However that may be, since we must refer to what the Socialists call a
parasite, I would ask, which of the two is the most exacting parasite
the merchant or the official?
Commerce (free, of course, otherwise I could not reason upon it),
commerce, I say, is led by its own interests to study the seasons, to
give daily statements of the state of the crops, to receive information
from every part of the globe, to foresee wants, to take precautions
beforehand. It has vessels always ready, correspondents everywhere; and
it is its immediate interest to buy at the lowest possible price, to
economize in all the details of its operations, and to attain the
greatest results by the smallest efforts. It is not the French merchants
only who are occupied in procuring provisions for France in time of
need, and if their interest leads them irresistibly to accomplish their
task at the smallest possible cost, the competition which they create
amongst each other leads them no less irresistibly to cause the
consumers to partake of the profits of those realised savings. The corn
arrives: it is to the interest of commerce to sell it as soon as
possible, so as to avoid risks, to realise its funds, and begin again
the first opportunity.
Directed by the comparison of prices, it distributes food over the whole
surface of the country, beginning always at the highest, price, that is,
where the demand is the greatest.
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