Let us never speak of a price without regarding the _conditions_, and let us understand that there is nothing more futile than to try to build the prosperity of the parts on the ruin of the whole.

This is the attempt of the restrictive system.
Competition always has been, and always will be, disagreeable to those who are affected by it.

Thus we see that in all times and in all places men try to get rid of it.

We know, and you too, perhaps, a municipal council where the resident merchants make a furious war on the foreign ones.

Their projectiles are import duties, fines, etc., etc.
Now, just think what would have become of Paris, for instance, if this war had been carried on there with success.
Suppose that the first shoemaker who settled there had succeeded in keeping out all others, and that the first tailor, the first mason, the first printer, the first watchmaker, the first hair-dresser, the first physician, the first baker, had been equally fortunate.