THE OCTROI AT ISSOIRE. 435 



It is a well-known fact that individuals become poor simply be- 

 cause tbey spend their money. So with cities. What is true of 

 the individual is doubly true of the community, itself but an ag- 

 gregation of individuals. Nations, as well as individuals, grow 

 rich by doing their own work. Commerce, as is well known, is a 

 great drain on the resources of a town as of a nation. Now, if in 

 some way we can keep the money of a town within its limits, the 

 town can not fail to grow rich. As Benjamin Franklin once ob- 

 served, " A penny saved is twopence earned." The great problem 

 in municipal economics is this : How shall we keep the town's 

 money from going out of it ? How shall we best discourage buy- 

 ing — especially the buying of articles from dealers outside ? 



To meet this problem, the wisdom of the fathers devised the 

 octroi. 



In view of the prospective introduction of the octroi into 

 America (and I trust that I am violating no confidence in saying 

 that this is the real object of the present visit to Europe on the 

 part of one of America's foremost statesmen), it is worth while to 

 examine carefully its nature and advantages. 



Years ago, before the octroi came to Issoire, the city was noted 

 chiefly for the barter of farm products. The farmers used to bring 

 in grains, hides, cheese, and other produce, which they would ex- 

 change for clothing, sugar, coffee, tobacco, and the various neces- 

 saries of existence. The merchants used to load the grain into 

 wagons which were driven across the country to the city of Cler- 

 mont. Here the grain was exchanged for clothing, food, and all 

 manner of necessaries and luxuries which were made in Clermont, 

 or which had been brought thither from the great city of Lyons. 

 There were long processions of these wagons, and all through the 

 autumn and winter they went in and out. And the Issoire people 

 were very proud of them, for neither coming nor going were they 

 empty, and the teamsters of Issoire were the most skillful in the 

 whole basin of the Loire. 



But the mayor of the city and other thoughtful people saw 

 cause for shame rather than for pride in the condition of Issoire's 

 industries. It was ruinous thus steadily to carry away the wealth 

 of the land and to exchange it for perishable articles. When a 

 wagon-load of boots, for example, had been all worn out, then the 

 boots were gone. The money that had been paid for them was 

 gone, and, so far as Issoire was concerned, it was as much lost as 

 if money and boots had been sunk in the bottom of the sea. The 

 money that was paid out, I say. Not so with the money that was 

 paid in. If those boots had been bought in Issoire, the money 

 that they cost would still be in town, still be in circulation, and 

 would go from one to another in the way that money is meant to 

 go. This drain must be stopped, and the octroi could stop it. So 



