Napoleon
understood nothing of all this. Like everybody
else, he saw
the results but not the causes, and, since these
results were so
unspeakably bad, was filled with indignation.
Nor was
indignation left without fuel or draught. Necker, as
has been said,
had forced his way into the King's Treasury as a
representative
of the debt system, owing allegiance only to that
system. It had
been his business, before he became a minister,
to prevent the
King from getting out of debt by adopting
Turgot's plans.
To that end he had founded, in Paris, a number
of newspapers
in which, side by side, were presented accounts
of the profligacy
of the Court at Versailles and of the poverty
and
wretchedness of France. The moral was Rousseau's moral
namely, that
society must be reconstituted on a basis of
Liberty and
Equality. The basis actually aimed at namely,
debt was not,
of course, disclosed, and so few people guessed
that what was
really intended was the capture of the French
monarchy by the
financiers in the manner in which the English
monarchy had
already been captured.
https://archive.org/stream/napoleontheportr015065mbp/napoleontheportr015065mbp_djvu.txt
Mirabeau did not wish to see the international bankers possess themselves of these lands in exchange for an overdraft. " Credit money," he declared, "is a theft or a loan collected, sword in hand."
The coalition against which he had dared to tilt was London's coalition, and he was fighting, not an enemy of flesh and blood, but a system established m every land and everywhere, England not excepted, exerting an iron despotism over trade and production and, through these, over government itself,
...
This last advantage outweighed all the others in the First Consul's mind, because he remained implacably determined to pursue his own economic policy namely : m ''Agriculture, industry, and foreign trade. Agriculture is the soul, the foundation of the kingdom; industry ministers to the comfort and happiness of the population, Foreign trade is the superabundance; it allows of the due exchange of the surplus of agriculture and industry. . . . Foreign trade, which in its results is infinitely inferior to agriculture, was an object of secondary importance in my mind, Foreign trade ought to be the servant of agriculture and home industry; these last ought never to be subordinated to foreign trade." This economic system threatened the possessions of no other nation, but constituted, as Napoleon knew, a deadly danger to the debt system of London, for the reason that, when home trade is allowed to expand to ks full extent, producers of goods, being assured of their markets, get out of debt and are enabled, in consequence, to sell their surplus products more cheaply than producers in other countries who are carrying a burden of debt. Debt in such circumstances cannot be endured by any nation and must inevitably disappear from all nations.
...
Meanwhile plans were discussed whereby French agriculture and French industry might be stimulated in every possible way. Napoleon was determined that his factories should constitute the market for his farms and his farms for his factories, and that these two should be protected against any influences tending to upset their interdependence. The system is as old as civilization and possesses an effectiveness in making those who adopt it prosperous which has been displayed again and again in human story, Essentially, it consists in equating consumption to pro- duction until the demand for home-made or home-grown goods has been fully satisfied. Such unwanted surpluses as may then exist are exchanged for foreign goods, of which the home supply is insufficient. Since the power to consume is the power to buy, it is obvious that the amount of money in the markets must be equal, at a given level of prices, to the amount of goods and must be kept equal, for if not consumption and production will at once get out of step with one another in the language of economics, prices will begin to fluctuate, rising when the amount of buying power exceeds the amount of goods on sale and falling when buying power is less than the amount of goods.
...
The difference between Napoleon's system and the system of London resided, as has been indicated, in the attitude to the level of prices. The London bankers lived by preventing the equating of production and consumption. Production in England was stimulated while consumption was being restricted; 1 ^ prices, in consequence, tended to fall and to go on falling so that neither farmers nor industrialists could ever earn enough to cover the cost of new capital goods, and were forced to borrow con- tinuously from the banks, Most English farmers had to mort- gage their crops before they were planted, and most English manufacturers built and equipped their factories with debt. Wages were very small because, had they been allowed to rise, interests on the debts could not have been paid. The home market in consequence possessed little power of absorbing goods, which had to be disposed of at foreign markets.
...
Inherent in his regulation of markets was his determination to be independent of London, whether in the matter of colonial produce or in that of tariffs. Nor, as his clear exposition shows, was he under any misapprehension. He knew that it was the monopoly of money, supported by the monopoly of raw materials, that he was challenging, The enemy was not Eng- land at all but Lombard Street, the Debt System, which had defeated and replaced the debt-free system of mediaeval Europe, Christianity and leadership were the guarantees of the debt-free system just as speculative philosophy, party government, and a subsidized Press were the guarantee of the Debt System.
Napoleon Imperator
Nor was there anything hap- hazard in this conduct, for he knew that it was part of the System of London to give subsidies to noblemen so that they might resist their sovereigns and thus bring the government of States into the power of moneylenders.
