«Принципы политической экономии, том 1»

161), and that government loans not made in excess of its powers are une alchymie réalisée dont souvent eux mêmes qui l' opèrent n' entendent pas tout le mystère, (p. 338.) Similarly and earlier, v. Schröder, F. Schatz-und Rentkammer, 238 ff; Mélon, Essai politique sur le Commerce, 1734, ch. 6; next, Hamilton, Report to the House of Representatives on the subject of Manufactures, Dec. 5, 1791; Von Struensee, Abhandlungen, 1800, I, 259. See infra, § 210. More recently, St. Chamans, Nouvel Essai sur la Richesses des Nations, 1824, 83 ff. To some extent, even Dietzel, System der Staatsanleihen, 1855, 200. This is a dangerous error, since to every credit there is a set-off in the nature of a debit of an equal amount; and the evidences of debt are nothing but claims on the future revenue of the state. This was fully recognized by Cantillon, 291 ff. One of the principal advocates of that view among writers on Political Economy is the vivacious, acute and practically not unskillful, but sophistically superficial Macleod. (Elements of Political Economy, 1858, ch. 3, Dictionary, 1862, v. Credit.) The creditor's assignable right of demand, he considers immaterial capital. While bills of lading, warehouse receipts, dock yard receipts etc., only represent goods, the bank note is new goods. Even metallic money has only a credit-value, inasmuch as it can be used only to effect exchanges. To the - of the creditor may correspond a + of the debtor; but the latter is negative only in the sense that we speak of negative electricity, a negative thermometrical degree. When an estate is leased, the owner has, in his demand for rent, a vendible plus; but the lessee no corresponding minus. (Not so. To the same extent that the proprietor has his future payments on the lease discounted, the present sale-value of his estate is diminished; or if it is not sold, the last party obtaining the discount has made his available capital as much less by the advance as that of the lessor has been increased.) The “discounting of the future,” that is, the apparent capitalization of hopes, so much in vogue at the present time, may be a great spur to production as it may also be to baseless extravagance.538.Many theoreticians ascribe a direct creation of new capital to credit, in so far as the capacity of the evidences of debt to circulate as a medium of exchange effects a real saving, and permits the former very costly and intrinsically valuable instruments of exchange to be used in some other way. (§ 123.) Compare Ricardo, Proposals for a secure and economical Currency (1817). J. S. Mill, Principles, II, 174 and 36. McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary, art. Credit. And so it was in the first four editions of this book of mine. But here, too, there is, immediately, only a transfer of already existing capital. The person, for instance, who accepts a bank note for payment, loans a part of his capital to the bank; and the advantage to the whole community of such credit-operations consists chiefly in this: that so large a quantity of cash-capital which lay idle in banks etc., may be used more productively.539.When Roesler says that credit is capital, the product of saving, and very serviceable in further production (Grands., 300), he confounds credit itself with the foundations of credit, which are, indeed, in large part material or moral capital.540.Compare Discourse on Trade, Coyn and Paper-Credit, London, 1697, 72 ff.541.Compare Buron, Guerre au Crédit, 1868. Schäffle, Tüb. Ztsch., 1869, 296 ff. With a thorough understanding of its politico-economical bearing, O. Michaelis, (Berliner V. Jahrsschr. 1863, IV, 121,) says: The capital-value of my credit is not equal to the nominal value of my evidences of indebtedness [notes etc.], but to the capitalized amount of the extra surplus which I have obtained in my business by means of credit, after deduction is made of the costs and of the risk-premium.542.We shall, in the books to follow this, inquire with great care, what are the means best calculated to remedy this dangerous tendency. We need only remark here, that it is to be found in a judicious association of small capitalists, and also in the capitalization, so to speak, of personal qualities. A well organized society of work-men, without capital, may indeed obtain credit, as for instance, the Schultze-Delitsch societies, the Russian artel-schnicks (market-aid societies) etc. prove. (Frühauf, Die russ. Artels in Faucher's Vierteljahrsschrift, 1868, I, 106 ff.) We may also mention the greater credit accorded to a land-owner the moment he becomes a member of a land-loan association as compared with what he could obtain before he had joined it. The popular belief of the ancient Egyptians afforded them a very great instrument of credit in the pledging of the remains of their ancestors. (Herodot., II, 136.)543.B. Hildebrand is of opinion that the Political Economy of the future may be characterized as credit-economy, in the same way as the Economy of the present may be called money-economy, and that of the past as barter-economy of barter. (National Œkonomie der Gegenwart und Zukunft, I, 276 ff.) Hildebrand's view is correct in so far as that, with every advance in civilization, credit comes to have absolutely and relatively an ever increasing importance, although in the middle ages, especially under feudal forms (Lehensformen), there were numberless operations in credit. Otherwise, however, Hildebrand's three kinds of economy are, by no means, coördinated. While barter and purchase through the instrumentality of money, in every instance, entirely exclude each other, it is impossible to imagine a credit-transaction of which the promise of a barter-performance or of a money-performance does not constitute the base. During a “money-economical (geldwirthschaftlichen) period” [i.e., one during which money is the medium of exchange, and not notes; and when barter does not obtain.—Translator.] the service rendered by money as a medium of exchange may, for the most part, be supplanted by credit. Money, as a measure of value, still remains the substratum of credit itself. (See Knies in the Tübinger Ztschr., 1860, 154 ff.; and in the Freiburger Programm, 9 Sept., 1862, 19.) Earlier yet, A. Wagner, Beitr. zur Lehre von den Banken, 1857 ff. Among the most practical propositions of Saint Simonism is that of a système genéral des banques, intended to administer all the goods of the nation, and to loan them to individuals engaged, in production. (Bazard, 205 ff.)544.It is destructive of credit to allow the debtor to await several decrees or judgments before his liability is established; to allow him, on easy terms, delays, reversals of judgment, the costs of the case etc. The term within which a creditor might bring in his claim before the meeting of creditors in the Amsterdam Boedel-chamber was formerly thirty-three and a third years. (Büsch, Darst. der Handlung, Zusatz, 82.) In the presidency of Bengal there were, in 1819, 81,000 cases in arrears, and in 1829, 140,000. Westminister Review, XIX, 142.545.And yet Melon is of opinion that the state should favor the debtor as much as possible. (Essai politique sur le Commerce, ch. 12, 18.) This was the view entertained on this subject by the older practitioners. In Bengal, the dhura, a species of “judgment of God,” in which the party who could hold out longest against hunger was declared the victor, was the only means to compel a debtor to pay his debt. As a consequence, the Bengal peasant could not borrow money at less than 60 per cent. per annum. Edinburgh Review, XXII, 67. On the damages attending the credit-laws and credit-courts of Russia, by which all foreign goods are rendered exceedingly dear, see v. Sternberg, Bemerkungen über R., 100 ff. In a country in which a great many powerful personages are above the laws, an incorporated loaning bank may be an indispensable necessity. (Storch, Handbuch, II, p. 23 ff.) In Naples, even as recently as 1804, no debtor could be arrested during the last six months of the queen's pregnancy. At a previous period, one might fail in business there and escape all punishment by exposing the hindermost part of himself in a nude state publicly before a column of the Vicaria. (Rehfues, Gemälde von Neapel, I, p. 203 seq., 222.) In Schwytz, the rate of interest is so high, because the law allows the debtor to pay his creditor, whether the latter will or not, in articles of household furniture, clothes etc., estimated at a very high value. (Hermann, Staatsw. Untersuchungen, 202.) It has now become quite usual in the United States, on account of the many delays granted to the debtor by “democratic” laws introduced there, instead of mere mortgage, to give full warranty deeds when capital is loaned. By this means, the creditor is in danger, when misfortune overtakes him, to see himself compelled to let his property go at one-fourth of its value.546.See the Heliast oath in Demosth., adv. Timocr., 746. The Roman system of credits in the time of Polybius was much better than the Carthaginian. Polyb., VI, 56, XXXII, 13.547.Sachsenspiegel, III, 39. J. Grimm, Deutsche Rechtsalterthümer, 612 ff. Dahlmann, Dänische Gesch., II, 245, 339. Hermann, Russ. Gesch., III, 357. On slavery for debt among the Malays, see Ausland, 1845, No. 157.548.Beaujour, Tableau du Commere en Grèce, II, 176.549.C. 2 X. De Pignor. An appropriate provision in a priestly government. Diodor., I, 79.550.Staying in a place by the debtor until the creditor is satisfied, and other degrading stipulations, which, however, were prohibited by the police regulations of the Empire in 1548, art. 17.551.Marten's Ursprung des Wechselrechts, 1797. Statuta Mediol., 1480, fol. 238 ff. The municipal law of Florence unconditionally imprisoned the father or grandfather for the debt of the son, when the latter engaged in industrial pursuits with their consent. (Stat. Flor., I, 201.) In Bologna, the brothers of a bankrupt who had constituted one household with him were held responsible for his debts. (Statuti dell' Università de Mercantati della Città di B., 1550, fol. 110.) The law of Geneva excluded from all positions of honor the son who had left his father's debts unpaid. Montesquieu, E. des Lois, XX, 16. The consequence was, that among the higher classes not a creditor lost anything for centuries. (K. L. v. Haller, Restauration der Staatswissenschaften, VI, 519.) Compare the “Nurenberger Reformation” of 1479, fol. 61 and 68 of the edition of 1564.552.Compare the R. P. O. of 1548, art. 22. And so, by the Code de Commerce, III, 4, I, even the simple bankrupt in contradistinction to the fraudulent bankrupt is punished, and every person unable to pay his debts is declared a simple bankrupt, who, among other things, has made excessive household expenses, or lost considerable sums by play etc. Compare Sully, Mémoires, Livre XXVI, who declares it to be his most wholesome law, that fraudulent bankrupts should, like thieves, be punished with death, and that all their fraudulent assignments, gifts, etc., should be declared void. Further, Ordonn. de Louis XIV., sur les Failletes, art. 11; J. de Wit, Mémoires, 77 ff; v. den Heuvel, Sur le Commerce de la Hollande, 110 ff. Frederick William I., in 1715, threatened with the galleys all light-headed bankrupts, and, in 1723, all those who, knowing their insolvent condition, should effect further loans. Mylius, Corp. Const. March. II, 2, 31, 40. For China, see Davis, The Chinese, I, 247 ff. Gr. Soden, Nat. Oek., III, 231, demands that, in case of doubt, the guilt of the bankrupt should always be presumed.553.In England only one-tenth of the number of bankrupts are considered innocent. Elliot, Credit the Life of Commerce, 1845, 50 ff.554.The contrainte par corps of debtors was abolished in France in 1792, but restored in 1797. Even Turgot remarked that since slavery had ceased there was no further fear (?) that the poor would be oppressed by imprisonment for debt. (Sur le Prêt d' argent, § 31.) According to Droz, the question is not one of weighing “freedom” against “miserable money,” but the deprivation of a few of that freedom and the non-fulfillment of obligations entered into, that is against the destruction of public confidence.555.Аналогичное развитие у греков:

А. Суровое долговое рабство, которое Кипсел смягчил в Коринфе (Павсаний, V, 17, 2), а Солон отменил в Афинах (Плутарх, «Солон», 15; Демосфен, «О преступном посольстве», 412).

Б. Безрассудное создание долгов, как это видно у Аристофана; в то время как за пределами Афин долговое рабство сохранялось еще долгое время (Герман, «Griech. Privatalterth.», § 57, 20). Во времена Демосфена купец, просрочивший выплату своих долгов, заключался в тюрьму, а должник по морскому займу, лишивший кредитора обеспечения, мог быть наказан смертью (Демосфен, «Против Формиона», 922, 958), и это несмотря на то, что была введена cessio honorum (уступка имущества). Герман, § 70, 3. Ср. Ксенофонт, «О доходах», 3; Демосфен, «Против Апатория», 892; «Против Лакрита» и «Против Дионисодора». В Коринфе государство контролировало расходы частных лиц. Это было частью его кредитной политики (Афиней, VI, 227). О примечательном родосском законе, касающемся долгов, см. Секст Эмпирик, «Hypot.», I, 149.

В Риме:

А. Главной характеристикой древнего права в этом вопросе была возможная продажа личности должника при получении займа (nexum); право кредитора предать addictus смерти или продать его в чужие края; наконец, in partes secanto (разрезание на части) при конкурсе кредиторов. Без этих суровых положений заемщик мог бы легко уклониться от своих долгов путем эмансипации своего сына и передачи ему своего имущества (Нибур, «Римская история», II, 770 и сл.; Фридрих Карл фон Савиньи в «Abh. der Berliner Acad.», 1833; Циммерн, «Gesch. des röm. Privatrechts», III, 131 и сл.).

Б. Позднее мы не находим ничего об экзекуции должника или продаже его личности; но он мог быть принужден к рабскому труду на своего кредитора без какой-либо защиты от жестокого обращения. Долговое рабство было ограничено законом Петелия (Нибур, III, стр. 178; Моммзен, III, 494). Преторское право ввело обычай вводить кредитора во владение имуществом должника с правом продажи, что делало должника бесчестным. См. несколько отрывков у Вальтера, «Röm Rechtsgesch», 763 и сл.; Тертуллиан, «Апология», 4; Tab. Herac. I, 115 и сл. Позднее закон Юлия Цезаря позволил честному должнику избежать тюремного заключения путем уступки своего имущества.

В. Денежная олигархия, преобладавшая в Риме, вызвала принятие чрезвычайно суровых мер против неплатежеспособных должников (Плутарх, «Лукулл», 20; Цицерон, «Письма к Аттику», V, 21, VI), хотя сами ее члены влезали в долги самым безрассудным образом. Цезарь в 62 г. до н. э., исключая свои активные долги, имел задолженность в размере 25 000 000 сестерциев; М. Антоний в 24 г. — 6 000 000; в 38 г. — 40 000 000; Курион — 60 000 000; Милон — 70 000 000 (Моммзен, «Римская история», III, 486). Ср. Геллий, XX, 1, XV, 14. 556.Whenever a new shop-keeper, who sells goods on monthly credits, settles in a district, the number of poor persons invariably increases. (McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary.) The ruinous credit given by the Jews to the Westphalian peasants begins with an account for the goods which they have succeeded in pressing upon them, after five or six years have elapsed. The Jew seldom sues accounts at law; but he besieges the debtor and discovers where his last head of cattle and his last little supply of provisions are to be found. As he is willing to accept everything that has any value, sometimes in payment of arrears, and sometimes in payment for some new piece of trash, he is sure to obtain his dues in the end, but not until his victim, who is sunk deeper and deeper in the abyss of debt by every “accommodation,” is entirely ruined. (Schmerz, Rheinish-Westphäl. L.W., 396 ff.)557.In the lower and middle stages of civilization, we find a multitude of laws by which minors, students etc., but especially land-owners are limited to a minimum of credit, which, however, varies very much with the person, and is subjected to a number of embarrassing forms, the consent of a third person, for instance etc. (Compare Bayerische L.O. von 1553, fol. 83.) Such laws, however, give as much room to the play of dishonesty as they take away from that of want of reflection.558.On the municipal regulations (Städteordnungen) of the 14th and 15th centuries, which compelled Jewish creditors especially to have their evidences of indebtedness redeemed within from every two to five years, see Stobbe, Juden im Mittelalter, 129. Compare further the Würtemberg L. O. of 1515, Statut. Ferrar, ed. 1650, lib. II, rub. 37, 289. According to the other provisions of the laws in North America, some book accounts were required to be sued on within six and others within seventeen years. (Ebeling, Gerchichte und Erdberschreibung der v. Staaten, II, 247, 298.) The Prussian law of March 31, 1838, provides a period of limitation of three years for all ordinary commercial debts. A similar law was passed in the Kingdom of Saxony, in 1846. In London, there has been found a great number of hatters, tailors, boot and shoe dealers etc., whose books showed credits of more than £4,000, most of them not to exceed over £10. How much of all this must be lost entirely, and how that loss must increase the sums paid for boots, shoes and hats by the prompt payer! (McCulloch, v. Credit.) We find, even in Athens, that the period of limitation was shortened in the interest of credit, and that in the case of minors, it did not exceed five years. (Demosth. adv. Nausim., 989.) Security for a debtor not over one year. (Demosth., adv. Apatur., 901.) The prohibition of Zaleukos to issue any evidences of debt whatever goes much farther. (Zenob., Proverb. V, 4.)559.Compare the report of the Dresden Handelskammer, 1864, 11.560.A. Mayer, in Faucher's Vierteljahrsschrift, 1865, IV, 65.561.We learn from the debates in the English parliament of February 9, 1827, that, in two years and a half, there were, in London and its environs, 70,000 cases of imprisonment for debt, the costs of which were from £150,000 to £200,000. In 1831, there were in one debtors' prison 1,120 prisoners, who owed on an average £2 3s. 2d. (McCulloch, l. c.) There was, in 1792, a case of a woman who, for a debt of £19, remained in prison 45 years, and others like it. (See Archenholtz, Annalen, IX, 87 ff; X, 169 ff, XIII, 125.) In England in 1844, arrest for sums less than £19 was prohibited. Johnson had already proposed a similar provision. (Idler, 1758, Nos. 22 and 38.) Imprisonment for debt was abolished in France, England and Austria in 1867; in the North German Confederation, on the 29th of May, 1868, but arrest for security's sake was retained. Sismondi finds fault with nearly all laws in the premises, because they attack the person of the debtor rather than his personal property, and his personal, rather than his immovable, property. He would have all this just the contrary of what it is. The first interferes with the very source of wealth, the productive power of labor; the second causes goods to be sold much below their value. Neither of these evils attends the last. (N. Principes, I, 250.)562.A law of the North German Confederation allows the pledging of future wages, only in the case of public officers, and those holding permanent places in the service of private parties, whose salaries are over 400 thalers per annum. The original draft had excepted only the things necessary to workmen and those directly depending on them; while the law as passed makes the prohibition general. This was undoubtedly done for the convenience of employers as well as of courts; as for instance in the circuit of Dortmund, there were, in one year, 10,000 cases in which wages were garnisheed. (Annalen des N.D. Bundes und Zollvereins, 1869, 1071 ff.) But the recklessness of those workmen whose wages are below the average, might have been just as well guarded against without dragging those whose wages are above the average down to their level, if a distinction had been made between production-credit and consumption-credit, and the latter had been limited by providing that no suit should be instituted for supplies made to public houses, taverns etc.563.In the second book of Moses, 22, 25 ff., and the fifth, 24, 6. A very old Norman law provides that in actions for debt, execution should not issue against effects of the debtor which are indispensably necessary to him to maintain his position, such as the horses of a count or the armor of a knight. (Dialog. de Scaccario.) Magna Charta extended this provision so as to include the agricultural implements and cattle of the peasantry. The moment these laws, in consequence of a false principle of humanity, except anything but what is absolutely necessary, they injure credit. Thus, for instance, in Brazil, a law of 1758, providing that nothing immediately employed in or directly necessary to the production of sugar should be seized on execution, caused great injury to the production of sugar. (Koster, Travels in B., 1816, 356 ff.)564.§ 2, Cod. De Prec. Imper. Off., I, 19. The diets of the Empire had granted such letters in the fourteenth century. (Wachsmuth, Europ. Sittengesch., IV, 690.) They were granted, as a rule, only with the previous knowledge of the Emperor, by the police ordinances of the Empire of 1548, art. 22.565.So in Austria, Saxony, Brunswick, the electorates of Hesse and Baden. In Prussia, they could be granted only after a juridical decree to that effect; and an appeal to a superior court was allowed to reverse or affirm it. Compare Mittermaier in the Archiv. für civilist. Praxis, XVI, and also P. de la Court, Aanwysing der politike Gronden en Maximen van Holland etc., 1669, I, ch. 25. Nürnberg obtained as a privilege, in 1495, that no moratorium should be valid as against its citizens. (Roth, Geschichte des Nürnb. Handels, I, 86.)566.Compare the discussions in the French National Assembly, in the month of August, 1848. It is much less disadvantageous in times of great commotion, when all business is brought to a stand still, to extend the time in which bills of exchange etc. are payable. Such a measure prevents a number of bankruptcies which the real balance of debts due to one and owing by him does not render necessary.567.In the persecution of the Jews in the middle ages, the so-called Brief-todten (letter-killing), or the destruction of titles, was very common. In 1188, the French government released all crusaders from the payment of interest on their debts, and granted them an extension of three years' time to pay off the principal. (Sismondi, Hist. des Français, VI, 82.) Similar compulsory measures were provided against the Jews and usurers in 1223 (Ibid, VI, 539 ff.); and in 1299 (Ordonnances, I, 1331), on the formal request of the nobility. (Ordonnances, II, 59.) Again, in 1594, there was a release of one-third of the interest on all national and private debts. (Sismondi, XXI, 318.) The general moratorium of the Milanese for a term of eight years, introduced in 1251, after their war with France, was of an essentially different character. (Sismondi, Geschichte der italienischen Republiken, III, 155.) The same is true of the general indult granted by Philip II. in Belgium. (Boxhorn, Disquisitt. politicæ, 241 ff.)568.The abolition or release of debts, so frequent in ancient revolutionary times, reminds us, in many ways, of the crises precipitated in modern times by paper money and produced by the state. The ancestors of Alcibiades and Hipponikos laid the foundation of an immense fortune, in Solon's time, by purchasing land in large quantities with money borrowed from several citizens, a short time before the abolition of debts. (Plutarch, Sol., 15.)569.Enormous consumption of wax in the churches of the middle ages. In the cathedral of Wittenberg alone, a short time before the Reformation, more than 35,000 pounds of wax candles etc. were burned yearly. At the same time, honey was generally used instead of sugar. How much more important, therefore, at that time must bee-culture have been, considered from the point of view of circulation as compared with what it is to-day. And so in Catholic countries, a difference in the external manifestation of religion causes the relative importance of the consumption of fish to increase and decrease. In 1803 there was little demand in France for ivory crucifixes, rosaries etc. In 1844, the demand for them and for prie-Dieu for the bed-room etc. was increased. (Mohl, Gewerbwissenschafliche Reise, 101.) To engage successfully in the sale of sugar in Persia, it is necessary to know that in that country it is liked only in little hat-shaped lumps, which are used only as semi-voluntary gifts; and that, in such case, custom fixes the number of lumps. (Steinhaus, Russlands commercielle etc. Verhh., 151.) In the Levant, workmen prefer bars of iron which are small and of varied form because they find it difficult to manipulate the large ones. The English bear this in mind much better than the Russians. (Steinhaus.) A merchant sending wood to Southern France must be acquainted with the form of the staves used in the manufacture of barrels there. Compare Büsch, Geldumlauf, VI, 2, 2.570.The circulation of goods compared to the circulation of the blood: by Mirabeau, Philosophie Rurale, ch. 3. Turgot, Sur la Formation etc. § 69. Canard., Principes, ch. 6.571.Eiselen, Volkswirthschaftslehre, 98 ff. If in ancient times commerce played a much less important part than it does among the moderns, it was, as Montesquieu says, because the whole commercial world was then more uniform in climate and the character of its products than it is now. (Esprit des Lois, XXI, 4.)572.Of the successive steps, sheaves, corn, flour, bread,—flour has the greatest capacity for circulation. And, indeed, the last operation of labor on a great many goods, because of their consequent more narrowly specialized utility, is accompanied by a decrease in their capacity for circulation. As an illustration, we may mention ready-made clothing as compared with cloth. The capacity for circulation of a commodity is very much advanced when the demand is wont to increase with the supply, as is the case with gold and silver, but not with learned books, optical instruments etc. Many commodities have but little circulating capacity, because no one desires to purchase them but at first hand. See Menger, Grundsätze, I, 245 ff.573.Knies., Die Eisenbahnen und ihre Wirkungen, 1853, 79.574.Compare Schmitthenner, I, who calls attention and with reason to the importance of loans on chattel mortgages. But Berkeley, Querist, No. 265, remarks that a squire with a yearly income of £1000 can, “upon an emergency,” do less good or evil than a merchant with £20,000 ready money.575.A very important difference between Russia and England.576.Storch, Handbuch, I, 273 ff. There is also a useless circulation which is not calculated to promote the division of labor, but to employ idle time or idle capital, as in the case of games of hazard, speculation in stocks, wheat etc. Even impoverishing consumption may produce rapidity of circulation, as in Germany during the war years 1812 and 1813. (F. G. Schulze, N. Œkonomie, 1856, 667.) Relying on this fact, Hume (1752) on Public Credit, Discourses, No. 8, argues in favor of the old opinion, that all circulation is wholesome and to be encouraged. Boisguillebert, Traité des Grains, I, 6, went so far as to laud war because it accelerated the circulation of wealth. On the necessity of a circulation sans repos, see ibid., II, 10. In a similar way Law, Trade and Money, 1705, and Dutos, Réflexions Politiques sur le Commerce, over-valued the circulation of wealth as such. Concerning the Mercantile System, see § 116. Darjes, Erste Gründe der Cameralwissenschaft, 1768, 531. And even Büsch, Geldumlauf, I, 29, 32 ff., III, 96, who in other places nearly always overlooks real production and sees only the circulation of money caused thereby. Thus he calls the poor when they are helped in money, and spend it, useful members of society! (IV, 32, 39. Similarly, v. Struensee, Abhandlungen, 1800, I, 282 ff., 400 ff.)577.As, for instance, happened in France in 1577, when all commerce, and in 1585 all industry, were declared to be de droit domanial. Louis XIV. was of opinion that the king was absolute master of all private property of priests and people. (Mémoires histor. de Louis XIV., II, 121.) Compare Duclos, Mémoires, I, 14 ff.578.Compare Theod. Cod., V, 9, 1; Just. Cod., X, 19, 8; XI, 47, 21, 23; XI, 50, 51, 52, 55, 58. How full the really classic period of the Roman jurists was of the idea of freedom of competition, we see in Paullus: L. 22, § 3, Dig. XIX, 2. The provisions concerning lœsio enormis appear first in the time of Diocletian. (Just. Cod., IV, 44, 2.)579.Benjamin Franklin says that the freer the form of government is, the more the people show themselves in their true aspect. Ancient Rome, with the early development of its rational disposition, soon learned to favor freedom of commercial intercourse. Compare Mommsen, Römische Geschichte, I, passim. This was, certainly, an element of its greatness, but also of the proletarian evils developed in it an early date, and which were weighed down only by the absolute growth of the state and the development of its economic interests during centuries.580.Nor must it be forgotten that competition raises prices as well as lowers them. The expressions higher price and lower price denote only different sides of the same relation. M. Chevalier is of opinion that our present breathless competition is characteristic only of a period of transition prolific in new inventions, a competition soon to be followed by peace. (Cours, II, 450 ff.)581.Ἀγαθὴ ἔρις: Hesiod., Opp., 10 ff.582.“Whoever speaks of competition suppresses the existence of a common aim,” says Proudhon, although he adds, after Bileam's way, that to cure the evils of competition by competition, is as absurd as to lead men to liberty by liberty, or to cultivate the mind by cultivation of the mind.583.Compare Bastiat, Harmonies économiques, ch. 10.584.If all classes were protected against competition, no class would derive any advantage from it, since a “universal privilege” is an absurdity. If only certain classes or individuals are protected, it is done at the cost of all others.585.The question should not be formulated thus: “Caprice or rule?” but “Rule of morals, or rule of law?” Schmoller against v. Treitschke in Hildebrand's Jahrbb.586.Что касается аргументов, которыми защищались торговые ограничения Средневековья, см. ниже. В большинстве своем они были обоснованными для той эпохи, в которую выдвигались. Разумное воспитание часто вынуждено вводить ограничения, но всегда с намерением сделать возможной в конечном итоге действительно большую независимость. Так, поток торговли может быть слишком слабым в бедной и редконаселенной стране, чтобы спрос и предложение всегда и везде могли встретиться и быть удовлетворены. При таких обстоятельствах их искусственная концентрация в определенных пунктах является одним из наиболее эффективных средств содействия экономике всего народа. Политика свободы торговли рекомендовалась еще в XVII веке Дж. Чайлдом, Нортом и Давенантом. Вильгельм Рошер, «Zur Geschichte der englisch. Volkswirthschaftslehre», 65 и сл., 85 и сл., 113 и сл., 142 и сл. И еще раньше, в Голландии, Сальмазием («De Usurus», 1638, 583) и де ла Куртом. Ср. «Tübinger Ztschr.», 330 и сл. Так, Буагильбер говорит: «Il n'y avait qu'à laisser faire la nature et la liberté, qui est le commissionaire de cette même nature» («Нужно было лишь дать действовать природе и свободе, которая является уполномоченным этой самой природы») («Factum de la France», 1707, гл. 5). См. также «Dissertation sur la Nature des Richesses», гл. VI; «Détail de la France», 1697, II, гл. 13; «Tr. des Grains», II, 8. По большей части продиктовано реакцией против кольбертизма.

См. далее Мелон, «Essai Politique sur le Commerce», 1734, гл. 2. М. Декер, «Essay on the Causes of the Decline of Foreign Trade», 1744, 31 и сл., 106 и сл. Дж. Такер, «Essay on the advantages and disadvantages which respectively attend France and Great Britain with regard to Trade», 1750. Форбонне, «Elémens du Commerce», 1754, I, 63. Дженовези (гл. I, 17, 3) придерживается мнения, что, по крайней мере в случае сомнений, торговля больше нуждается в свободе, чем в защите. Верри в своих «Meditazioni» идет еще дальше. Физиократы с их «laissez aller» и «laissez faire» рекомендуют конкуренцию как лучшее средство увеличения чистого дохода народа. Согласно Дюпону (147 и сл., изд. Daire), сфера законодательства ограничивается провозглашением законов природы. Его девиз: «liberté et propriété» (свобода и собственность). Адам Смит требует, чтобы государство выполняло только три задачи: обеспечение защиты от иностранных государств, отправление правосудия внутри страны, создание и поддержание определенных институтов, полезных для всего общества, но которые частный интерес не мог бы создать из-за нехватки средств для покрытия сопутствующих расходов («Богатство народов», кн. V, гл. I, 2). Отсюда он требует (кн. III, гл. 2) отмены всех видов фидеикомиссов, королевской регалии на рудники (кн. I, гл. 11, 2), всех корпоративных и исключительных привилегий, всех протекционистских пошлин и т. д. (кн. IV, гл. I и сл.), но особенно колониальной политики, бывшей до сих пор в ходу (кн. IV, гл. 8).

Нападки социалистов на свободу конкуренции были начаты Фихте («Geschlossener Handelsstaat», 126), в которой она называется грабительской системой или системой экспроприации. Он хотел бы, чтобы государство проявляло больше заботы о человеческом труде, чем если бы люди были просто ласточками. См. далее Сисмонди, «N. Principes», passim, который повсюду требует защиты правительства для более слабых. Фурье, «N. Monde industriel», 396, который считает, что «le monopole général» (всеобщая монополия) всегда является «preservatif contre le commerce» (предохранительным средством против торговли). Бастиа, «Экономические гармонии», гл. 10, дает весьма ценное опровержение этих глупостей. Недавно Родбертус («Hildebrand's Jahrbücher», 1865, II, 272) высказал мнение, что «социальный индивидуализм» всегда имел в истории задачу разложения распадающихся обществ, как, например, при Цезарях. 587.Whoever would sell to others must purchase of them. (Child., Discourse of Trade, 358.) Similarly Temple, Works III, 19, and Becher, Polit. Discurs, 1547. This view seems to have become the national one first in Holland. Compare also Quesnay, 71 and Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, 1763, ch. 2.588.We often hear it said: “nothing sells because there is no money.” But the real cause here is, in most instances, not a want of money, but a want of other goods which might serve as a counter-value. In bad times, for instance, there is many a weaver who would consider himself fortunate, even if he could get no money for his cloth, to obtain instead, meat, bread, wood, raw material etc. If money only were wanting, that might easily be as favorable a symptom in commerce, as when there are not enough shops, steamers etc., to carry on the business of the country. Compare North., Discourses upon Trade, 1691, 11 seq., but especially J. B. Say's celebrated theory of Markets, traité I, ch. XV.589.See Humboldt's observations as to how, in Spanish America, agriculture in the vicinity of the mines increases and decreases with the wealth of the latter. (N. Espagne, III, 11 ff.) See also Harrington (ob. 1677), On the Prerogative of a Popular Government, I, ch. 11; Cantillon, Nature du Commerce, 16. And so Stein., Lehrbuch, 122 seq., points out how great enterprises produce especially for the consumption of the small householder without capital, and how, therefore, the flourishing condition of the one determines that of the other.590.Those indeed who live by the spoliation of others, as robbers, deceivers etc. are interested in the economic prosperity of the latter only so long as their spoliation of them is not endangered. Only to this extent can it be claimed with Fr. List that the nobility of the Middle Ages, in obeying the selfish calculation which led to the oppression of the peasantry, engaged in as bad a speculation as a manufacturer of our day would who should feed his steam-engine with nothing but saw-dust or scraps of old paper. The cities of the middle ages had a much more undoubted economic interest in the emancipation of the peasantry as a class than the nobles or the clergy.591.Такие исключения, безусловно, существуют, даже если бы не было правдой, что «самый благочестивый не может жить в мире, если он не угоден своему нечестивому соседу». Нации, поставляющие те же продукты, что и мы, могут, действительно, «испортить наш рынок», точно так же, как дома эгоистичный сапожник может желать процветания всем носителям обуви, то есть всем другим отраслям промышленности, но не всем другим производителям обуви. Взгляд, который долгое время преобладал, что выигрыш одного человека — это всегда потеря другого (Томас Мор, «Утопия», 79, изд. Colon. 1555; Бэкон, «Sermones fideles», гл. 15: «quid-quid alicubi adiicitur, alibi detrahitur» — «что прибавляется где-то, отнимается в другом месте»; М. Монтень, «Опыты», I, 21: «les prouficit de l'un est le dommage de l'autre» — «выгода одного есть ущерб другого»), гораздо дольше преобладал в международных делах, где наблюдение гораздо сложнее, чем в национальных; хотя даже здесь П. де ла Курт («Maximes politiques», 1658) противопоставляет экономический интерес Голландии интересу остальной части Нидерландов и отдает ему предпочтение. Даже Вольтер говорит: «Желание величия Отечества включает в себя желание зла нашему соседу. Очевидно, что ни одна страна не может выиграть, кроме как за счет потери другой» («Dict. philosophique», v. Patrie). Ср., однако, «peut-être» (возможно) в его «Histoire de la Russie», I, 1, по поводу англо-русского торгового договора. Аналогично Галиани («Della Moneta», I, 1, IV, 1), Верри («Opuscoli», 335) и недавно фон Канкрин, который говорит, что «в повседневной жизни собственность приобретается только за счет другого лица» («Weltreichthum», 1821, 119; «Oekonomie der menschl. Gesellschaft», 1845, 23). Космополитический взгляд (Ксенофонт, «Киропедия», III, 2, 17; «Гиерон», 10), который преобладает в школе Адама Смита, был введен Юмом («Essays», 1752, «On the Jealousy of Trade»). Кенэ («Encyclopédie», v. Grains, 294, изд. Daire); Адам Смит («Теория нравственных чувств», 1759, стр. 6, разд. 2, гл. 2). Пинто («Lettre sur la Jalousie de Commerce», 1771) и Дж. Такер («Four Tracts on commercial and political Subjects», 1776, 34 и сл. и 42 и сл.). «Система государств не оказывает никакого влияния на мировую торговлю» (Лотц, «Handbuch», I, 11). Совсем недавно Р. Кобден в своей работе «Russia» (Эдинбург, 1836), среди прочего, утверждал, что завоевание Турции русскими было бы полезно для Англии, потому что тогда там, вероятно, продавалось бы больше (?) английских продуктов. Россия от этого не стала бы сильнее, так как завоевания всегда вредят завоевателю больше, чем приносят ему пользу. Идея европейского равновесия поэтому является химерой, так как ни одному государству нельзя помешать иметь внутренний рост, сколь угодно большой. Так, летом 1853 года мы слышали, как «London Times» иногда проповедовала, что каждый пушечный выстрел, произведенный англичанами по русским, может убить английского должника или английского покупателя. Венецианцы придерживались схожего мнения в начале XV века. Ср. М. Санудо в «Muratori, Scriptores», XXII, 950 и сл. См. выше, § 12.

Более того, Мальтус признал, что существуют естественные соперничества между нациями, которые создают исключения из законов Такера («Principles», предисловие). Аналогично Гарве в «Обязанностях» Цицерона (1783), III, 146 и сл. 592.B. Franklin, Works, vol. III, 49. Sismondi claims for all civilized nations the right of interfering with the governments of other nations with whom they have or might have commercial relations, and of insisting that they shall have a good government under which commerce may freely develop. (N. P. VII, ch. 4.)593.As for instance when the ami des hommes says that he felt towards an Englishman or a German as he did towards a Frenchman with whom he was not acquainted. Mirabeau, Philosophie rurale, ch. 6.594.Thus, for instance, the Stoic, Zeno: Plutarch. De Alex, fort, 1, 6.595.Compare even Lauderdale, Inquiry, 274 ff.596.How well, for instance, the English sustained Napoleon's continental blockade, the evils produced by which were intensified by several bad harvests. Its worst time did not, indeed, coincide with that of the struggle with the United States. The ancient Athenians, during their contest with Philip of Macedon, considered the question of the supplies from the Bosphorus etc. as one of life and death. But this can be looked upon only as a cogent proof of the small development which their commercial talents had received at the time. How easily might they not, according to our ideas, have obtained corn from Sicily or Egypt.597.According to the acute analysis of language made by F. J. Neumann, Tübinger Ztschr., 1872, 317 ff., the word “price” has reference to an actual purchase or sale, while the expression “value in exchange,” generally called simply value, is based upon a valuation, or intimates in a general way that an object possesses value; value in exchange is, so to speak, the average of several price-determinations. Price, according to Schäffle, is the external consequence of value in exchange, a means of representing the latter. (N. Œk., III, Aufl., I, 218.) Only through the difference between value in exchange (universal possibility) and price (special reality) is the laesio enormis of the jurists possible. (Schmitthenner, Staatswissenschen, I, 416.)598.By market price, prix courant, is meant the money-price of commodities, determined by competition.599.A problem very similar to that of the motion of bodies in space.600.Lotz, Handbuch, 50 ff., calls those commodities costly which are obtained only at a high cost of production, and dear, those whose price is above the cost of production.601.Compare Canard, Principes d'Economie politique, ch. 3. Almost simultaneously, H. Thornton, 1802, Paper-Credit of Great Britain.602.See Jackson's Account of Morocco, 284, for cases in which, in the Sahara, when the burning winds of the desert had dried up the water in the leathern bottles of the caravan, a drink of water cost from $10 to $500.603.The North American aborigines very frequently consent, in their exchanges, to take any offer made to them by their equals, however insufficient it may be, because they fear revenge. Schoolcraft, Information etc., II, 178. As to the effects of cunning, the Tungusi, when they get a glass of brandy from the Russians, grow almost idiotic, and give away their goods at mock-prices in drink. (v. Wrangell, Nachrichten, I, 233.) In the higher stages of civilization, on the other hand, very distinguished people are, by no means, privileged because of their position, in the struggle for prices. In modern times, claims (reclamen) have taken the place of greater physical or political power. Compare E. Hermann, Leitfaden der Wirthschaftslehre 1870, 91 ff.604.Thus Galiani says, that before one of the two parties has expressed his want to buy or to sell, the pans of the scales are in equilibrium. The first that speaks breathes on one of them, and it drops. (Dialogue sur le Commerce des Bleds, 1770, No. 6.) This has been verified in a striking manner in California, where the most valuable commodities were often purchased at auction at the lowest prices, while when purchased from merchants and even the most wretched shopkeepers, they were sold enormously dear. (Gerstäcker, in the Allg. Zeitg., May, 1850.) Thus there were harvested in France, in 1817, 48,000,000 hectolitres of wheat, valued at 2,046,000,000 francs, in 1820, 44,500,000 hectolitres valued at 895,000,000 francs. (Cordier.) This vast difference in price existed, because in 1817, the whole world was still trembling under the impression made by the failure of the crops in 1816, while in 1820, the feeling of comfort and security caused by the rich year 1819, still prevailed. Low prices at forced sales under decree etc. See below, § 5. That travelers are so frequently taken advantage of in effecting changes of money is explainable partly by their urgent wants, which are well known to the opposite party, and partly by their supposed ignorance in the matter. And so, at auction sales, out-bidding one another has something very seductive in it for ignorant or hot-headed purchasers.605.It was considered immoral by his contemporaries, when William the Conqueror introduced the custom of farm-letting to the highest bidder. (A. Thierry, Conquête de l'Angleterre, II, 116, éd. Bruxelles.) It is repugnant to poetic and delicate minds to think that everything has a price exactly fixed. (§ 2.) I need only refer to the picture of Helen which Zeuxis exhibited for money, which act of his was characterized, by his cotemporaries, as a species of prostitution. Val. Mac, III, 7. Ælian, V, 4, IV, 12. Socrates judgment on the payment of the sophists. Xenoph., Memor., I, 6, 13.606.Competition has only a negative influence on prices, inasmuch as it modifies the extreme operation of the other grounds of their determination. Thornton, Paper Credit. Lotz, Revision, 1811, I, 74 ff, 241 ff.607.The expression, “intensity of demand,” in Malthus, Principles, ch. 2, sec. 2. As early a writer as Sir J. Stewart calls attention to the difference between large and high and small and low demand. A high demand will always raise the price, as when, for instance, two wealthy virtuosi compete at an auction. Paucorum furore pretiosa, as Seneca says. An English penny of the time of Henry VII, once sold, on such an occasion, for £600. In 1868, at the Lafitte auction, seven bottles of wine sold to Rothschild at 235 francs a piece after the Maison dorée had offered 233. (N. freie Presse, Dec. 17, 1868.) A great demand has frequently no result but to increase the supply, and the price rises only in so far as the demand is too sudden to permit a parallel growth of the supply. (Principles, Book II, ch. 2, 10.) The present price of tea could not remain unaffected, if ten different private merchants, competing one with another, or the agent of a privileged commercial society, should send orders to China for an equal quantity of tea. (Verri, Meditazioni, IV, 8 ff.)608.Immense weight laid on the æqualitas permutationis (after Aristot., Eth. Nicom., V. 7,) in the ethics and economics of the scholastic middle ages, and in the time of the Reformation. Compare Melancthon, in Corp. Ref., XVI, 495 ff, XXII, 230.609.A very barbarous theory of price in Xenoph., De Vectigg., 4. The ancients made little progress in this respect, although there are not wanting ingenious observations on certain phenomena of prices. (See Aristot., (?) Oecon. II; Cicero, De Off. III, 12 ff.) Mariana, De Rege et Regis Institutione, 1598, III, explains price as the relation of value to quantity. According to Locke, the price of a thing is determined by the relation between “quantity” and “vent”: the increase or diminution of its useful qualities influences it only so far as it alters that relation. (Considerations on the Consequences of the Lowering of Interest etc, 1691, Works II, 20 ff.) Law, on the contrary, says that the “vent” can never be greater than the “quantity,” but that the “demand” may be. Wherefore, he proposes the formula: quantity in proportion to the demand. (Trade and Commerce considered, 1705, ch. 1.) In chap. 6, Law distinguishes three elements in price: quality, quantity and demand. The expression “quantity” is, certainly, very unsatisfactory. How many examples does not Tooke (Thoughts and Details, on the high and low Prices of the last thirty Years, 1823, part IV) give to illustrate how, when the supply was smallest, prices were lowest and vice versa! It was so almost always after the market was over-filled, when a great many speculators had lost and no one dared to purchase anew. Montanari (ob. 1687) furnishes us with an excellent theory of prices. (Della Moneta, 64 ff., Custodi.) And a still better one, Sam. Pufendorf, Jus Naturæ et Gentium, 1672, V. 1, who must be considered the best authority on the laws of prices before Stewart. Boisguillebert, Traité des Grains, II, 1, 10. Galiani, Della Moneta, I, 2, knows only the factors utilità, and rarità, although in his exposition of the latter, he discusses many points which would be called the cost of production in our time. The wisdom of Providence has granted us the most useful things in the greatest abundance to make them cheap. Stewart, Principles II, 2, 4, rendered a great service to the theory of prices, tracing back supply to the cost of production, demand to want and ability to pay; and his deserves to be called the immediate predecessor of Hermann's remarkable theory. (Hermann, Staatsw. Untersuchungen, 66 ff.) For a peculiar theory of prices, see Paganini, Saggio sopra il giusto Pregio delle Cose, 189 ff. Neri, Osservazioni, 1751, 127. Gust. Menger, Grundsätze, I, 179 ff., has made an interesting attempt to explain the formation of prices in its simplest shape, in the supposition of a monopoly in the seller, and by then going over to the subsequent modifications introduced by the competition of many sellers.610.“Instead of separating, in the same matter, the points of view of the buyer and seller, we may distinguish the consideration of the thing to be acquired and the thing to be given by one and the same person.” (Rau.) The possessor of the more current commodity appears especially as demanding, that of the less current as offering or supplying, (v. Mangoldt.)611.This is for free goods=0, for monopolized goods=1/0.612.The obvious fact that every price supposes a comparison of two commodities, and that every buyer is, at the same time, a seller, has been overlooked by only too many writers. And hence Dutot's opinion, that, as all men buy and few only sell, the state, in case of doubt, should favor the buyer. (Réflexions sur le Commerce et les Finances, 1738, 962, éd. Daire.) And so the often-mooted question whether universal dearness or cheapness is more useful: the latter advocated, for instance, by Herbert, Police générale des Grains, 1755; Verri, Meditazioni, V; the former by Boisguillebert, Traité des Grains, I, 7, II, 9; and by the Physiocrates. (Quesnay, Maximes générales, Nr. 18 ff., I, Problème Économique; also by A. Young, Polit. Arithmetics, ch. 8.) The laity in Political Economy understand by dearness only the general cheapness of the medium of circulation or exchange, and vice versa.613.Thus, even a poor man in Naples sometimes requires a glass of ice-water. The introduction of the extensive use of snow into Sicily improved the condition of the public health. (Rehfues, Gemälde von Neapel, I, 37 ff.) On the other hand, furs, in the far north, are articles of prime necessity. Newspapers in a free country satisfy a want much more urgent than in countries which are not free. And so, Senior says that shoes are “necessaries” to all Englishmen, since without them, their health would suffer. To the lower classes of Scotland they are “luxuries.” Custom permits them to go barefoot without hardship or degradation. For the middle classes of the same country, they are “decencies.” Shoes are worn there, not to protect the feet but one's civil position. In Turkey, tobacco is a decency and wine a luxury. The reverse is the case in England. (Outlines, 36 ff.)614.As to the relativity of the opposites of “temperance” and “excess,” every person should attend to the following points: a, not to exceed one's income; b, to provide for one's self and one's family; c, to lay by something for a rainy day; d, to place one's self in a position to care for the poor; e, to indulge in no pleasure injurious to body or mind; f, to give no bad example. (Tucker, Two Sermons, 29 ff.) Menger, Grundsätze, I, 92 ff., endeavors to compare the value in use of different commodities from the point of view, that the means of gratification of a less urgent want, when the more urgent wants of the present are satisfied completely, should be preferred to the means of over-gratifying the latter.615.Thus the price of many dark articles of apparel rises in a moment of unexpected universal mourning. A very remarkable case in Paris, at the death of Henry II. (Montanari, Delia Moneta, 85, Custodi.) On the other hand, a change of fashion may greatly depress the price of many commodities. Such a change may take place even in the case of precious stones; as, for instance, now in London, a perfect emerald is most highly prized. (King, Precious Stones and Metals, 1871.) The rise of many drugs in times of cholera, and of leeches, for example, in Paris, 600 per cent. Rise of the price of powder, horses etc. at the outbreak of a war, and of the price of iron caused by extensive railroad building. In Circassia, a good shirt of mail was formerly worth from 10 to 200 oxen: but since it was discovered not to be a protection against cannon balls, its price fell 50 per cent. (Bell, Journal of a Residence in Circassia, I, 403.)616.On “connected” (connexen) goods, the use of one of which supposes the use of the other, as, for instance, sugar and coffee, wood and stone used in the construction of buildings, see Schäffle, Nat.-Oek, II. Aufl., 179.617.Observed by Necker, Sur la Législation et le Commerce des Grains, 1776. Compare Roscher, Ueber Kornhandel und Theuerungspolitik, 1853, 1 ff. In Athens, for instance, the medimnos of wheat cost ordinarily five drachmas, but during the siege by Sulla it rose to 1000 drachmas. (Demosth. adv. Phorm., 918. Plutarch, Sulla, 13.) Compare II. Kings, 6, 25, 7, 1. In Paris during the siege by Henry IV. it rose to 5000 per cent. of the ordinary price. (Lauderdale, Inquiry, 60 ff.) During the siege of Breisach, in 1638, a mouse was finally worth 1 florin, the quarter of a dog, 7 florins, a quarter of wheat, 80 thalers. (Röse, Leben H. Bernhards, M., 11, 269.) Compare Strabo, V, 248 seq.618.Wheat is still more indispensable than meat. Hence, in the ten principal markets of Prussia, the price of rye rose much more from 1811 to 1860 than the price of beef; the former between 0.32 and 1.03 silver groschens and the latter between 2.32 and 4.94 silver groschens. (Annalen der preussischen Landwirthschaft, 1869, No. 9.) And so in the Rhine district, the wine harvests have undergone much greater changes in price than the prices of must, although the years differed very largely in the quality of the yield. Thus the crop of 1830 was only 225, that of 1868, 10,845 pieces, and yet the minimum price between 1831 and 1865 was only from 3 to 58 flr. per ome. (Engel, Preuss. Statist., Ztschr., 1871, 168 ff.)619.In England, the price of wheat has not unfrequently risen from 100 to 200 per cent. when the harvest was from one-sixth to one-third under the average, and when a supply from abroad had modified even this condition of things. (Tooke, History of Prices, I, 10 ff.) Tooke is of opinion that in a country with poor-laws like those of England, a deficit of one-third in the wheat crop, if there were no stores remaining and no importation from abroad, would cause the price of wheat to rise, 500, 600, and even 1000 per cent (p. 15.)620.See Davenant, Political and Commercial Works, London, 1771, II, 224. Tooke was somewhat acquainted with Davenant. According to this law, a deficit in the harvest of 10 per cent. would raise the price of corn 30 per cent.; one of 20 per cent. would raise the price of corn 80 per cent.; one of 30 per cent. would raise the price of corn 160 per cent.; one of 40 per cent. would raise the price of corn 280 per cent.; one of 50 per cent. would raise the price of corn 450 per cent.621.In England, it is 38.8 per cent. of the supply that comes to the market. (Quart. Review, XXXVI, 425.) In Belgium 40, and in Saxony at least 50 per cent. (Engel, Jahrb. der Statistik etc. von Sachsen, I, 276.) In Germany, the farmers consume on an average two-thirds themselves. (v. Viebahn, Zoll.-v-Statist., II, 958.) With this Plato, De Legg., VIII, agrees remarkably well.622.On the difference in this respect between England, Germany and northwestern Norway, see Hermann, p. 71.623.Hence it not unfrequently happens that grain grows dear not from any real want of it, but because it is generally supposed that such want exists. For an explanation of why it is that wheat and similar commodities have an almost invariable price, when the average is taken of a long series of years, see infra § 129.624.Case in Naples in which after a poor harvest the price of corn remained very low, because the oil-harvest had also failed, and the poor could earn nothing in that industry in which they were largely employed, and vice versa. (Galliani, Della Moneta, II, 2.) Thus Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 7, distinguishes between “effectual” and “absolute” demand. Similarly J. Steuart, Principles I, ch. 18. Care should be taken to distinguish in this respect between desire and demand.625.Thus, in the famine in Ireland in 1821, during which potatoes rose to fabulous prices, but wheat scarcely at all, and had therefore to be exported.626.In Tooke, History of Prices (2d edition of the Thoughts and Details etc.