But which?
It is worth the trouble of examining.

There lie before us two roads, one of which leads inevitably to _wretchedness_.

We must choose.
To throw off the feeling of responsibility, the answer is easy: There are no absolute principles.
This maxim, at present so fashionable, not only pleases idleness, but also suits ambition.
If either the theory of prohibition, or that of free trade, should finally triumph, one little law would form our whole economical code.

In the first case this would be: _foreign trade is forbidden_; in the second: _foreign trade is free_; and thus, many great personages would lose their importance.
But if trade has no distinctive character, if it is capriciously useful or injurious, and is governed by no natural law, if it finds no spur in its usefulness, no check in its inutility, if its effects cannot be appreciated by those who exercise it; in a word, if it has no absolute principles,--oh! then it is necessary to deliberate, weigh, and regulate transactions, the conditions of labor must be equalized, the level of profits sought.

This is an important charge, well calculated to give to those who execute it, large salaries, and extensive influence.
Contemplating this great city of Paris, I have thought to myself: Here are a million of human beings who would die in a few days, if provisions of every kind did not flow in towards this vast metropolis.