What, then, is the significance of what is called
the postal reform? That for every kind of product there is a
natural rate, ABOVE which profit becomes usurious and tends to
decrease consumption, but BELOW which the producer suffers loss.
This singularly resembles the determination of value which the
economists reject, and in relation to which we said: There is a
secret force that fixes the extreme limits between which value
oscillates, of which there is a mean term that expresses true
value.
Surely no one wishes the postal service to be carried on at a
loss; the opinion, therefore, is that this service should be
performed AT COST. This is so rudimentary in its simplicity
that one is astonished that it should have been necessary to
resort to a laborious investigation of the results of reducing
letter-postage in England; to pile up frightful figures and
probabilities beyond the limit of vision, to put the mind to
torture, all to find out whether a reduction in France would lead
to a surplus or a deficit, and finally to be unable to agree upon
anything! What! there was not a man to be found in the Chamber
with sense enough to say: There is no need of an ambassador's
report or examples from England; letter-postage should be
gradually reduced until receipts reach the level of
expenditures.
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