Then Mr.
Bugeaud lauded scarcity.
Has not Mr.d'Argout produced the fruitfulness of the sugar culture as an argument against it?
Has he not said, "The beet cannot have a permanent and extended cultivation, because a few acres given up to it in each department, would furnish sufficient for the consumption of all France"?
Then, in his opinion, good consists in sterility and scarcity, evil in fertility and abundance.
"_La Presse_," "_Le Commerce_," and the majority of our journals, are, every day, publishing articles whose aim is to prove to the chambers and to government that a wise policy should seek to raise prices by tariffs; and do we not daily see these powers obeying these injunctions of the press?
Now, tariffs can only raise prices by diminishing the quantity of goods offered for sale.

Then, here we see newspapers, the legislature, the ministry, all guided by the scarcity theory, and I was correct in my statement that this theory is by far the most popular.
How then has it happened, that in the eyes at once of laborers, editors and statesmen, abundance should appear alarming, and scarcity advantageous?
It is my intention to endeavor to show the origin of this delusion.
A man becomes rich, in proportion to the profitableness of his labor; that is to say, _in proportion as he sells his productions at a high price_.

The price of his productions is high in proportion to their scarcity.

It is plain then, that, as far as regards him at least, scarcity enriches him.

Applying successively this mode of reasoning to each class of laborers individually, the _scarcity theory_ is deduced from it.