&c.
Magnificent pieces of eloquence, and always adorned with this
conclusion:--"Vote fifty millions, more or less, for making ports and
roads in Algeria; for sending emigrants thither; for building houses and
breaking up land. By so doing, you will relieve the French workman,
encourage African labour, and give a stimulus to the commerce of
Marseilles. It would be profitable every way."
Yes, it is all very true, if you take no account of the fifty millions
until the moment when the State begins to spend them; if you only see
where they go, and not whence they come; if you look only at the good
they are to do when they come out of the tax-gatherer's bag, and not at
the harm which has been done, and the good which has been prevented, by
putting them into it. Yes, at this limited point of view, all is profit.
The house which is built in Barbary is _that which is seen_; the
harbour made in Barbary is _that which is seen_; the work caused in
Barbary is _what is seen_; a few less hands in France is _what is seen_;
a great stir with goods at Marseilles is still _that which is seen_.
But, besides all this, there is something _which is not seen_. The fifty
millions expended by the State cannot be spent, as they otherwise would
have been, by the tax-payers. It is necessary to deduct, from all the
good attributed to the public expenditure which has been effected, all
the harm caused by the prevention of private expense, unless we say that
James B.
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