But railways can only injure shipping by drawing from it articles of transportation; this they can only do by transporting more cheaply; and they can only transport more cheaply, by _diminishing the proportion of the effort employed to the result obtained_--for it is in this that cheapness consists.

When, therefore, these men lament the suppression of labor in attaining a given result, they maintain the doctrine of Sisyphism.

Logically, if they prefer the vessel to the railway, they should also prefer the wagon to the vessel, the pack-saddle to the wagon, and the sack to the pack-saddle: for this is, of all known means of transportation, the one which requires the greatest amount of labor, in proportion to the result obtained.
"Labor constitutes the riches of the people," say some theorists.

This was no elliptical expression, meaning that the "results of labor constitute the riches of the people." No; these theorists intended to say, that it is the _intensity_ of labor which measures riches; and the proof of this is that from step to step, from restriction to restriction, they forced on the United States (and in so doing believed that they were doing well) to give to the procuring of, for instance, a certain quantity of iron, double the necessary labor.

In England, iron was then at $20; in the United States it cost $40.
Supposing the day's work to be worth $2.50, it is evident that the United States could, by barter, procure a ton of iron by eight days' labor taken from the labor of the nation.