A Treatise on Political Economy

By Jean-Baptiste Say

A NEW edition of this translation of the popular treatise of M. Say having been called for, the five previous American editions being entirely out of print, the editor has endeavoured to render the work more deserving of the favour it has received, by subjecting every part of it to a careful revision. As the translation of Mr. Prinsep was made in the year 1821, from an earlier edition of the original treatise, namely, the fourth, which had not received the last corrections and improvements of the author, wherever an essential principle had been involved in obscurity, or an error had crept in, which had been subsequently cleared up and removed, the American editor has, in this impression, reconciled the language of the text and notes to the fifth improved edition, published in 1826, the last which M. Say lived to give to the world. It has not, however, been deemed necessary to extend these alterations in the translation any further than to the correction of such discrepancies and errors as are here alluded to; and the editor has not ventured to recast the translation, as given by Mr. Prinsep, merely with a view to accommodate its phraseology, in point of neatness of expression or diction, to the last touches of the author. The translation of Mr. Prinsep, the editor must again be permitted to observe, has been executed with sufficient fidelity, and with considerable spirit and elegance; and in his opinion it could not be much improved by even remoulding it after the last edition. The translation of the introduction, given by the present editor, has received various verbal corrections; and such alterations and additions as were introduced by the author into his fifth edition, will now be found translated. [From the Advertisement to the 6th edition.]

Book Cover

Translator/Editor

C. R. Prinsep, trans. and Clement C. Biddle., ed.

First Pub. Date

1803

Publisher

Philadelphia: Lippincott, Grambo & Co.,

Pub. Date

1855

Comments

First written in French. 6th edition. Based on the 4th-5th editions.

Copyright

The text of this edition is in the public domain. Picture of Jean-Baptiste Say courtesy of The Warren J. Samuels Portrait Collection at Duke University.

OF THE EFFECT OF REVENUE DERIVED BY ONE NATION FROM ANOTHER.

BOOK II, CHAPTER X

One nation cannot take from another the revenues of its industry. A German tailor, establishing himself in France, there makes a profit, in which Germany had no participation. But, if this tailor contrive to amass a little capital, and after the lapse of several years carry it back with him to his native country, he injures France to the same extent as a French capitalist, who should emigrate with the same amount of fortune.
*82 In a political view, the injury to the wealth of the nation is equal in both cases; but in a moral light, it is otherwise; for I reckon that a native Frenchman in quitting his country, robs it of an affectionate attachment, and a spirit of exclusive nationality, which it can never look for in a stranger born.

A nation, receiving a stray child into its bosom again, acquires a real treasure; inasmuch as in him it receives an addition to its population, an accession to the profits of national industry, and an acquisition of capital. It at the same time recovers a lost citizen, and the means for him to subsist upon. If the exile bring back his industry only, at any rate the profits of industry are added to the national stock. It is true, that a source of consumption is likewise super-added; but supposing it to counterbalance the advantage, there is no diminution of revenue, while the moral and political strength of the country is actually augmented.
*83

With regard to the capital lent by one nation to another, the effect upon their respective wealth is precisely analogous to that, resulting from every loan from one individual to another. If France borrow capital from Holland, and devote it to a productive purpose, she will gain the profit of industry and land accruing from the employment of that capital; and she will do so even though she pay interest; in like manner as a merchant or manufacturer borrows for the purposes of his concern, and gains a residue of profit, even after paying the interest of the loan.

But, if one state borrow from another, not for productive purposes, but for those of mere expenditure, the capital borrowed will then yield no return, and the national revenue be saddled with the interest to the foreign creditor. Such was the condition of France, when she borrowed from the Genoese, the Dutch, and the Genevese, for the support of her wars, or to feed the prodigality of a court. Yet it was better to borrow from strangers than from natives, even for the purpose of dissipation; because, the amount so borrowed was not withdrawn from the national productive capital of France. In either case, the French people would have to pay the interest;
*84 but had they likewise lent the capital, they would have had to pay the interest, and at the same time have lost the benefit, which their industry and land might have derived from its employment and agency.

With regard to such landed property, as may belong to foreigners residing abroad, the revenue arising from it is an item of foreign, and forms no part of the national revenue. But it is to be remembered, that the foreigner cannot have purchased it without a remittance of capital equal in value to the land; which capital is an equally valuable acquisition, particularly if the nation be possessed of improveable land in abundance, but of little capital to set industry in motion. In making his purchase of land, the foreigner exchanges a revenue of capital, which he leaves the nation to profit by, for a revenue of land; which he thenceforth receives: thus bartering interest of money for rent of land. If the national industry be active and skilfully directed, more benefit may be derived from the interest, than was before obtained from the rent; the purchaser, however, acquires a fixed and permanent property, in lieu of one more perishable, transferable, and destructible. Mismanagement may soon annihilate the capital the nation has acquired; but the land remains a permanent possession of the purchaser, and he may sell it and get back the value when he pleases. There is therefore nothing to be apprehended from the purchase of land by foreigners, provided there be wisdom enough, to employ in reproduction the value received in exchange.

The particular form, in which one nation may draw revenue from another, is of no importance whatever. It may be remitted in specie, in bullion, or in any other kind of merchandise: indeed it is of the greatest consequence to leave individuals to take it in the shape that best suits their convenience; for what suits them will infallibly be the best for both nations; in like manner as in the conduct of international trade, the commodity, which individuals export or import in preference, is that which best suits the mutual national interests.

The agents of the English East India Company drew from that country, either an annual revenue, or an accumulated fortune, which they returned to England to enjoy and live upon: they took good care not to withdraw these remittances in the shape of gold or silver, because the precious metals were of more relative value in Asia than in Europe; they remitted in the shape of India goods and products, on which a fresh profit was made on arrival in Europe: every million they remitted, swelled, perhaps, to so much as 1,200,000, by the time it reached the place of destination. Thus, Europe gained to the amount of 1,200,000, while India lost only a million. If these despoilers of India
*85
*86 insisted on transmitting this whole sum in specie, they must have robbed Hindostan, perhaps, of 1,500,000, or upwards, for every 1,200,000 that England received. The same sum may, perhaps, have been amassed originally in specie; but it was always remitted in the shape of that commodity, which, for the time being, answered best as an object of transport. As long as exportation of any kind is allowed, and exportation has always been regarded by statesmen with a favourable eye, it is easy to receive in one country, the revenue and capital derived from another. And the remittance cannot be prevented by the government, without the interdiction of all external commerce, which, after all, would leave the resource of smuggling and contraband. In the eyes of political economy, nothing is more absurd, than to see governments prohibit the export of the national specie, as a means of checking the emigration of wealth.
*87

82.

If, however, this capital be the fruit of his personal frugality, he robs France of no part of her wealth existing previous to his arrival. Had he continued resident there, the aggregate of the capital of France would have been increased to the full extent of his accumulation; but, in taking the whole away with him, he takes no more than his own earnings, and no value but what is of his own creation, in so doing, he commits no individual, and, therefore, no national wrong.

83.

In the common course of things, such an addition is a national benefit, because it is an accession to the secondary source of production,
i. e. industry. But defective human institutions may convert a benefit into a curse; as where a poor-law system gives gratuitous subsistence to a part of the population, capable of labour, but not incited by want. In such case, every additional human being may be a burthen instead of a prize; for he may be one more on the list of idle pensioners. Translator.

84.

It will be shown in Book III. that the interest is equally lost, whether spent internally or externally.

85.

Raynal tells us, that, inasmuch as the East India Company derived a revenue from Bengal, to be consumed in Europe, it must infallibly drain it of specie in the end, since the company is the only merchant, and imports no specie itself. But Raynal is mistaken in this. In the first place, private merchants do carry the precious metals to India, because they are of more value there than in Europe; and that very reason also deters the servants of the company, who may have made fortunes in Asia, from remitting them in specie.

And if it were to be suggested, that a fortune, remitted to Europe, is less substantial and more speedily dissipated, when it arrives in the shape of goods, than when in that of specie, this again would be an error. The form, that property happens to assume, does not affect its substantiality; when once transferred to Europe, it may be converted into specie, or land, or what not. It is the amount of values, and not the temporary form they appear under, which, in this colonial connexion, as in that of international trade, is the essential circumstance.

86.

This is a harsh word, yet probably justified by the history of the original acquisition. But the scene has now changed; the servants of the sovereign company no longer look to spoliation as a public or private resource, but are content with the liberal remuneration of laborious duties, civil, military, and financial. A slight examination of the connexion between Britain and her Asiatic dependencies will show, how small a balance is remitted to the former in any shape; and it should be remembered that part, even of this, is but the interest of loans raised in England, for the purposes of Indian administration, though not always of a wise or paternal character. Translator.

87.

The complete interception of all export of objects of value would not help them towards the point of intent; because free communication occasions a much greater influx than efflux of wealth. Value, or wealth, is by nature fugitive and independent. Incapable of all restraint, it is sure to vanish from the fetters that are contrived to confine it, and to expand and flourish under the influence of liberty.

Book II, Chapter XI

Categories: Jean Baptiste Say