Dialogues On The Grain Trade

34
 Dialogues on the Grain Trade  F   of Galiani’s life, see the excerpt from On Money (chapter ). The publication in  of Dialogues sur le commerce des bleds (Dialogues on the Grain Trade) caused a firestorm; free-market friends cried betrayal, and one of them, abbé Morellet, attacked him in a lengthy  pamphlet (censored until a change of government made possible its publication in ). Galiani pursued this polemic in a brief parody, La bagarre, which has been rediscovered only in the twentieth century. In , the French government passed an edict designed to assure the free export of grain. In the midst of an economic crisis in , and a general controversy over the wisdom of the  edict, Galiani’s Dialogues was the most influential critique. The dialogue involves three characters. The Marquis is a socially well-connected conformist proud of having read all the latest and most fashionable writings—mostly by the Physiocrats—on economic policy. The Knight (Chevalier) was a welltraveled gentleman who had been away from Paris since  and who prided himself on having read none of the Physiocrats’ writings, and on resting his economic judgments upon his travels and observations alone. He certainly represents the views of the author. The President, who enters the conversation midway through the work, serves as a foil who facilitates the conversation. The present excerpt from the seventh of the eight dialogues was chosen because it provides both a convenient summary of the core discussion up to that point and a sample of the distinctive narrative and rhetor

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ical style of the author. The translation is based on the  London edition of Dialogues sur le commerce des bleds, pp. –. All notes are by the present editor.

Dialogues on the Grain Trade The Marquis And what were we supposed to do to encourage agriculture and make it flourish? The Knight Oh, you want to know too many things at the same time. Let us continue . . . The Marquis You want to continue, and I am stopping you. I still feel sore about this bet you unfairly won, and I am asking for revenge. I want to bet. The Knight On what? The Marquis Listen carefully. This time I am definitely betting that you are against the [free] export [of grain]; that you agree with me on the fact that we must withdraw the Edict [of ],1 and go back to our former situation—as I told you when you trapped me with a comparison that was pleasing but had nothing to do with what we were saying. . [The Royal Edict of July , , went far toward explicitly guaranteeing the free export of grain, though the Physiocrats sometimes claimed that it did not go far enough; see “Lettre de M. Le Trosne, Avocat du Roi à Orléans, sur la nécessité de l’entière liberté du commerce des grains,” in Ephémérides du citoyen, vol.  (Nov. ).]

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The Knight Will you bet a lot? The Marquis Everything you’d like! One scruple stops me, though, and it is that I am betting for real; I can read it in your eyes. The Knight And will the President bet as well? The President I would be tempted. The Knight On what grounds? The President Here they are: You have proven to us that we must not let France export grain other than the real surplus of an ordinary year. You have then proven to us that it was very doubtful that this surplus existed, and that nobody knew about it or could have known about it until now. And you ended up concluding that it would be better that way, because the purpose of any good government must be the increase in a population that would consume all the harvest, and not the increase in the latter’s departure to foreign countries. After setting up that purpose, you left us uncertain about the choice of means. But you had us consider [several facts]. First, the weight and volume of grain, in increasing transportation costs, decreases the profit in trade. Second, the difficulty of preservation in transit increases the losses and risks even more. Third, the same problem remains if it is kept in storage, which obliges the trader either to suffer waste, or to sell hastily, and thus miss opportunities to sell at a high price. Fourth, one always encounters the most adverse season when the grain must necessarily be sold without being able to wait for the good season. Fifth, it [the grain trade] is neither the treasure nor the wealth of

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any country in particular; as it comes from everywhere, and may run out everywhere, this trade—always vague, uncertain, fortuitous, and shortlived—is not fixed in regular channels or subject to a steady and continuous turnover; so that this trade—which is not as quiet as others—looks more like looting than like an honest trade. Sixth, since it is abandoned by most merchants, whether from lack of means or of courage, it is automatically reduced to a monopoly, if one wants to trade wholesale with foreign countries. On the contrary, the domestic retail trade in grain is teeming with cleverness, fraud, and petty cheating. Its technical details, swallowing honest gains, force one into illicit conduct. Seventh, grain purchases under current conditions are impracticable, and in general, it is almost impossible to effect them without arousing complaints and disturbing whole provinces. There are no human means to balance, on the one hand, the secret of extraordinary commissions that must be maintained with salesmen, and on the other, the necessity not to let ordinary supplies run out or become expensive on a market that has just been caught off guard, as it were. Eighth, if purchasing is tedious, the internal turnover is even longer, more inconvenient, tangled in detail, and exceedingly prone to loss and waste. So many intermediaries harm the true usefulness of trade, which should only aim at enriching and encouraging the productive class. The number of hazards—as it increases proportionally to the number of different hands that handle this trade—raises the price by at least a third above ordinary cost. Finally, because the innumerable methods that are required to transform grain into bread prevent the farmer from selling it directly to the consumer, they leave him with only a very meager benefit from high prices. Therefore, in conclusion, it must be said that, if bread is the object ranked first among the needs of men, it is ranked last as far as commercial profit is concerned. If it is the dearest to the administration, it is the most unrewarding, the most often treacherous and costly for the trader; it is the most indispensable, but also the least reliable way for each state to become rich when it sells to its neighbors. The current condition of all purely agricultural nations, which you have described for us, is striking proof. According to the very coherent chain of reflections you have just presented to us— and I must confess that most of them were new to me—what other

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conclusion would you draw, except that we must completely abandon the system of export adopted by the economists?2 The Knight But will you bet? The President I am not bold enough for that. The Knight And you are right, because you would have lost. Marquis, it pains me to say so, but to tell you the truth—and this will be my final word—I am in favor of free export. The Marquis You mean against, don’t you? The Knight I am in favor, not against. The Marquis You are pulling our leg as usual. This can’t be possible. The Knight It is just as I tell you, though. The Marquis But on what grounds? The Knight Before sharing them with you, I want to tell you a little story. . [“Economists” was at that time a synonym for the Physiocrats, such as Quesnay and Mirabeau. For an introduction to their doctrine, see the essay by Du Pont de Nemours, chapter  of this volume.]

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The Marquis You have good ones sometimes. Let’s hear this one. The Knight A few years ago in Rome, there was a young Abbot, whom I knew well. His family was fairly rich, and his mother deeply wanted him to become a Prelate. So he was bought a prelacy, and as soon as he had taken holy orders, he was given a position as a magistrate in one of the courts of Rome, called the Buon governo. It is roughly like the Châtelet in Paris.3 On the day he was to start his term of office, luck would have it that a case that had become famous because of quite extraordinary circumstances was about to come before the court. (It dealt with the validity of a will.) It was the talk of the town; people looked forward to the judgment of that Court. It was composed of only twelve Prelates. In serious cases, each Judge writes his opinion and reads it aloud; and it is customary in Rome to let the verdict of each Judge leak out; no one makes a mystery out of it as in other countries. Now you must know that our man was an idiot. The Marquis Who? The young Prelate? The Knight Yes, the young Prelate was still a fool, even though he was already a Prelate, and as a result, he did not want to look like it. He felt strongly that he had to shine in his début, that everybody would talk about his “voto,” and that he had to make his reputation for insight and knowledge on this fortunate occasion. Therefore, without thinking twice (for he did not beat about the bush), he had a famous Lawyer, whom he strongly urged to give him something good, whatever the price might be, write a verdict for him. He wanted it to be well filled with quotations and extracts from Latin authors—and the best ones. The Lawyer, an honest man, did his best. Justinian, Gratian, the Gloss, Accursius, and . [I.e., a court of common civil and criminal pleas, of first instance.]

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Cujas—every one of them was resorted to,4 and it must be acknowledged that the opinion he received in writing was magnificent. It proved as clear as daylight that the will had to be quashed. On the very morning of that fateful judgment day, the Lawyer brought this writing to his Lordship, who received it with transports of enthusiasm, gratitude, and reward; he then perused the verdict two or three times to be able to read it smoothly, declaimed it a little in his bedroom, folded it, pocketed it, had his horses harnessed, and set off for the Palace, head held high. He felt in possession of something that would allow him to aspire to immortality. But one is never aware of everything, and one cannot avoid one’s destiny. Unfortunately for him that day, he was not the first person to pronounce himself. Two Prelates were to speak before him, and both pronounced themselves in favor of the validity of the will. What a disaster! Faced with this unexpected blow, our man was in despair. The idea hit him that all the other Judges would pronounce themselves for the will, and that he would remain alone with his verdict. What shame! What ridicule! The whole town would say he was alone! This prospect made him blush, blanch, and tremble. He swore and cursed inwardly: “Damn, that treacherous Lawyer! He deceived me, tricked me, even though I paid him well. The rogue! He makes me stand out from the rest.” He then realized what a drawback it was to have only one verdict. He said to himself: “Ah, how foolish of me! How much would it have cost me to order the two opposing verdicts so as to use them as occasion warranted? Just a little more money, what would it have mattered? When one’s honor is at stake, one must know how to spend without stinting.” But all his useless regrets fell on his afflicted heart, and he had no time left for anything; he had to accept it, the fateful hour of his reading was drawing closer. And yet what to do? What side to take? What is to become of him? He could very well say in a nutshell that he agreed with the Prelates who had preceded him; but the verdict, that lovely, costly verdict—what would become of it? Everyone would say that he had not . [The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian I (r. –) codified Roman Law in the Corpus Juris Civilis; Gratian was an Italian legal scholar whose Decretum (c. ) synthesized Church law; Francesco Accursius (–) was a Bolognese legal scholar who compiled a glossary of the whole body of law; Jacques Cujas (–) was a French jurist and close student of the Corpus Juris Civilis.]

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studied the case, that he had no verdict, and everyone would have it wrong, since he had it in his pocket. Finally despair gave him courage, and he bravely made up his mind; he took his paper out, read it loudly and clearly, with grace and dignity, without changing anything in it. The only thing was that, when he came to the solemn words of the conclusion, instead of saying, “I am for quashing the will,” he said, “I am for the validity of the will.” The Cardinal, who presided over the Court and suspected nothing, believed it was a misunderstanding, and said immediately: “Surely, my Lord, you are mistaken, you mean you are for quashing it.” Our Prelate modestly replied: “I beg your pardon, your Honor, I am for the will.” The Cardinal answered: “But how is that? You have just proven the contrary.” Our man kept repeating: “It does not matter, your Honor, I am for the will. I agree with these gentlemen who were for it too.” They all looked at one another, puzzled, scarcely daring to believe their ears. Everyone asked him questions in turn: Why? How? By what reasoning? He continued to answer to everyone that he was for the will. Finally, he let out a few barely articulate words, saying that he did not want to be the talk of the town for his lonesome opinion. His neighbor heard the words, understood the enigma, and discovered that in his own mind, he was unbelievably convinced that one had to have the same opinions as everyone else, just as one had to have the same clothes. The Marquis Ah, my good Sir, now I’ve got you. You knew you were greatly suspected of making up your stories on the spur of the moment; for this occasion I am convinced of it. Your story was too convenient. To tell you the truth, as soon as you uttered the words, “I am for [free] export,” I said to myself: “What is that? Surely the Knight sees that he would be the only man of wit [homme d’esprit], the only man of good company who would be against free export, he is completely ashamed of being on his own, and he has decided to follow the crowd for fear of being anathematized.” The Knight So you do not believe that I have more wit than that Prelate? Well, I assure you that the story is true, and that I told it to you on purpose, so as to forestall your suspicions. I will never be afraid to hold my opinions

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alone—even against the whole of nature. If, after distrusting my reasoning for a long time, I was firmly certain about my opinion, I would not fear to say it either, even at the risk of being deafened by the shouts that would rise against me. But the reason why I favor freedom of export is surely due neither to the smile of favor upon my conformity, nor to the pleasure of being ranked among the witty [gens d’esprit], admitted into good company by the sole title of exportationist. I have other reasons for committing myself to it. The President, to the Knight If the marquis wished to amuse himself and joke around for a little while, do not doubt that he saw as well as I that, even if you gave us innumerable reflections on the nature of grain which no one had deigned to ponder or penetrate, it is possible that you are in favor of [free] export for other reasons which have been either neglected or barely mentioned by the very people who defended it. Therefore, I would not be surprised if you combatted exportation with the same reasons that were used to recommend it, and then defended it with the opposite arguments. It would be quite a remarkable phenomenon, but I expect it. The Marquis, to the President The President is so kind as to ascribe to me intentions I do not have. I say and I persist in maintaining that the Knight claimed he was in favor of exportation solely to be like everybody else, or to exasperate us. Let him speak, and you will see whether I am right. Let us see why you have decided in favor of exportation. The Knight First, if the quantity of grain France produces is uncertain, there might be a real surplus that must be either exported or left to rot. Second, if the true purpose of government is population, and if that population is below what is possible in France, this gap will not be bridged for several generations. While waiting for this fortunate epoch, one must take the most sensible course of action for the moment. Legislation must always concern itself with the current situation, and never the future, because

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there is always time to modify the law when change occurs. Third, if the true wealth of a State must be expected from the progress of Manufactures,5 there is a way to reconcile moderate, regulated exports with a lowpaid labor force. Fourth, if grain is resistant to trade, as it were, because of its weight, delicacy, perishability, and difficulty of circulation in winter, it is, however, certain that a grain trade exists, and that it is the principal preoccupation of almost every poor and agrarian country. As far as France is concerned, it could be a source of profit which should not be neglected, even though one should not expect from it all the good it has been praised for. Fifth, if wholesale trade with foreign countries becomes a monopoly on its own, if retail trade evades the speculation of honest traders, if purchases are difficult and pressing, if the turnover is long, tedious, and full of hazards and waste, it is also true that art corrects Nature in almost everything, and that with time and care, it sometimes manages to completely conquer and tame her. Sixth, if the profits of trade and the value of grain remain almost entirely absorbed by hands that are less dear to the government than those of the Farmer, it is still more fitting that these profits should go into the hands of intermediaries rather than to nobody if the grain were left to rot in lofts. Seventh, finally, property and liberty are sacred rights of men; they are the first among our rights, they are part of us, they constitute our political essence as the body and soul constitute our physical one. Except for the links attaching us to society, nothing must disrupt them. Interests and harm done to third parties belong to the field of justice. The common interest and general harm belong to the field of politics. But when both powerful and demanding Goddesses were pacified, and when nothing hurt their feelings any more, when nothing concerned them, men then received their rights, they became free property owners again, and I know no other legitimate power on earth that could deprive them of these. Neither a Despot’s whims on the one hand, nor a Metaphysician’s speculations on the other, neither the demented screams of the crowd, nor the unfounded fears of a government that is unjust through weakness and arbitrary through timidity, have any legitimate right or valid excuse to meddle in our affairs. . [This had been the argument earlier in the work; see Dialogue Five, pp. –.]

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The Marquis You see how right I was; the Knight agrees with everyone. I mean every true wit [bel esprit]. He says the same thing as all those wits, he speaks like them, and he has eventually come to use those high-flown words— property and liberty! This is the fundamental basis; this is what we must come to in the end! The President I beg your pardon, Marquis, but the Knight is far from agreeing with the Authors you have read. Do you see the exceptions he added to the rights to property and liberty?—The interest of a third party and the common interest. These exceptions are not as small as they seem to you. They can lead him very far. As for his reasons for adopting [free] export, I find him to be in no more agreement with anyone. He announces that exports will not produce those wonderful effects that were expected of them, but lesser ones. He claims that the profit will end up in other hands than those of the farmer. And finally, he wants art to correct everything that Nature opposes to the grain trade, and all the evil that manufactures would receive from an unlimited, ill-considered freedom of exportation. Nothing like that has been said, as far as I know. It was always firmly believed that all you needed was to pass an Edict for commerce, exports, and exchanges to run smoothly on their own, without complications or bad effects. It was even believed that no art, no rule, no precaution was necessary, and it was constantly maintained that agriculture was to be the foundation of national wealth, and that exportation was to be the basis of agriculture. The Marquis I was wrong, I concede. But by the way, my good Knight, how did the trial turn out for our Prelate? The Knight His misfortune was complete. All those who gave their verdicts after him agreed with his verdict, and disagreed with him. The will was quashed.

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The Marquis Ah, I am so glad for the sake of the Lawyer’s honor. Now if I wanted to be mean, I would use your story to utter a prophecy concerning you, but I will not do it. I want to be kind and to keep still. I want to believe that you are genuinely convinced of the usefulness of free exportation as such. You will agree, however, that you cannot be greatly enthusiastic about this exportation, since you do not prefer the trade in foodstuffs over that of manufactures, and even in the grain trade, you maintained that the bulk of the profits will not end up in the farmer’s hands.