Note A2-5-13 — Chapter III

The important controversy concerning absenteeism may be answered in accordance with the principles laid down in this chapter. The mercantile system considered the rent sent to absentee landlords or capitalists as a tribute paid to foreign countries; but certainly improperly, as such rent is only the fruit of their property which the owners might have consumed in their own country, without giving any one a particle of it. Besides, these rents are not sent in cash to foreign countries, but in the form of those commodities to the exportation of which the country is peculiarly well adapted. Let us suppose, for instance, that the Irish absentees had all left the country at once. The tradesmen, personal servants, etc., to whom they had hitherto furnished employment would be greatly embarrassed to find a market for their services, etc., but the producers of linen and meat would have largely increased their exports, because an entirely new demand for their products would have arisen through the farmers of the absentees. The reverse would necessarily happen if all absentees were suddenly called home. Absenteeism which has lasted a long time injures no one economically. Many, recently, laud it even, because it permits every nation to devote their energies to the branches of production for which they are best qualified: Paris, for instance, to theatrical and luxury wares. The savings made by the English absentees on the continent, where things are cheaper, turn eventually to the advantage of England. (Thus, even Petty: Political Anatomy of Ireland, p. 81 ff. Foster, On the Principle of Commercial Exchanges between Great Britain and Ireland, 1804, p. 76 ff. Edinb. Rev., 1827. F. B. Hermann, Staatswirthschaftl. Untersuchungen, 355, 363 ff. Per contra, especially, Discourse of Trade and Coyn, 1697, p. 99. M. Prior, List of the Absenters of Ireland, 1730. A. Young; Tour in Ireland, 1780. Sir J. Sinclair, Hist. of the Public Revenue, 1804, III, 192 seq. Lady Morgan, On Absenteeism, 1825.) An aversion for absenteeism plays a chief part in all Carey's writings. Thus, even in his Rate of Wages, 45 ff.

On medieval complaints concerning the absenteeism of monasteries: Bodmann, Rheingauische Alterthümer, 751. From a higher point of view, it cannot, indeed, be ignored that absenteeism, largely developed, cripples the organic whole of national life. The most highly cultured and influential classes become estranged from their country, the great mass remaining behind coarser, economic production more one-sided, and all social contrasts more sharply defined. Disturbances in Rome, when Diocletian removed his residence from there; the decline of the Netherlands, very much promoted by the discontent which Philip II.'s departure for Spain produced. It was estimated, however, in 1697, that the English absentees caused a gain to France of £200,000 per annum. (Discourse of Trade, p. 93.) It is said that about 1833, 80,000 Englishmen traveled on the continent, and consumed £12,000,000 there. (Rau.) According to Brückner, the Russians who travel in foreign countries take 20,000,000 rubles a year out of the country with them. (Hildebrand's Jahrb., 1863, 59.) That the countries which receive these travelers receive no very great benefit from them, see in J. B. Say, Cours pratique. In Paris, there were, even in 1797, so many strangers who so enhanced the rents paid for maisons garnies that their expulsion was proposed. (A. Schmidt, Pariser Zustände, III, 78.)