562 POLITICAL INSTITUTIONS. 



was exacted from dependents by local rulers, and became 

 also a form of tribute to the central ruler ; as instance the 

 specified numbers of days work which, before the Revolution, 

 had to be given by French peasants to the State under the 

 name of corvte. 



After presents freely given have passed into presents 

 expected and finally demanded, and volunteered help has 

 passed into exacted service, the way is open for a further 

 step. Change from the voluntary to the compulsory, accom 

 panied as it necessarily is by specification of the amounts 

 of commodities and work required, is apt to be followed 

 eventually by substitution of money payments. During 

 stages in which there has not arisen a circulating medium, 

 the ruler, local or general, is paid his revenue in kind. In 

 Fiji a chiefs house is supplied with daily food by his depen 

 dents ; and tribute is paid by the chiefs to the king &quot;in yams, 

 taro, pigs, fowls, native cloth, &c.&quot; In Tahiti, where besides 

 supplies derived from &quot; the hereditary districts of the reigning 

 family,&quot; there were &quot; requisitions made upon the people;&quot; the 

 food was generally brought cooked. In early European 

 societies, too, the expected donations to the ruler continued to 

 be made partly in goods, animals, clothes, and valuables of 

 all kinds, long after money was in use. But the convenience 

 both of giver and receiver prompts commutation, when the 

 values of the presents looked for have become settled. And 

 from kindred causes there also comes, as we have seen in a 

 previous chapter, commutation of military services and com 

 mutation of labour services. No matter what its nature, that 

 which was at first spontaneously offered, eventually becomes 

 a definite sum taken, if need be, by force a tax. 



544. At the same time his growing power enables the 

 political head to enforce demands of many other kinds. 

 European histories furnish ample proofs. 



Besides more settled sources of revenue, there had, in the 

 early feudal period, been established such others as are typ- 



