Unto This Last and Other Essays on Political Economy Part 17

[89] It is difficult to estimate the curious futility of discussions such as that which lately occupied a section of the British a.s.sociation, on the absorption of gold, while no one can produce even the simplest of the data necessary for the inquiry. To take the first occurring one,--What means have we of ascertaining the weight of gold employed this year in the toilettes of the women of Europe (not to speak of Asia); and, supposing it known, what means of conjecturing the weight by which, next year, their fancies, and the changes of style among their jewellers, will diminish or increase it?

[90] See, in Pope's epistle to Lord Bathurst, his sketch of the difficulties and uses of a currency literally "pecuniary"--

"His Grace will game--to White's a bull he led," etc.

[91] Perhaps both; perhaps silver only. It may be found expedient ultimately to leave gold free for use in the arts.

As a means of reckoning, the standard might be, and in some cases has already been, entirely ideal.--See Mill's "Political Economy," book iii., chap. 7, at beginning.

[92] The purity of the drachma and sequin were not without significance of the state of intellect, art, and policy, both in Athens and Venice;--a fact first impressed upon me ten years ago, when, in daguerreotypes of Venetian architecture, I found no purchasable gold pure enough to gild them with, but that of the old Venetian sequin.

Whatever the article or articles may be which the national currency promises to pay, a premium on that article indicates bankruptcy of the Government in that proportion, the division of the a.s.sets being restrained only by the remaining confidence of the holders of notes in the return of prosperity to the firm. Incontrovertible currencies, those of forced acceptance, or of unlimited issue, are merely various modes of disguising taxation, and delaying its pressure, until it is too late to interfere with its causes. To do away with the possibility of such disguise would have been among the first results of a true economical science, had any such existed; but there have been too many motives for the concealment, so long as it could by any artifices be maintained, to permit hitherto even the founding of such a science.

And, indeed, it is only through evil conduct, wilfully persisted in, that there is any embarra.s.sment either in the theory or the working of currency. No exchequer is ever embarra.s.sed, nor is any financial question difficult of solution, when people keep their practice honest, and their heads cool. But when Governments lose all office of pilotage, protection, scrutiny, and witness; and live only in magnificence of proclaimed larceny, effulgent mendacity, and polished mendicity; or when the people choosing Speculation (the S usual redundant in the spelling) instead of Toil, pursue no dishonesty with chastis.e.m.e.nt, that each may with impunity take his dishonest turn; and enlarge their l.u.s.t of wealth through ignorance of its use, making their harlot of the dust, and setting Earth, the Mother, at the mercy of Earth, the Destroyer, so that she has to seek in h.e.l.l the children she left playing in the meadows,--there are no tricks of financial terminology that will save them; all signature and mintage do but magnify the ruin they r.e.t.a.r.d; and even the riches that remain, stagnant or current, change only from the slime of Avernus to the sand of Phlegethon;--quicksand at the embouchure;--land fluently recommended by recent auctioneers as "eligible for building leases."

Finally, then, the power of true currency is fourfold.

1. Credit power. Its worth in exchange, dependent on public opinion of the stability and honesty of the issuer.

2. Real worth. Supposing the gold, or whatever else the currency expressly promises, to be required from the issuer, for all his notes; and that the call cannot be met in full. Then the actual worth of the doc.u.ment (whatever its credit power) would be, and its actual worth at any moment is to be defined as being, what the division of the a.s.sets of the issuer, and his subsequent will work, would produce for it.

3. The exchange power of its base. Granting that we can get five pounds in gold for our note, it remains a question how much of other things we can get for five pounds in gold. The more of other things exist, and the less gold, the greater this power.

4. The power over labour, exercised by the given quant.i.ty of the base, or of the things to be got for it. The question in this case is, how much work, and (question of questions) whose work, is to be had for the food which five pounds will buy. This depends on the number of the population; on their gifts, and on their dispositions, with which, down to their slightest humours and up to their strongest impulses, the power of the currency varies; and in this last of its ranges,--the range of pa.s.sion, price, or praise (converso in pretium Deo), is at once least, and greatest.

Such being the main conditions of national currency, we proceed to examine those of the total currency, under the broad definition, "transferable acknowledgment of debt";[93] among the many forms of which there are in effect only two, distinctly opposed; namely, the acknowledgments of debts which will be paid, and of debts which will not. Doc.u.ments, whether in whole or part, of bad debt, being to those of good debt as bad money to bullion, we put for the present these forms of imposture aside (as in a.n.a.lysing a metal we should wash it clear of dross), and then range, in their exact quant.i.ties, the true currency of the country on one side, and the store or property of the country on the other. We place gold, and all such substances, on the side of doc.u.ments, as far as they operate by signature;--on the side of store as far as they operate by value. Then the currency represents the quant.i.ty of debt in the country, and the store the quant.i.ty of its possession. The ownership of all the property is divided between the holders of currency and holders of store, and whatever the claiming value of the currency is at any moment, that value is to be deducted from the riches of the store-holders, the deduction being practically made in the payment of rent for houses and lands, of interest on stock, and in other ways to be hereafter examined.

[93] Under which term, observe, we include all doc.u.ments of debt which, being honest, might be transferable, though they practically are not transferred; while we exclude all doc.u.ments which are in reality worthless, though in fact transferred temporarily as bad money is. The doc.u.ment of honest debt, not transferred, is merely to paper currency as gold withdrawn from circulation is to that of bullion. Much confusion has crept into the reasoning on this subject from the idea that withdrawal from circulation is a definable state, whereas it is a gradated state, and indefinable. The sovereign in my pocket is withdrawn from circulation as long as I choose to keep it there. It is no otherwise withdrawn if I bury it, nor even if I choose to make it, and others, into a golden cup, and drink out of them; since a rise in the price of the wine, or of other things, may at any time cause me to melt the cup and throw it back into currency; and the bullion operates on the prices of the things in the market as directly, though not as forcibly, while it is in the form of a cup, as it does in the form of a sovereign. No calculation can be founded on my humour in any ease. If I like to handle rouleaus, and therefore keep a quant.i.ty of gold, to play with, in the form of jointed basaltic columns, it is all one in its effect on the market as if I kept it in the form of twisted filigree, or steadily amicus lamnae, beat the narrow gold pieces into broad ones, and dined off them.

The probability is greater that I break the rouleau than that I melt the plate; but the increased probability is not calculable. Thus, doc.u.ments are only withdrawn from the currency when cancelled, and bullion when it is so effectually lost as that the probability of finding it is no greater than that of finding new gold in the mine.

At present I wish only to note the broad relations of the two great cla.s.ses--the currency-holders and store-holders.[94] Of course they are partly united, most monied men having possessions of land or other goods; but they are separate in their nature and functions. The currency-holders as a cla.s.s regulate the demand for labour, and the store-holders the laws of it; the currency-holders determine what shall be produced, and the store-holders the conditions of its production. Farther, as true currency represents by definition debts which will be paid, it represents either the debtor's wealth, or his ability and willingness; that is to say, either wealth existing in his hands transferred to him by the creditor, or wealth which, as he is at some time surely to return it, he is either increasing, or, if diminishing, has the will and strength to reproduce. A sound currency, therefore, as by its increase it represents enlarging debt, represents also enlarging means; but in this curious way, that a certain quant.i.ty of it marks the deficiency of the wealth of the country from what it would have been if that currency had not existed.[95] In this respect it is like the detritus of a mountain; a.s.sume that it lies at a fixed angle, and the more the detritus, the larger must be the mountain; but it would have been larger still, had there been none.

[94] They are (up to the amount of the currency) simply creditors and debtors--the commercial types of the two great sects of humanity which those words describe; for debt and credit are of course merely the mercantile forms of the words "duty"

and "creed," which give the central ideas: only it is more accurate to say "faith" than "creed," because creed has been applied carelessly to mere forms of words. Duty properly signifies whatever in substance or act one person owes to another, and faith the other's trust in his rendering it.

The French "devoir" and "foi" are fuller and clearer words than ours; for, faith being the pa.s.sive of fact, foi comes straight through fides from fio; and the French keep the group of words formed from the infinitive--fieri, "se fier,"

"se defier," "defiance," and the grand following "defi." Our English "affiance," "defiance," "confidence," "diffidence,"

retain accurate meanings; but our "faithful" has become obscure, from being used for "faithworthy," as well as "full of faith." "His name that sat on him was called Faithful and True."

Trust is the pa.s.sive of true saying, as faith is the pa.s.sive of due doing; and the right learning of these etymologies, which are in the strictest sense only to be learned "by heart," is of considerably more importance to the youth of a nation than its reading and ciphering.

[95] For example, suppose an active peasant, having got his ground into good order and built himself a comfortable house, finding still time on his hands, sees one of his neighbours little able to work, and ill lodged, and offers to build him also a house, and to put his land in order, on condition of receiving for a given period rent for the building and t.i.the of the fruits. The offer is accepted, and a doc.u.ment given promissory of rent and t.i.the. This note is money. It can only be good money if the man who has incurred the debt so far recovers his strength as to be able to take advantage of the help he has received, and meet the demand of the note; if he lets his house fall to ruin, and his field to waste, his promissory note will soon be valueless: but the existence of the note at all is a consequence of his not having worked so stoutly as the other. Let him gain as much as to be able to pay back the entire debt; the note is cancelled and we have two rich store-holders and no currency.

Finally, though, as above stated, every man possessing money has usually also some property beyond what is necessary for his immediate wants, and men possessing property usually also hold currency beyond what is necessary for their immediate exchanges, it mainly determines the cla.s.s to which they belong, whether in their eyes the money is an adjunct of the property, or the property of the money. In the first case, the holder's pleasure is in his possessions, and in his money subordinately, as the means of bettering or adding to them. In the second, his pleasure is in his money, and in his possessions only as representing it. In the first case, the money is as an atmosphere surrounding the wealth, rising from it and raining back upon it; but in the second, it is a deluge, with the wealth floating, and for the most part perishing in it. The shortest distinction between the men is that the one wishes always to buy and the other to sell.

Such being the great relations of the cla.s.ses, their several characters are of the highest importance to the nation; for on the character of the store-holders depends the preservation, display, and serviceableness of its wealth;--on that of the currency-holders its nature, and in great part its distribution; and on both its production.

The store-holders are either constructive, or neutral, or destructive; and in subsequent papers we shall, with respect to every kind of wealth, examine the relative power of the store-holder for its improvement or destruction; and we shall then find it to be of incomparably greater importance to the nation in whose hands the thing is put, than how much of it is got; and that the character of the holders may be conjectured by the quality of the store, for such and such a thing; nor only asks for it, but if to be bettered, betters it: so that possession and possessor reciprocally act on each other through the entire sum of national possession. The base nation asking for base things sinks daily to deeper vileness of nature and of use; while the n.o.ble nation, asking for n.o.ble things, rises daily into diviner eminence in both; the tendency to degradation being surely marked by [Greek: ataxia], carelessness as to the hands in which things are put, compet.i.tion for the acquisition of them, disorderliness in acc.u.mulation, inaccuracy in reckoning, and bluntness in conception as to the entire nature of possession.

Now, the currency-holders always increase in number and influence in proportion to the bluntness of nature and clumsiness of the store-holders; for the less use people can make of things the more they tire of them, and want to change them for something else, and all frequency of change increases the quant.i.ty and power of currency; while the large currency-holder himself is essentially a person who never has been able to make up his mind as to what he will have, and proceeds, therefore, in vague collection and aggregation, with more and more infuriate pa.s.sion, urged by complacency in progress, and pride in conquest.

While, however, there is this obscurity in the nature of possession of currency, there is a charm in the absoluteness of it, which is to some people very enticing. In the enjoyment of real property others must partly share. The groom has some enjoyment of the stud, and the gardener of the garden; but the money is, or seems shut up; it is wholly enviable. No one else can have part in any complacencies arising from it.

The power of arithmetical comparison is also a great thing to unimaginative people. They know always they are so much better than they were, in money; so much better than others, in money; wit cannot be so compared, nor character. My neighbour cannot be convinced I am wiser than he is, but he can that I am worth so much more; and the universality of the conviction is no less flattering than its clearness. Only a few can understand, none measure, superiorities in other things; but everybody can understand money, and count it.

Now, these various temptations to acc.u.mulation would be politically harmless, if what was vainly acc.u.mulated had any fair chance of being wisely spent. For as acc.u.mulation cannot go on for ever, but must some day end in its reverse--if this reverse were indeed a beneficial distribution and use, as irrigation from reservoir, the fever of gathering, though perilous to the gatherer, might be serviceable to the community. But it constantly happens (so constantly, that it may be stated as a political law having few exceptions), that what is unreasonably gathered is also unreasonably spent by the persons into whose hands it finally falls. Very frequently it is spent in war, or else in stupefying luxury, twice hurtful, both in being indulged by the rich and witnessed by the poor. So that the _mal tener_ and _mal dare_ are as correlative as complementary colours; and the circulation of wealth, which ought to be soft, steady, strong, far-sweeping, and full of warmth, like the Gulf Stream, being narrowed into an eddy, and concentrated on a point, changes into the alternate suction and surrender of Charybdis. Which is, indeed, I doubt not, the true meaning of that marvellous fable, "infinite," as Bacon said of it, "in matter of meditation."[96]

[96] It is a strange habit of wise humanity to speak in enigmas only, so that the highest truths and usefullest laws must be hunted for through whole picture-galleries of dreams, which to the vulgar seem dreams only. Thus Homer, the Greek tragedians, Plato, Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Goethe, have hidden all that is chiefly serviceable in their work, and in all the various literature they absorbed and re-embodied, under types which have rendered it quite useless to the mult.i.tude. What is worse, the two primal declarers of moral discovery, Homer and Plato, are partly at issue; for Plato's logical power quenched his imagination, and he became incapable of understanding the purely imaginative element either in poetry or painting; he therefore somewhat overrates the pure discipline of pa.s.sionate art in song and music, and misses that of meditative art. There is, however, a deeper reason for his distrust of Homer. His love of justice, and reverently religious nature made him dread as death, every form of fallacy; but chiefly, fallacy respecting the world to come (his own myths being only symbolic exponents of a rational hope). We shall perhaps now every day discover more clearly how right Plato was in this, and feel ourselves more and more wonderstruck that men such as Homer and Dante (and, in an inferior sphere, Milton), not to speak of the great sculptors and painters of every age, have permitted themselves, though full of all n.o.bleness and wisdom, to coin idle imaginations of the mysteries of eternity, and mould the faiths of the families of the earth by the courses of their own vague and visionary arts: while the indisputable truths respecting human life and duty, respecting which they all have but one voice, lie hidden behind these veils of phantasy, unsought and often unsuspected. I will gather carefully, out of Dante and Homer, what of this kind bears on our subject, in its due place; the first broad intention of their symbols may be sketched at once. The rewards of a worthy use of riches, subordinate to other ends, are shown by Dante in the fifth and sixth orbs of Paradise; for the punishment of their unworthy use, three places are a.s.signed; one for the avaricious and prodigal whose souls are lost ("h.e.l.l": Canto 7); one for the avaricious and prodigal whose souls are capable of purification ("Purgatory": Canto 19); and one for the usurers, of whom none can be redeemed ("h.e.l.l": Canto 17). The first group, the largest in all h.e.l.l (gente piu che altrove troppa), meet in contrary currents, as the waves of Charybdis, casting weights at each other from opposite sides. This weariness of contention is the chief element of their torture; so marked by the beautiful lines, beginning, Or puoi, figliuol, etc. (but the usurers, who made their money inactively, sit on the sand, equally without rest, however, "Di qua, di la soccorrien," etc.).

For it is not avarice but contention for riches, leading to this double misuse of them, which, in Dante's sight, is the unredeemable sin. The place of its punishment is guarded by Plutus, "the great enemy," and "la fiera crudele," a spirit quite different from the Greek Plutus, who, though old and blind, is not cruel, and is curable, so as to become far-sighted ([Greek: hou typhlos all' oxy blepon]--Plato's epithets in first book of the Laws). Still more does this Dantesque type differ from the resplendent Plutus of Goethe in the second part of "Faust," who is the personified power of wealth for good or evil; not the pa.s.sion for wealth; and again from the Plutus of Spenser, who is the pa.s.sion of mere aggregation. Dante's Plutus is specially and definitely the spirit of Contention and Compet.i.tion, or Evil Commerce; and because, as I showed in my last paper, this kind of commerce "makes all men strangers," his speech is unintelligible, and no single soul of all those ruined by him has recognizable features.

(La sconescente vita-- Ad ogni conoscenza or li fa bruni).

On the other hand, the redeemable sins of avarice and prodigality are, in Dante's sight, those which are without deliberate or calculated operation. The l.u.s.t, or lavishness, of riches can be purged, so long as there has been no servile consistency of dispute and compet.i.tion for them. The sin is spoken of as that of degradation by the love of earth; it is purified by deeper humiliation--the souls crawl on their bellies; their chant, "my soul cleaveth unto the dust." But the spirits here condemned are all recognizable, and even the worst examples of the thirst for gold, which they are compelled to tell the histories of during the night, are of men swept by the pa.s.sion of avarice into violent crime, but not sold to its steady work. The precept given to each of these spirits for its deliverance is--Turn thine eyes to the lucre (lure) which the Eternal King rolls with the mighty wheels: otherwise, the wheels of the "Greater Fortune," of which the constellation is ascending when Dante's dream begins. Compare George Herbert,--

"Lift up thy head; Take stars for money; stars, not to be told By any art, yet to be purchased."

And Plato's notable sentence in the third book of "Polity":--"Tell them they have divine gold and silver in their souls for ever; that they need no money stamped of men--neither may they otherwise than impiously mingle the gathering of the divine with the mortal treasure, for through that which the law of the mult.i.tude has coined, endless crimes have been done and suffered; but in theirs is neither pollution nor sorrow." At the entrance of this place of punishment an evil spirit is seen by Dante, quite other than the "Gran Nemico." The great enemy is obeyed knowingly and willingly; but this spirit--feminine--and called a Siren--is the "Deceitfulness of riches," [Greek: apate ploutou] of the gospels, winning obedience by guile. This is the Idol of Riches, made doubly phantasmal by Dante's seeing her in a dream. She is lovely to look upon, and enchants by her sweet singing, but her womb is loathsome. Now, Dante does not call her one of the Sirens carelessly, any more than he speaks of Charybdis carelessly, and though he had only got at the meaning of the Homeric fable through Virgil's obscure tradition of it, the clue he has given us is quite enough. Bacon's interpretation, "the Sirens, or pleasures," which has become universal since his time, is opposed alike to Plato's meaning and Homer's. The Sirens are not pleasures, but Desires: in the Odyssey they are the phantoms of vain desire; but in Plato's vision of Destiny, phantoms of constant Desire; singing each a different note on the circles of the distaff of Necessity, but forming one harmony, to which the three great Fates put words. Dante, however, adopted the Homeric conception of them, which was that they were demons of the Imagination, not carnal (desire of the eyes; not l.u.s.t of the flesh); therefore said to be daughters of the Muses. Yet not of the muses, heavenly or historical, but of the muse of pleasure; and they are at first winged, because even vain hope excites and helps when first formed; but afterwards, contending for the possession of the imagination with the muses themselves, they are deprived of their wings, and thus we are to distinguish the Siren power from the Power of Circe, who is no daughter of the muses, but of the strong elements, Sun and Sea; her power is that of frank and full vital pleasure, which, if governed and watched, nourishes men; but, unwatched, and having no "moly," bitterness or delay mixed with it, turns men into beasts, but does not slay them, leaves them, on the contrary, power of revival. She is herself indeed an Enchantress;--pure Animal life; transforming--or degrading--but always wonderful (she puts the stores on board the ship invisibly, and is gone again, like a ghost); even the wild beasts rejoice and are softened around her cave; to men, she gives no rich feast, nothing but pure and right nourishment,--Pramnian wine, cheese and flour; that is corn, milk, and wine, the three great sustainers of life--it is their own fault if these make swine of them; and swine are chosen merely as the type of consumption; as Plato's [Greek: huon polis] in the second book of the "Polity," and perhaps chosen by Homer with a deeper knowledge of the likeness of nourishment, and internal form of body. "Et quel est, s'il vous plait, cet audacieux animal qui se permet d'etre bati au dedans comme une jolie pet.i.te fille?"

"Helas! chere enfant, j'ai honte de le nommer, et il ne foudra pas m'en vouloir. C'est ... c'est le cochon. Ce n'est pas precis.e.m.e.nt flatteur pour vous; mais nous en sommes tous la, et si cela vous contrarie par trop, il faut aller vous plaindre au bon Dieu qui a voulu que les choses fussent arrangees ains: seulement le cochon, qui ne pense qu' a manger, a l'estomac bien plus vaste que nous, et c'est toujours une consolation." ("Histoire d'une Bouchee de Pain," Lettre ix.) But the deadly Sirens are all things opposed to the Circean power. They promise pleasure, but never give it. They nourish in no wise; but slay by slow death. And whereas they corrupt the heart and the head, instead of merely betraying the senses, there is no recovery from their power; they do not tear nor s.n.a.t.c.h, like Scylla, but the men who have listened to them are poisoned, and waste away. Note that the Sirens' field is covered, not merely with the bones, but with the skins of those who have been consumed there. They address themselves, in the part of the song which Homer gives, not to the pa.s.sions of Ulysses, but to his vanity, and the only man who ever came within hearing of them, and escaped untempted, was Orpheus, who silenced the vain imaginations by singing the praises of the G.o.ds.

It is, then, one of these Sirens whom Dante takes as the phantasm or deceitfulness of riches; but note further, that she says it was her song that deceived Ulysses. Look back to Dante's account of Ulysses' death, and we find it was not the love of money, but pride of knowledge, that betrayed him; whence we get the clue to Dante's complete meaning: that the souls whose love of wealth is pardonable have been first deceived into pursuit of it by a dream of its higher uses, or by ambition. His Siren is therefore the Philotime of Spenser, daughter of Mammon--

"Whom all that folk with such contention Do flock about, my deare, my daughter is-- Honour and dignitie from her alone Derived are."

By comparing Spenser's entire account of this Philotime with Dante's of the Wealth-Siren, we shall get at the full meaning of both poets; but that of Homer lies hidden much more deeply. For his Sirens are indefinite, and they are desires of any evil thing; power of wealth is not specially indicated by him, until, escaping the harmonious danger of imagination, Ulysses has to choose between two practical ways of life, indicated by the two rocks of Scylla and Charybdis. The monsters that haunt them are quite distinct from the rocks themselves, which, having many other subordinate significations, are in the main Labour and Idleness, or getting and spending; each with its attendant monster, or betraying demon. The rock of gaining has its summit in the clouds, invisible and not to be climbed; that of spending is low, but marked by the cursed fig-tree, which has leaves but no fruit. We know the type elsewhere; and there is a curious lateral allusion to it by Dante when Jacopo di Sant' Andrea, who had ruined himself by profusion and committed suicide, scatters the leaves of the bush of Lotto degli Agli, endeavouring to hide himself among them.

We shall hereafter examine the type completely; here I will only give an approximate rendering of Homer's words, which have been obscured more by translation than even by tradition--

"They are overhanging rocks. The great waves of blue water break round them; and the blessed G.o.ds call them the Wanderers.

"By one of them no winged thing can pa.s.s--not even the wild doves that bring ambrosia to their father Jove--but the smooth rock seizes its sacrifice of them." (Not even ambrosia to be had without Labour. The word is peculiar--as a part of anything offered for sacrifice; especially used of heave-offering.) "It reaches the wide heaven with its top, and a dark-blue cloud rests on it, and never pa.s.ses; neither does the clear sky hold it in summer nor in harvest. Nor can any man climb it--not if he had twenty feet and hands, for it is smooth as though it were hewn.

"And in the midst of it is a cave which is turned the way of h.e.l.l. And therein dwells Scylla, whining for prey: her cry, indeed, is no louder than that of a newly-born whelp: but she herself is an awful thing--nor can any creature see her face and be glad; no, though it were a G.o.d that rose against her. For she has twelve feet, all fore-feet, and six necks, and terrible heads on them; and each has three rows of teeth, full of black death.

"But the opposite rock is lower than this, though but a bow-shot distant; and upon it there is a great fig-tree, full of leaves; and under it the terrible Charybdis sucks it down, and thrice casts it up again; be not thou there when she sucks down, for Neptune himself could not save thee."

The reader will find the meaning of these types gradually elicited as we proceed.

This disease of desire having especial relation to the great art of Exchange, or Commerce, we must, in order to complete our code of first principles, shortly state the nature and limits of that art.

As the currency conveys right of choice out of many things in exchange for one, so Commerce is the agency by which the power of choice is obtained; and countries producing only timber can obtain for their timber silk and gold; or, naturally producing only jewels and frankincense, can obtain for them cattle and corn. In this function commerce is of more importance to a country in proportion to the limitations of its products and the restlessness of its fancy;--generally of greater importance towards Northern lat.i.tudes.

Commerce is necessary, however, not only to exchange local products, but local skill. Labour requiring the agency of fire can only be given abundantly in cold countries; labour requiring suppleness of body and sensitiveness of touch only in warm ones; labour involving accurate vivacity of thought only in temperate ones; while peculiar imaginative actions are produced by extremes of heat and cold, and of light and darkness. The production of great art is limited to climates warm enough to admit of repose in the open air, and cool enough to render such repose delightful. Minor variations in modes of skill distinguish every locality. The labour which at any place is easiest, is in that place cheapest; and it becomes often desirable that products raised in one country should be wrought in another. Hence have arisen discussions on "International values," which will be one day remembered as highly curious exercises of the human mind. For it will be discovered, in due course of tide and time, that international value is regulated just as inter-provincial or inter-parishional value is. Coals and hops are exchanged between Northumberland and Kent on absolutely the same principles as iron and wine between Lancashire and Spain. The greater breadth of an arm of the sea increases the cost, but does not modify the principle of exchange; and a bargain written in two languages will have no other economical results than a bargain written in one. The distances of nations are measured not by seas, but by ignorances; and their divisions determined, not by dialects, but by enmities.

Of course, a system of international values may always be constructed if we a.s.sume a relation of moral law to physical geography; as, for instance, that it is right to cheat across a river, though not across a road; or across a lake, though not across a river; or over a mountain, though not across a lake, etc.:--again, a system of such values may be constructed by a.s.suming similar relations of taxation to physical geography; as, for instance, that an article should be taxed in crossing a river, but not in crossing a road; or in being carried over a mountain, but not over a ferry, etc.: such positions are indeed not easily maintained when once put in logical form; but one law of international value is maintainable in any form; namely, that the farther your neighbour lives from you, and the less he understands you, the more you are bound to be true in your dealings with him; because your power over him is greater in proportion to his ignorance, and his remedy more difficult in proportion to his distance.

I have just said the breadth of sea increases the cost of exchange.

Exchange or commerce, as such, is always costly; the sum of the value of the goods being diminished by the cost of their conveyance, and by the maintenance of the persons employed in it. So that it is only when there is advantage to both producers (in getting the one thing for the other), greater than the loss in conveyance, that the exchange is expedient. And it is only justly conducted when the porters kept by the producers (commonly called merchants) look only for pay, and not for profit. For in just commerce there are but three parties--the two persons or societies exchanging and the agent or agents of exchange: the value of the things to be exchanged is known by both the exchangers, and each receives equivalent value, neither gaining nor losing (for whatever one gains the other loses). The intermediate agent is paid an equal and known percentage by both, partly for labour in conveyance, partly for care, knowledge, and risk; every attempt at concealment of the amount of the pay indicates either effort on the part of the agent to obtain exorbitant percentage, or effort on the part of the exchangers to refuse him a just one. But for the most part it is the first, namely, the effort on the part of the merchant to obtain larger profit (so called) by buying cheap and selling dear.

Some part, indeed, of this larger gain is deserved, and might be openly demanded, because it is the reward of the merchant's knowledge, and foresight of probable necessity; but the greater part of such gain is unjust; and unjust in this most fatal way, that it depends first on keeping the exchangers ignorant of the exchange value of the articles, and secondly, on taking advantage of the buyer's need and the seller's poverty. It is, therefore, one of the essential, and quite the most fatal, forms of usury; for usury means merely taking an exorbitant sum for the use of anything, and it is no matter whether the exorbitance is on loan or exchange, in rent or in price--the essence of the usury being that it is obtained by advantage of opportunity or necessity, and not as due reward for labour. All the great thinkers, therefore, have held it to be unnatural and impious, in so far as it feeds on the distress of others, or their folly.[97] Nevertheless attempts to repress it by law (in other words, to regulate prices by law so far as their variations depend on iniquity, and not on nature) must for ever be ineffective; though Plato, Bacon, and the First Napoleon--all three of them men who knew somewhat more of humanity than the "British merchant" usually does--tried their hands at it, and have left some (probably) good moderative forms of law, which we will examine in their place. But the only final check upon it must be radical purifying of the national character, for being, as Bacon calls it, "concessum propter duritiem cordis," it is to be done away with by touching the heart only; not, however, without medicinal law--as in the case of the other permission, "propter duritiem." But in this, more than in anything (though much in all, and though in this he would not himself allow of their application, for his own laws against usury are sharp enough), Plato's words are true in the fourth book of the "Polity," that neither drugs, nor charms, nor burnings, will touch a deep-lying political sore, any more than a deep bodily one; but only right and utter change of const.i.tution; and that "they do but lose their labour who think that by any tricks of law they can get the better of these mischiefs of intercourse, and see not that they hew at a Hydra."

[97] Hence Dante's companionship of Cahors, Inf., canto xi., supported by the view taken of the matter throughout the middle ages, in common with the Greeks.