Pushed then to its greatest extreme, it is pure _Sisyphism_ as we have defined it: _labor infinite; result nothing_.
Baron Charles Dupin, who is looked upon as the oracle of the peerage in the science of political economy, accuses railroads of _injuring shipping_, and it is certainly true that the most perfect means of attaining an object must always limit the use of a less perfect means.
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, Baron Dupin laments the suppression of labor in attaining a given result, he maintains the doctrine of _Sisyphism_.

Logically, if he prefers the vessel to the railway, he should also prefer the wagon to the vessel, the pack-saddle to the wagon, and the wallet 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," said Mr.de Saint Cricq, a minister who has laid not a few shackles upon our commerce.

This was no elliptical expression, meaning that the "results of labor constitute the riches of the people." No,--this statesman 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, he forced on France (and in so doing believed that he was 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 eight francs; in France it cost sixteen.