometimes, and this necessitates railway guards, a police
force, &c.

Now, among these _obstacles_, there is one which we ourselves have
lately placed, and that at no little expense, between Montreal and New
York. This consists of men planted along the frontier, armed to the
teeth, whose business it is to place _difficulties_ in the way of the
transportation of goods from one country to another. These men are
called custom-house officers, and their effect is precisely similar to
that of rutted and boggy roads. They retard and put obstacles in the
way of transportation, thus contributing to the difference which we
have remarked between the price of production and that of consumption;
to diminish which difference, as much as possible, is the problem
which we are seeking to resolve.

Here, then, we have found its solution. Let our tariff be diminished:
we will thus have constructed a Northern railway which will cost us
nothing. Nay, more, we will be saved great expenses, and will begin,
from the first day, to save capital.

Really, I cannot but ask myself, in surprise, how our brains could
have admitted so whimsical a piece of folly as to induce us to pay
many millions to destroy the _natural obstacles_ interposed between
the United States and other nations, only at the same time to pay so