[What Is Free Trade? by Frederick Bastiat]@TWC D-Link bookWhat Is Free Trade? CHAPTER IV 5/32
_Equalizing the facilities of production is to attack the foundations of mutual exchange._ The equalizing of the facilities of production, is not only the shackling of certain articles of commerce, but it is the attacking of the system of mutual exchange in its very foundation principle.
For this system is based precisely upon the very diversities, or, if the expression be preferred, upon the inequalities of fertility, climate, temperature, capabilities, which the protectionists seek to render null.
If New England sends its manufactures to the West, and the West sends corn to New England, it is because these two sections are, from different circumstances, induced to turn their attention to the production of different articles.
Is there any other rule for international exchanges? Again, to bring against such exchanges the very inequalities of condition which excite and explain them, is to attack them in their very cause of being.
The protective system, closely followed up, would bring men to live like snails, in a state of complete isolation.
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