Ferrier and de Saint Chamans, that all writers on political economy, of _every school_, that is to say, all men who have studied the question, come to this conclusion: After all, freedom is better than restriction, and the laws of God wiser than those of Mr.Colbert.] Would it not be supposed from this language that political economists, in claiming for each individual the _free disposition of his own property_, have, like the Fourierists, stumbled upon some new, strange, and chimerical system of social government, some wild theory, without precedent in the annals of human nature?
It does appear to me, that, if in all this there is any thing doubtful, and of fanciful or theoretic origin, it is not free trade, but protection; not the operating of exchanges, but the custom-house, the duties, imposed to overturn artificially the natural order of things.
The question, however, is not here to compare and judge of the merits of the two systems, but simply to know which of the two is sanctioned by experience.
You, Messrs.

monopolists, maintain that _facts_ are for you, and that we on our side have only _theory_.
You even flatter yourselves that this long series of public acts, this old experience of Europe which you invoke, appeared imposing to Mr.Say; and I confess that he has not refuted you, with his habitual sagacity.
I, for my part, cannot consent to give up to you the domain of _facts_; for while on your side you can advance only limited and special facts, _we_ can oppose to them universal facts, the free and voluntary acts of all men.
What do _we_ maintain?
and what do _you_ maintain?
We maintain that "it is best to buy from others what we ourselves can produce only at a higher price." You maintain that "it is best to make for ourselves, even though it should cost us more than to buy from others." Now gentlemen, putting aside theory, demonstration, reasoning, (things which seem to nauseate you,) which of these assertions is sanctioned by _universal practice_?
Visit our fields, workshops, forges, stores; look above, below, and around you; examine what is passing in your own household; observe your own actions at every moment, and say which principle it is, that directs these laborers, workmen, contractors, and merchants; say what is your own personal _practice_.
Does the agriculturist make his own clothes?
Does the tailor produce the grain which he consumes?
Does not your housekeeper cease to make her bread at home, as soon as she finds it more economical to buy it from the baker?
Do you lay down your pen to take up the blacking-brush in order to avoid paying tribute to the shoe-black?
Does not the whole economy of society depend upon a separation of occupations, a division of labor, in a word, upon mutual exchange of production, by which we, one and all, make a calculation which causes us to discontinue direct production, when indirect acquisition offers us a saving of time and labor.
You are not then sustained by _practice_, since it would be impossible, were you to search the world, to show us a single man who acts according to your principle.
You may answer that you never intended to make your principle the rule of individual relations.

You confess that it would thus destroy all social ties, and force men to the isolated life of snails.

You only contend that it governs _in fact_, the relations which are established between the agglomerations of the human family.
We say that this assertion too is erroneous.

A family, a town, county, department, province, all are so many agglomerations, which, without any exception, all _practically_ reject your principle; never, indeed, even think of it.