Estudio Economistas Franceses entre ellos Quesnai.

STUDIES ON THE ORIGIN OF THE FRENCH

ECONOMISTS.

The French school of thinkers, which preceded and influenced

in so marked a manner the British originators of systematic

economics, and which in consideration of its recent

revival is rendered still more interesting, has hitherto been

judged in a most contradictory manner. "Their method and

fundamental ideas were negative," says Mr. Ingram, " resting,

as they did, essentially on the basis of the jtis naturae."" * On

the other hand, however, an authority no less respectable than

the late Professor Jevons declares that " the truth is with the

French school, and, the sooner we recognize the fact, the

better it will be for aU the world." f

It would be almost as difficult to reconcile these divergent

opinions as to arrive at a definite conclusion through the

known works of the phyBlocratic school. The followers of

Quesnay, jealous of their prestige, purposely concealed the

circumstances which led to the development of their science

and endowed it with its characteristic method. They declared

that about the year 1750 two ingenious men, Quesnay

and Goumay, had asked themselves "whether the i^ture of

things did not tend towards a science of political economy, and

what the principles of this science were." The task of specifying

this " nature of things " they, however, left to posterity,

unconscious that the superficial attire of their theories might

some time be mistaken for their essence.

The discovery of some manuscripts and letters of Quesnay,

the leader of the school, have rendered me doubtful as to

whether the historians of political economy have hitherto done

justice to the methods and intentions of the French economists.

I have elsewhere given copious extracts from the

manuscripts in question, % and am gratified now to have an

opportunity of exhibiting to an Anglo-American public the

results which my researches have yielded.

* A History of Political Economy, p. 67.

t Theory of Political Economy, p. xllll.

tJahrbVicher fnr Nationatdkonomie und StatistVc, N. F., Bd. xxl., August.

1890, "Zur BntsteLung der Physlokratie."

NOTES AND MEMORANDA 101

Two years ago. Professor A. Oncken, of Bern, re-edited the

works of Quesnay, affirming that the celebrated Tableau .Economique

was lost forever; and, moreover, he was unable to find

the articles " Hommes," ** Imp&t," and «InterSt de 1'Argent,"

which, Hke the well-known articles " Fermiers " and " Grains,"

Quesnay had written for the great JEncydop&die, but which he

had withdrawn when the latter work was forbidden by the government

in 1757. Professor Alfred Stern, of Zurich, who was

just preparing his Idfe of JUrabeau, expressed in a criticism

of Oncken's edition th« opinion that at least fragments of the

Tableau .Economique might be found among the papers of

Mirabeau the elder in the Archives Nationales at Paris. My

friend, the historian. Dr. Ludo Moritz Hartmann, of the University

of Vienna, drew my attention: to these observations;

and, when studying the history of economics at Paris, I found

the following documents: the original manuscript of the first

edition of the Tableau/ a second edition printed in three

copies; a series of letters of Quesnay to Mirabeau, explaining

his economical and political ideas; and a manuscript copy of

Cantillon's Eaaai sur la Nature du Commerce en GenSral. Encouraged

by these discoveries, I investigated the catalogue of

manuscripts in the Bibliothdque Nationale. There I found the

article " Homines." All my further researches have hitherto

proved fruitless; but I regard the new materials as a sufficient

justification for venturing a view different from the one commonly

accepted concerning the rise and methods of economics

in France.

The article " Hommes" is a statistical, historical, and theoretical

inquiry into the subject of population, its distribution

and its decreasing tendency, and into the causes of the latter

phenomenon. By a careful estimate, the author arrives at the

conclusion that an artificial policy had drained the people from

the country into the towns, by depriving them of their means

of subsistence. Fiscal extortion, occasioned by the military

policy of Louis XIV. and the favor bestowed upon the towns

in providing cheap bread, had caused great agricultural distress.

He shows that high prices accompanied the development

of agriculture in England, whereas low prices changed

the farmers of France into retailers and servants.

102 QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS

The stress laid upon English agriculture hy Quesnay induced

me to further investigations upon that point. I found

that the new methods of agriculture which were introduced

in England about the year 1730 hy Jethro Tull, Coke, and Viscount

Townsend, had produced the greatest sensation in

France. Duhamel du Monceau had systematized in 1750 the

"New Horsehoeing Husbandry" of Tull, and among the

French landed proprietors who availed themselves of these

innovations was the royal physician, Frangois Quesnay.* His

practical experience as an agriculturist gave him, it is natural

to suppose, a most vivid insight into the distress of

his neighbors, who from want of capital were unable to compete

with their wealthier rivals. At the same time, his theoretical

superiority over his predecessors was largely due to his

knowledge of English economics. The works of Locke and

Law had indeed influenced French economists like M61on and

Dupr6 de St. Maur.f But Cantillon's work was almost exclusively

the source of the physiocrat doctrine that the application

of capital to agriculture is the sole fountain of aU

wealth. Besides this last representative of English physiocracy,

which was to a good extent a development of mercantilism,!

Hiune's essays (translated in 1754 into French) gave a

proof of the futility of the reigning doctrine of the balance of

trade. But his theory of the creation of wealth hy labor, the

outcome of Sir William Petty's doctrine of its production hy

population, which Cantillon had accepted and Miraheau had

subsequently introduced into his Ami des Sommes (1756), was

refuted hy Quesnay. For in France capital was wanting, and

the increase of population seemed to be the consequence, and

not the cause of it. This divergence from the English doctrine

is therefore to be ascribed to his observations, as set

forth in his articles.

• His suocesBful experiments are described by Henry Fatullo, Essai ntr I'JnUlioration

des Terres, 1768, p. 77.

tin the Ephimerides du Citoyen for 1769, U., p. 67, Dupont de Nemours

regrets that the wise principles and truths found in the works of Culpeper,

Locke, Decker, Child, and especially Joslah Tucker, had not become known

earlier.

tin an article on Cantillon, in the forthcoming DlMonary o/PoUticaZ Eoonomy,

edited by Mr. B. H. Inglis Faigrave, I shall Introduce such proofs as will

indicate his English nationality.

NOTES AND MEMORANDA lOS

The inference he drew was a negative one indeed: that

all economic reform must commence with putting aside all

restrictioDS on the exportation of corn, which occasioned a

want of outlet and the ruin of the rural population. But

such a negative programme could not be prescribed as a

cure for another national distress,— the financial confusion.

Machault, the controller of finances of 1750, was unable to create

order, and after him Silhouette gave a fatal blow to public

credit. His successor in 1760 found the treasury empty.

One vingti^me was raised after another. The parliaments

protested in vain agamst government vexations, but, in spite

of the public calamity, were unable to recommend other measures

than " economy in the necessary expenses."

Plans of financial reform, especially concerning the taille,

had been modelled a long time before. The levelling and

centralizing tendency of Louis XIV.'s administrative policy

had given its stamp to most of them. One of the first of

tbese "systems," the dime royale of Vauban, exhibits the

advantages of a tenth upon all estates whatever. Other

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