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.