Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/378

Rh 362 POLITICAL ECONOMY the sounder and more complete construction of Adam Smith. Italy. In Italy, as in the other European nations, there was little activity in the economic field during the first half of the 18th century. It was then, however, that a BanJiui. really remarkable man appeared, the archdeacon Salustio Antonio Bandini (1G77-1760), author of the Discorso sulla Maremma Sienese, written in 1737, but not published till 1775. The object of the work was to raise the Maremma from the wretched condition into which it had fallen through the decay of agriculture. This decay he showed to be, at least in part, the result of the wretched fiscal system which was in force ; and his book led to important reforms in Tuscany, where his name is held in high honour. Not only by Pecchio and other Italian writers, but by Iloscher also, he is alleged to have anticipated some leading doc trines of the physiocrats, but this claim is disputed. There was a remarkable renascence of economic studies in Italy during the latter half of the century, partly due to French influence, and partly, it would appear, to improved govern ment in the northern states. The movement at first followed the lines of the mercantile school. Thus, in Antonio Broggia s Trattati del tributi e delle monctc c del governo politico delict societd (1743), and Girolamo Belloni s Dis- scrtazione sopra il commcrcio (1750), which seems to have had a success and reputation much above its merits, mercantilist tendencies Genovesi. decidedly preponderate. But the most distinguished writer who re presented that economic doctrine in Italy in the last century was Antonio Genovesi, a Neapolitan (1712-1769). He felt deeply the depressed intellectual and moral state of his fellow-countrymen, and aspired after a revival of philosophy and reform of education as the first condition of progress and wellbeing. With the object of protect ing him from the theological persecutions which threatened him on account of his advanced opinions, Bartolomeo Intieri, of whom we shall hear again in relation to Galiani, founded in 1755, ex pressly for Genovesi, a chair of commerce and mechanics, one of the conditions of foundation being that it should never be filled by a monk. This was the first professorship of economics established in Europe ; the second was founded at Stockholm in 1758, and the third in Lombardy ten years later, for Beccaria. The fruit of the labours ofGeuovesiin this chair was his Lezioni di commercio, ossia di economia civile (1769), which contained the first systematic treatment of the whole subject which had appeared in Italy. As the model for Italian imitation he held up England, a country for which, says Pecchio, he had a predilection almost amounting to fanaticism. He does not rise above the false economic system which England then pursued ; but he rejects some of the grosser errors of the school to which he belonged ; he advocates the freedom of the corn trade, and deprecates regulation of the interest on loans. In the spirit of his age, he denounces the relics of mediaeval institutions, such as entails and tenures in mortmain, as impedi- Galiani. ments to the national prosperity. Ferdinando Galiani was another distinguished disciple of the mercantile school. Before lie had com pleted his twenty-first year he published a work on money (Delia moncta libri cinque, 1750), the principles of which are supposed to have been dictated by two experienced practical men, the marquis Kinuccini and Bartolomeo Intieri, whose name we have already met. But his reputation was made by a book written in French and published in Paris, where he was secretary of embassy, in 1770, namely, his Dialogues sur h commerce des lies. This work, by its light and pleasing style, and the vivacious wit with which it abounded, delighted Voltaire, who spoke of it as a book in the pro duction of which Plato and Moliere might have been combined ! The author, says Pecchio, treated his arid subject as Fontenelle did the vortices of Descartes, or Algarotti the Newtonian system of the world. The question at issue was that of the freedom of the corn trade, then much agitated, and, in particular, the policy of the royal edict of 1764, which permitted the exportation of grain so long as the price had not arrived at a certain height. The general principle he maintains is that the best system in regard to this trade is to have no system, countries differently circumstanced requiring, ac cording to him, different modes of treatment. This seems a lame and impotent conclusion from the side of science.; yet doubtless the physiocrats, with whom his controversy lay, prescribed on this, as on other subjects, rules too rigid for the safe guidance of statesmen, and Galiani may have rendered a real service by protesting against their absolute solutions of practical problems. He fell, however, into some of the most serious errors of the mercantilists, holding, as indeed did also Voltaire and even Verri, that one country cannot gain without another losing, and in his earlier treatise going so far as to defend the action of Governments in debasing the currency, iccana. Amongst the Italian economists who were most under the influ ence of the modern spirit, and in closest harmony with the general movement which was impelling the Western nations towards a new social order, Cesare Beccaria (1738-1794) holds a foremost place. He is best known by his celebrated treatise Dei delitti e delle pcne, by which Voltaire said he had made himself a benefactor of all Europe, and which, we are told, has been translated into twenty-two languages. The empress Catherine having invited him to fix his residence at St Petersburg, the Austrian Government of Lombardy, in order to keep him at home, established expressly for him a chair of political economy ; and in his Elcmodi di cconomia jmbblica (1769-1771 ; not published, however, till 1804) are embodied his teachings as professor. The work is unfinished : he had divided the whole subject under the heads of agriculture, manufactures, commerce, taxation, government ; but he has treated adequately only the first two heads, and the last two not at all, having been called to take part in the councils of the state. He was in some degree under the influence of physiocratic ideas, and holds that agriculture is the only strictly productive form of industry, whilst manufacturers and artisans are a sterile class. He was strongly opposed to monopolies and privileges, and to corporations in arts and trades ; in general he warmly advocated internal industrial freedom, though in regard to foreign commerce a protectionist. In the special case of the corn trade he was not, any more than Galiani, a partisan of absolute liberty. His exposition of economic principles is concise and sententious, and he often states correctly the most important considerations relating to his subject without adding the developments which would be desirable to assist comprehension and strengthen conviction. Thus on &quot;production capital&quot; (capitali fondatori), as distinct from &quot;revenue capital,&quot; in its application to agriculture, he presents in a condensed form essentially the same explanations as Turgot about the same time gave ; and on the division of labour and the circumstances which cause different rates of wages in different employments, he in substance comes near to Smith, but without the fulness of illustration which is so attrac tive a feature of the Wealth of Nations. Pietro Verri (1728-1797), an intimate and life-long friend of Beccaria, was for twenty-live years one of the principal directors of the administration of Lom bardy, iu which capacity he originated many economic and other reforms. In his liiflcssioni sidle leggi vincolanti, principal mcnte nel commercio de grani (written in 1769, printed in 1796), he con siders the question of the regulation of the corn trade both histori cally and in the light of theoretic principles, and arrives at the conclusion that liberty is the best remedy against famine and against excessive fluctuations of price. He is generally opposed to Governmental interference with internal commerce, as well as to trade corporations, and the attempts to limit prices or fix the rate of interest, but is in favour of the protection of national industry by a judiciously framed tariff. These views are explained in his Meditazioni siill economia politico, (1771), an elementary treatise on the science, which was received with favour, and translated into several foreign languages. A primary principle with him is what he calls the augmentation of reproduction that is, in Smith s language, of &quot; the annual produce of the land and labour&quot; of a nation ; and by its tendency to promote or to restrict this augmentation he tests every enactment and institution. Accordingly, unlike Beccaria, he prefers the petite to the grandc culture, as giving a larger total pro duce. In dealing with taxation, he rejects the physiocratic pro posal of a single impot territorial. Giovanni R. Carli (1720-1795), Carli. also an official promoter of the reforms in the government of Austrian Lombardy, besides learned and sound treatises on money, was author of fiagionamcnti sopra i bilanci economics delle nazioni, in which he shows the falsity of the notion that a state gains or loses in foreign commerce according to the so-called balance of trade. In his letter to Pompeo Neri Sul libcro commcrcio de 1 yrani (1771), he takes up a position similar to that of Galiani, regarding the question of the freedom of the corn trade as not so much a scientific as an administrative one, to be dealt with differently under difl erent local or other conditions. Rejecting the physiocratic doctrine of the exclusive productiveness of agriculture, he illustrates in an interest ing way the necessity of various economic classes in a society, and the reflex agency of manufactures in stimulating the cultivation of the soil. Giambattista Vasco (1733-1796) wrote discourses on Vasco. several questions proposed by academies and sovereigns. In these lie condemns trade corporations and the attempts by Governments to fix the price of bread and to limit the interest on loans. In advocating the system of a peasant proprietary, he suggests that the law should determine the minimum and maximum portions ot land which a citizen should be permitted to possess. He also, with a view to prevent the undue accumulation of property, proposes the abolition of the right of bequest, and the equal division of the inheritance amongst the children of the deceased. Gaetano Filan- Filangicri (1752-1788), one of the Italian writers of the last century gieri. whose names are most widely known throughout Europe, devoted to economic questions the second book of his Scicnza dtlla legis- lazione (5 vols., 1780-1785). Filled with reforming ardour and_ a. passionate patriotism, he employed his vehement eloquence in denouncing all the abuses of his time. Apparently without any