Each profession has then an immediate interest in the continuation, even in the extension, of the particular obstacle to which its attention has been directed.
Theorists hence go on to found a system upon these individual interests, and say: Wants are riches: Labor is riches: The obstacle to well-being is well-being: To multiply obstacles is to give food to industry.
Then comes the statesman;--and as the developing and propagating of obstacles is the developing and propagating of riches, what more natural than that he should bend his efforts to that point?
He says, for instance: If we prevent a large importation of iron, we create a difficulty in procuring it.

This obstacle severely felt, obliges individuals to pay, in order to relieve themselves from it.

A certain number of our citizens, giving themselves up to the combating of this obstacle, will thereby make their fortunes.

In proportion, too, as the obstacle is great, and the mineral scarce, inaccessible, and of difficult and distant transportation, in the same proportion will be the number of laborers maintained by the various branches of this industry.
The same reasoning will lead to the suppression of machinery.
Here are men who are at a loss how to dispose of their wine-harvest.
This is an obstacle which other men set about removing for them by the manufacture of casks.

It is fortunate, say our statesmen, that this obstacle exists, since it occupies a portion of the labor of the nation, and enriches a certain number of our citizens.