M. Horace Say wishes trade in meat
to be free. Among other reasons he puts forward this strictly
mathematical argument:
The butcher who wants to retire from business seeks a purchaser
for his investment; he figures in the account his tools, his
merchandise, his reputation, and his custom; but under the
present system, he adds to these the value of the bare
title,--that is, the right to share in a monopoly. Now, this
supplementary capital which the purchasing butcher gives for the
title bears interest; it is not a new creation; this interest
must enter into the price of his meat. Hence the limitation of
the number of butchers' stalls has a tendency to raise the price
of meat rather than lower it.
I do not fear to affirm incidentally that what I have just said
about the sale of a butcher's stall applies to every charge
whatever having a salable title.
M. Horace Say's reasons for the abolition of the butcher's
privilege are unanswerable; moreover, they apply to printers,
notaries, attorneys, process-servers, clerks of courts,
auctioneers, brokers, dealers in stocks, druggists, and others,
as well as to butchers.
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