As on Merseia in "Day of Burning," Falkayn has to arrange a conference on Ikrananka to resolve all the problems.
He says:
"'...we want to trade, and you can't trade during a war.'" (p. 202)
You can and do. Everything used during a war is made and sold by someone. But, ok, you can't trade during a war in the way that SSL wants to, although almost immediately, he adds:
"'...we will sell you firearms.'" (p. 203)
Falkayn uses the phrase, "'...an equality of dissatisfaction.'" (p. 205) Googling this phrase, I found a review of The Trouble Twisters.
I will be interested to reread the other two stories partly to see what they say about Hermes.
12 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
Yes, trade has occurred, even between warring belligerents in times of war. With it being commonly understood that merchants would not sell goods militarily useful to their country's enemies.
You could have added that SS & K was willing to sell weapons to Jadhadi III, the Deodakh Emperor of Katandara, because of his anxiety over barbarian raiders harrying his border lands.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean,
I read somewhere that Napoleon's soldiers wore British-made boots. Economics is more basic than politics.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
That I had not known. I was thinking of the wine trade between France and the UK, which continued in the 18th century uninterrupted, despite their many wars. Britons would import the wines, and pay the French vintners thru neutral third parties (who got a fee, of course).
We have both read of how the French loved colorful uniforms, and had to learn the hard way the wisdom of switching to plain earth colored uniforms after suffering gruesome losses at the beginning of WW I. And it was revealed the red dyes for those uniforms were imported from Germany!
Ad astra! Sean
But Napoleon's forces didn't use British muskets or gunpowder, though both were both better and cheaper than their French equivalents, and the French would have been delighted to buy them.
The British government forbade that, and the British mercantile community helped enforce it.
Conversely, Napoleon tried to forbid British sales of, for example, cloth (and shoes, and cutlery and pottery) in the territories under his control for the same reason the British government allowed it.
Which was that keeping up exports to the Continent allowed the British economy, and particularly its much larger commercial and manufacturing sector, to flourish; which gave the British government the money (and, even more important, the credit) to continue fighting Napoleon and subsidizing his enemies.
Hence Napoleon didn't try hard to stop -exports- of goods to Britain; he just wanted (and tried hard) to stop -imports- from Britain.
This was because if there weren't compensating imports of British goods to Europe, the -British- imports would have to be paid in gold, which would undermine the British government's revenue base.
In other words, economics is a dependent subset of politics.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree. I have read of how Napoleon's attempts at "blockading" imports from the UK to France and the territories under his control was a big factor in spreading resentment of French domination of Europe thru out the Continent. And many other factors, of course.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yup.
France had a bigger market in luxury goods, high-price, high-quality stuff.
But it was generations behind the British in mass production of cheap stuff ordinary people used -- cloth (especially cotton cloth), iron utensils and tools, that sort of thing.
British goods in those categories were better and cheaper, and people resented not being able to get them.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
Which makes me think Napoleon had gone as far as he prudently could have by 1808, when he made the mistake of invading Spain and setting up his brother Joseph as a client king. He should have been content to be merely King of France, instead of Emperor of Europe. But his lack of legitimacy and his soaring ambitions made Boney unwilling to settle for such modest goals.
Ad astra! Sean
As Talleyrand put it, "he did not know when to stop".
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And met his downfall at Waterloo.
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: well, sorta. He might have remained emperor of France for a while if he'd won at Waterloo, but that's doubtful. His first exile remains the point at which France acknowledged that his attempt to dominate Europe (implying French hegemony) had failed, and the victorious coalition was far too powerful for him to reverse that verdict.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
I agree, Napoleon had made himself so bitterly hated by practically all of Europe that they would never agree to tolerate him remaining on the French throne. I think the Congress of Vienna even declared him an outlaw cast out from beyond all civilized protections, that he could rightfully be killed by anyone.
Ad astra! Sean
Post a Comment