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.