If, in order to protect the farmer, it occasions a scarcity of wheat and of beef, in behalf of other industries it produces a scarcity of iron, cloth, fuel, tools, etc .-- in short, a scarcity of everything.
If, then, the scarcity of wheat has a tendency to increase the price by reason of the diminution of the supply, the scarcity of all other products for which wheat is exchanged has likewise a tendency to depreciate the value of wheat on account of a falling off of the demand; so that it is by no means certain that wheat will be a mill dearer under a protective tariff than under a system of free trade.

This alone is certain, that inasmuch as there is a smaller amount of everything in the country, each individual will be more poorly provided with everything.
The farmer would do well to consider whether it would not be more desirable for him to allow the importation of wheat and beef, and, as a consequence, to be surrounded by a well-to-do community, able to consume and to pay for every agricultural product.
There is a certain province where the men are covered with rags, dwell in hovels, and subsist on chestnuts.

How can agriculture flourish there?
What can they make the earth produce, with the expectation of profit?
Meat?
They eat none.

Milk?
They drink only the water of springs.

Butter?
It is an article of luxury far beyond them.