“Not here. We travel along a vast line;” and he stretched his arms east and west with a most important look. “In the west, we do as they do in the west,—we pass the Emperor’s coin. In the east, we do as they do in the east,—we make no objection to whatever gain they put in our way.”
“But do they make no objection? It seems to me that there must be perpetual objections. One says, ‘Give me wool for rye.’ ‘I have rye enough,’ says the shepherd. ‘What do you want most?’ asks the cultivator. ‘Fish.’ So the cultivator goes to the fisherman, and says, ‘Give me fish for rye.’ The fisherman wants no rye, but skins; so, even if the hunter happily wants rye, the cultivator has to manage three bargains before he can get his wool. This seems to me a system open to many objections.”
“Yes; the people are as long in exchanging their fish and their furs as in catching and curing them. But what is that to us? We reckon upon spending twice as much time where there is barter as where there is sale; but we make our gain accordingly.”
“Aye, to the injury of your customers: they lose their time in bargaining, and by not dividing their labours; and they also pay you largely for the loss of your time. Truly, they are losers in every way. Why do not you teach them to use money?—then you would finish your traffic, and get home before these storms could overtake you.”
The merchant laughed, and said that some ways were better for some kinds of people, and others for others. The thing that took the most time, after all, was the measuring quantities of different articles against one another, and agreeing upon their value. Every man could tell how much trouble and expense his own article had cost him, and nobody could judge in the same way of his neighbour’s: a third party was necessary to decide between them.
“Oh, aye; and you merchants are the third party, and so have the pronouncing upon the value both of the goods you buy and the goods you sell. It may be very profitable to you to keep exchange in this rude state; but it would be a prodigious convenience and saving to the people to have the value of their produce measured, and made somewhat steady, by a standard which should not vary very much.”
The merchant thought things had better go on as they were. Gold and silver coins were much more valuable among the wise people that lived westwards than among the simple folks to the east.
“As gold and silver, certainly,” said Paul; “for savages have little notion of their being valuable. Even my wife there wore as much gold as a duchess would have been glad of, the first time I saw her, and would have given it all away for as many steaks of horse-flesh as she carried ounces of precious metal. But, as money, some such article would be useful to savages in the same way as to civilized people. It would save their time and labour, and prevent their being cheated by you, Mr. Merchant.”
The merchant still remained an enemy to innovation; like all who profit largely by things as they are. So Paul pursued,
“I assure you I can speak to the want savages have of money. Even in our little company, inhabiting only five huts in all——”