IV. The Exchanges Between Villagers and Townsfolk

Dear Tornik, you see it always, and can easily grasp it — what exchange is in our life of giving and taking. A man alone is not sufficed by the fruit of his own labor only; for human society lives by laboring together: that is, what we have, we give, and what we have not, we take. We have many things which the townsman has not; likewise the townsman has many things which we have not.

For example, we have wheat, and many other things of grain and pulse and of the garden; we have sheep and cattle; we have milk, cheese, and butter; and there are besides many other and divers fruits of agriculture, whose surplus we sell, and so procure the things we need — which are very few, for the wants of village life are simpler and unadorned. For our clothing, stuffs of shal-wool and of linen suffice; for the family, the Van calico, red linen, and the local manisa were once enough — but now even Europe's flimsy printed basmas¹ and broadcloths are not counted enough.

Eh, Tornik, the times are changed; the taste of village families too has opened out, like the townsfolk's. The shining adornments of town families beguile, no doubt, our simplicity-loving households. But the village people must strive by every means to keep its plainness and its frugal habits of life; for the villager must live according to his degree. And I shall speak to you again, in a lesson apart, upon this matter.

Besides clothing, the most needful things for the villager's labor are the iron tools, which the town craftsman makes and we buy with money: the share of our gutan,² the scythe and the sickle for the reaping, and the other important things of iron which are indispensable to us, and which the blacksmith makes ready for us.

Ask, Tornik: is it not possible, then, that the villager should see to all his needs himself? Bravo, Tornik — long life to you! that is a very shrewd question: you would have the villager never stand in want of the townsman. Yes, that seems a very easy thing — only let the villager too learn to read and write like the townsfolk, let his mind be opened, let him know how to think and go forward in his own measure; then he will bethink himself, and set a few quick-witted boys apprentice with the town blacksmith; in a little time they learn well, come back to the village, open a smith's shop; and not for their own village only, but for the villages round about, they will make and prepare the needful tools. Leave that — we can prepare our plain garments too, seeing the villager has wool and cotton. Though in our Van country the culture of cotton does not prosper, yet in Mush, Yerznka, Kharberd, and many other provinces the culture of cotton has prospered well enough. Nor will cotton be wanting for the villagers of Van: from the near border of Persia cotton comes in great quantity; the man of Van can buy it, spin it, and weave cloth. But it is better still that the villager prepare his clothing by working shal-stuffs from his own wool — above all in winter time, when he rests from the labors of tillage, he can weave shal and busy himself with other crafts, which for the village people are important and serviceable.

It grieves me sorely, Tornik, that our villagers of Van and of Mush lead a very slothful and workless life — above all the villages round about the city, whose men, resorting to town in troops, dally for days together in the wine-houses, and become drunkards and sots. I do not say that the toiling villager should be denied that enjoyment, which the townsman enjoys in more than measure. And do you know? — the vineyards of Van and of the villages round about yield well-nigh two hundred thousand litras³ of wine, and all of it the merry, wine-loving people of Van drinks up and consumes. And what should it do but consume it? for by the following year it turns to vinegar. The vine-keepers do not know the art of wine-making; and did they know it, it were still of no avail: they cannot turn it to account, since they have no means of carriage — the sea is very far, the roads hard and unleveled. By the provident care of the state, in many provinces of Turkey roads have been built and made smooth from city to city, and the trade of those provinces goes forward day by day; we have hope that our provinces too will have the same fortune, and then not the wine only, but the fruits of tillage besides will be able to be carried down to the harbor of Trebizond.⁴

There, dear Tornik: in answering your question, the order of talk so fell out that I spoke of other things besides; but I must come back to your question, and expound to you one indispensable law of the world's economy, which binds human society together by the means of mutual profit and of trade. You would have the villager, by his own labor, see to all his own needs, and never stand in want of buying anything of the townsfolk to supply them.

Eh, Tornik, there you go astray: that judgment is a mere childish wish, contrary to the whole of human society, to its moral union and its profit of concord. And you must know that human society lives each part by the other: the want and lack of the one, the other supplies; and everything in this world is governed by exchange. How would you have it — carry your wheat to town and sell it, and turn home again taking nothing from the market? that is, only sell, and never buy? Such a trade is very wrongful and unjust; at one stroke it would be a great despoiling both of the merchants and of the craftsmen, and the door of their livelihood would be shut. For as you live by selling wheat and the other fruits of tillage, so the merchant too lives by selling his wares. Of the people of a province the greatest part is villagers: if the villager cut off his trading from the city, could the city people live? Likewise, can the village people live, if it sell not the fruits of its tillage to the townsfolk, or in its straits turn not to a town friend and take a loan? Who does not know that the villager's treasury is the city? The poor villager, with the whole crop of his tillage, still cannot meet his needs and his debts and pay the state's taxes in due season. For this he is ever constrained to turn to the moneyed townsman and ask money on loan.

Of this I shall speak yet again, Tornik; and you must be persuaded, and learn, that city lives by village and village by city; for it is an appointed law of the world's economy, whereby whole nations and peoples are governed.