You agree that no foreign labor can be introduced into our market, without destroying an equal quantity of our national labor.

But you contend that there are numerous articles of merchandise possessing _value_, for they are sold, and which are nevertheless _untouched by human labor_.

Among these you name corn, flour, meat, cattle, bacon, salt, iron, copper, lead, coal, wool, skins, seeds, etc.
If you can prove to me, that the _value_ of these things is not dependent upon labor, I will agree that it is useless to protect them.
But if I can prove to you that there is as much labor put upon a hundred francs worth of wool, as upon a hundred francs worth of cloth, you ought to acknowledge that protection is the right as much of the one, as of the other.
I ask you then why this bag of wool is worth a hundred francs?
Is it not because this is its price of production?
And what is the price of production, but the sum which has been distributed in wages for labor, payment of skill, and interest on money, among the various laborers and capitalists, who have assisted in the production of the article?
_The Petitioners._--It is true that with regard to wool you may be right; but a bag of corn, a bar of iron, a hundred weight of coal, are these the produce of labor?
Is it not nature which _creates_ them?
_Mr.de St.Cricq._--Without doubt, nature _creates_ these substances, but it is labor which gives them their _value_.

I have myself, in saying that labor _creates_ material objects, used a false expression, which has led me into many farther errors.

No man can _create_.