Note 30 — Chapter I · : THE PHYSIOCRATS

Baudeau, Éphém. ix (1770). One feels that the Physiocrats go too far when they say that “the merchant who sells goods may occasionally prove as useful as the philanthropist who gives them, because want puts a price upon the service of the one just as it does upon the charity of the other.” (Du Marchand de Grains, in the Journal de l’Agriculture, du Commerce, et des Finances, December 1773, quoted in a thesis on the corn trade by M. Curmond, 1900.) We must insist upon the fact that “unproductive” or “sterile” did not by any means signify “useless.” They saw clearly enough that the labour of the weaver who makes linen out of flax or cloth out of wool is at any rate as useful as that of the cultivator who produced the wool and the flax, or rather that the latter’s toil would be perfectly useless without the industry of the former. They also realised that although we may say that agricultural labour is more useful than that of the weaver or the mason, especially when the land is used for raising corn, one cannot say as much when that same land is employed in producing roses, or mulberry trees for rearing silkworms.