It might continue the same when society had relapsed into the most abject misery, or had advanced to a high state of prosperity.
Let me make application of this doctrine in a few words: A farmer in the south of France supposes himself as rich as Croesus, because he is protected by law from foreign competition.

He is as poor as Job--no matter, he will none the less suppose that this protection will sooner or later make him rich.

Under these circumstances, if the question was propounded to him, as it was by the committee of the Legislature, in these terms: "Do you want to be subject to foreign competition?
yes or no," his first answer would be "No," and the committee would record his reply with great enthusiasm.
We should go, however, to the bottom of things.

Doubtless foreign competition, and competition of any kind, is always inopportune; and, if any trade could be permanently rid of it, business, for a time, would be prosperous.
But protection is not an isolated favor.

It is a system.