the sources of national wealth and universal prosperity, and the means by which they may be rendered most productive.”

The subscriber vouches for the accuracy of this translation, which he offers to the American public, with the hope that it may be found useful in the correction of some popular errors which have too much influenced the legislation not only of our own country but of the whole world.

D. J. McCORD.

LANG SYNE, S. C., Jan. 18, 1848.

A

LETTER OF DR. FRANCIS LIEBER,

PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY AND ECONOMY IN SOUTH

CAROLINA COLLEGE,

TO D. J. McCORD.

DEAR SIR,

I feel obliged to you for having given me an opportunity of perusing the work of Mr. Bastiat on popular errors in political economy. I agree with you that the careful translation which accompanied it ought to be published in this country. It would contribute to the spread of what we sincerely and firmly believe to be the cause of truth, of civilization, and of good will among men. As each country has its own historic growth, and its people are surrounded by their own peculiar cir

cumstances, it is natural that peculiar and distinctive errors should prevail. Accordingly, in relation to questions of political economy, grave errors and ingenious sophisms are extensively popular among us, which are rarely met with, in precisely the same form, in other parts of the world. But a closer examination will show that they are only different phases of the same original fallacies and radical mistakes prevailing for a time with all nations belonging to our race. Similar passions and cognate misconceptions could not do otherwise than produce similar effects. Our own errors, an example of which may be found in the insinuating doctrine that American republican labor ought to be "protected" against European 66 pauper labor," require indeed their own refutation; but the work of Mr. Bastiat shows that kindred and very similar errors largely prevail in France, where it is maintained, by many persons who arrogate to themselves the proud title of the people's friends, that native French labor must

be protected against British machine labor. In all these cases we have only additional illustrations of the ancient sophism, which makes the unwary believe that the well-being of the people is promoted by wilfully increasing the difficulties of production, and the consequent stinting of consumption; an error which arises partly from inattention to the fact that the progress of civilization is uniformly marked by the gradual and increasing substitution of natural agents for human labor, and partly from a confusion of ideas in reference to the relation which labor sustains to value. It is a very serious error to suppose that labor of itself confers value. This is to confound the means and the end-the mistake of him who should maintain that houses should be built for the sake of employing tools, and not tools sharpened to frame buildings.

Individual instinct has always led men to abridge labor, as we naturally seek the shortest road to our object. But when the aggregate

labor of a community is considered, there are ever many persons who fix their exclusive attention upon the immediate inconvenience which must necessarily result from every change, and cannot or will not discern the greater ultimate good. Where railways are introduced, post-horses are thrown out of work, and their owners, as well as the farmers who supplied them with oats, will suffer for a time. When that great agent of civilization and conductor of human affections, the mail, was established, all the old messenger women, who once used to carry letters even from the students at Paris to remote parts of Germany, were deprived of their honest and hard-earned profits; and when the Croton aqueduct infused health, cleanliness, safety, comfort, and even delight, into every dwelling of New-York, all the water-carriers were obliged to look out for other employment. The King of Oude was persuaded by the British resident to build water-mills; but soon after the prince had done so, he ordered