Few, and least of all legislators, have leisure for this labor, which I would, on this account, wish to present clearly drawn up to their hand.
But it may be said, are then the benefits of free trade so hidden as to be perceptible only to economists by profession?
Yes; we confess it; our adversaries in the discussion have a signal advantage over us.

They can, in a few words, present an incomplete truth; which, for us to show that it is incomplete, renders necessary long and uninteresting dissertations.
This results from the fact that protection accumulates upon a single point the good which it effects, while the evil inflicted is infused throughout the mass.

The one strikes the eye at a first glance, while the other becomes perceptible only to close investigation.

With regard to free trade, precisely the reverse is the case.
It is thus with almost all questions of political economy.
If you say, for instance: There is a machine which has turned out of employment thirty workmen; Or again: There is a spendthrift who encourages every kind of industry; Or: The conquest of Algiers has doubled the commerce of Marseilles; Or, once more: The public taxes support one hundred thousand families; You are understood at once; your propositions are clear, simple, and true in themselves.

If you deduce from them the principle that Machines are an evil; That sumptuous extravagance, conquest, and heavy imposts are blessings; Your theory will have the more success, because you will be able to base it upon indisputable facts.
But we, for our part, cannot stop at a cause and its immediate effect; for we know that this effect may in its turn become itself a cause.