Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 2Roscher, Wilhelm
General
Principles of Political Economy, Vol. 2
Roscher, Wilhelm
Economics
[Footnote 220-2: The custom of burying treasure is produced
by a want of security (compare _Montanari_, Delia Moneta,
1683-87, 97 Cust.), and by an absence of the spirit which
leads to production. As _Burke_ says, where property is not
sacred, gold and silver fly back into the bosom of the earth
whence they came. Hence, in the middle ages, this custom was
frequent, and is yet, in most oriental despotic countries.
(_Montesquieu_, E. des L., XXII, 2.) And so in Arabia: _d'Arvieux_,
_Rosenmüller's_ translation, 61 seq. _Fontanier_, Voyage dans l'Inde
et dans le Golfe persique, 1644, I, 279. A Persian governor on his
death bed refused to give any information as to where he had buried
his treasure. His father had always murdered the slave who helped him
to bury his money or any part of it. (_Klemm_, Kulturgeschichte, VII,
220.) In lower stages of civilization, it is a very usual luxury to
have one's treasures buried with the corpse. In relation to David's
grave, see _Joseph._, Ant. Jud., VII, 15,3, XIII, 8, 4; XVI, 7, 1.
Hence the orientals believe that _every_ unknown ruin hides a
treasure, that every unintelligible inscription is a talisman to
discover it by, and that every scientific traveler is a
treasure-digger, (_v. Wrede_, R. in Hadhramaut, 113, 182 and
_passim_.) Similarly in Sicily. (_Rehfues_, Neuester Zustand von S.,
1807, I, 99.) In the East Indies every circumstance that weakens
confidence in the power of the government increases the frequency of
treasure-burial, as was noticed, for instance, after the Afghan
defeat. Treasure-burial by the Spanish peasantry (_Borrego_,
translated by Rottenkamp, 81), in Ireland (_Wakefield_, Account of I.
I, 593), in the interior of Russia (_Storch_, Handbuch, I, 142), and
among the Laplanders. The custom was very much strengthened among the
latter when, in 1813, they lost 80 per cent. by the bankruptcy of the
state through its paper money. (_Brooke_, Winter in Lapland, 1829,
119; compare _Blom_, Statistik von Norwegen, II, 205.) As during the
Thirty Years' War, so also in 1848, it is said that large amounts of
money were burned by the Silesian and Austrian peasantry. Much of it
is lost forever, but, on the whole, much treasure is wont to be found
where much is buried; governments there make it a regal right to
search for it.]
[Footnote 220-3: If the hoarding takes place in a time of
superfluity, and the restitution of the stores in a time of
want, there is of course no detrimental disturbance, but on
the contrary the consequence is a beneficent equilibrium of
prices. This is the fundamental idea in the storage of
wheat.]
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