Discriminating Duties

A poor laborer of Gironde had raised, with the greatest possible care
and attention, a nursery of vines, from which, after much labor, he at
last succeeded in producing a pipe of wine, and forgot, in the joy of
his success, that each drop of this precious nectar had cost a drop of
sweat to his brow. I will sell it, said he to his wife, and with the
proceeds I will buy thread, which will serve you to make a trousseau
for our daughter. The honest countryman, arriving in the city, there met
an Englishman and a Belgian. The Belgian said to him, Give me your wine,
and I in exchange, will give you fifteen bundles of thread. The
Englishman said, Give it to me, and I will give you twenty bundles, for
we English can spin cheaper than the Belgians. But a custom-house
officer standing by, said to the laborer, My good fellow, make your
exchange, if you choose, with the Belgian, but it is my duty to prevent
your doing so with the Englishman. What! exclaimed the countryman, you
wish me to take fifteen bundles of Brussels thread, when I can have
twenty from Manchester? Certainly; do you not see that France would be a
loser, if you were to receive twenty bundles instead of fifteen? I can
scarcely understand this, said the laborer. Nor can I explain it, said
the custom-house officer, but there is no doubt of the fact; for
deputies, ministers, and editors, all agree that a people is
impoverished in proportion as it receives a large compensation for any
given quantity of its produce. The countryman was obliged to conclude
his bargain with the Belgian. His daughter received but three-fourths of
her trousseau; and these good folks are still puzzling themselves to
discover how it can happen that people are ruined by receiving four
instead of three; and why they are richer with three dozen towels
instead of four.





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