121 et seq.-A. Meitzen, Siedelung und Agrarwesen der West Germanen (1895), vol. ii. p. 129.-E. Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages (1871), pp. 8 et seq.-J. Rae, "Why have the Yeomanry Perished?" in Contemp Rev. xliv. 546.

(3) By writers on Poor Law:-J. Bentham, Pauper Management, Pref.-J. Bonar, Malthus and his Work, p. 880.-W. Cunningham, Growth of English Industry (1892), ii. 507.-F. M. Eden, State of the Poor (1797), vol. i. pp. 340, 485.-Sir G. C. Lewis, Local Disturbances in Ireland (1836), p. 56.

(4) By social historians:- A. Babeau, La vie rurale dans l'ancienne France (1883).-Cunningham, Lecky, and Sir G. C. Lewis, ubi supra.-H. Traill, Social England, vol. v. (1896), 452-459.

(5) By statistical historians :-Chalmers, Estimate (1782), pp. 178, 179.-W. Cunningham, l.c., vol. ii. p. 691.-A. de Foville, Le morcellement (1885).-W. E. Ĥ. Lecky, Hist. of Eng. (1888-90), vol. i. p. 563; vol. v. p. 384; vol. vi. p. 190.-R. Prothero, .c., pp. 269, 281. -J. E. T. Rogers, Industrial and Commercial History (1892).-H. v. Sybel, French Revolution, trans. by Perry, vol. i. pp. 23, 25, 27, 30, 37, etc.-Tooke and Newmarch, Hist. of Prices (1857), vol. vi. pp. 886-392.] J. D. R.

[Young was a Suffolk man, he passed his boyhood and much of his later life at Bradfield, near

ZACCHIA, L. (17th century). jurist.

An Emilian

Zacchia was the author of a Latin treatise on wages which deserves mention for the rarity of the consideration of that subject in the days when he wrote. He distinguishes different forms of wages, but he was unable to make a comprehensive study of a phenomenon, such as wages, which was the exception at that time; the two distinct classesworkmen and employers-not being then fully formed. Zacchia regards wages as the reward for any description of work, and he gives very little thought to workmen's wages. He limits himself to the statement that an adequate wage is fixed by a monarch or by law, by custom or contract, and failing these by a judge, who in fixing them should take account of the ability of the workman, the quality of his work, and the price of food. Zacchia studies the judicial effects on wages of alterations in the value of money.

Tractatus de salario seu operariorum mercede,

ZACHARIAS, Orro (19th century), a doctor in Silesia, wrote:

Die Gefährdung der socialen Wohlfahrt durch die zu frühen Eheschliessungen der Besitzlosen (1880).

ZANON, ANTONIO (1696-1770), was born at Udine, and was a merchant, a manufacturer, and student of economics. In Friuli he improved the cultivation of the mulberry-tree and the silk trade, and established a silk manufactory in Venice. He founded the Società Georgica in Udine for the promotion of agriculture.

Zanon left many letters and works on agrarian economics, agriculture, and commerce, and the silk industry; all his works were reprinted in nine volumes in Udine (1828-1831). Theoretically he followed the school of GENOVESI, that is to say, he advocated a moderate mercantilism, but his writings are chiefly of practical importance.

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Bury St. Edmunds, an estate which remained in his family till 1896. The influence of his surroundings is visible in all his writings.]

YOUNG, MAJOR GAVIN, of the Bengal army, described by M'Culloch as "a gentleman of talent and varied attainments" (Literature of Political Economy, p. 109), wrote:

on

Observations on the Opinions of several Writers on various historical, political, and metaphysical Questions, Calcutta, 1817, 8vo (contains articles "British Finance," and Funding System,' "Distinction between Productive and Unproductive Labour").-An Inquiry into the Expediency of applying the Principles of Colonial Policy to the Government of India, London, 1822, 8vo.-A Further Inquiry into the Expediency, etc., London, 1827, 8vo (both anonymous; to induce Englishmen to settle in India).-An Essay on the Mercantile Theory of Wealth, Calcutta, 1882, 8vo (defending the theory).

H. R. T.

Dell' agricoltura, arti, commercio, ec., Lettere, 1763-67.-Della utilità morale, economica e politica delle accademie di agricoltura, etc., 1771.-[See Errera, Storia dell' economia politica nei secoli XVII e XVIII negli Stati della Repubblica Veneta, 1877; Piemonte, Antonio Zanon, economista friuliano, 1891.]

ZECCHI, LELIO (1532-1610).

U. R.

A political writer and theologian of Brescia. In his writings he discusses various economic subjects; his treatise on usury traces usury in different contracts and in its different forms, according to the strict ideas prevailing in his day.

His work on the political method to be followed by a monarch bears on the question of food-supply-he advocates encouraging agriculture. the import of provisions, fixed prices for food, and the infliction of penalties on monopolists; further he would promote the arts, forbid the export of raw material and the emigration of skilled artisans.

On the subject of taxation and its different forms he gives the preference to the CENS (q.v.) or general taxation of hereditary estates; this opinion was also held by MANCINI, and was traditional in Italy, based on the still surviving conception of the Roman census and the theory of taxation as interpreted and carried out by the Italian communes in the middle ages. He perceives without thoroughly understanding it, the fact-so obvious to us-that increase of population depends on the increase of the means of subsistence.

Tractatus de usuris, 1598.- Politicorum, sive de principe et principatus administratione, 1600.Libri tre, authore Lelio Zechio, theologo, Verona, 1600.-De juribus principatum, Verona, 1603.

[See Supino, La scienza economica in Italia, etc., 1888.-Gobbi, L' economia politica, etc., 1889. Ricca Salerno, Storia delle dottrine finanziarie in Italia, 1881.]

U. R.

ZECCHINO. See SEQUIN. ZEMINDAR (literally "landholder"), denotes the Indian farmer of a LAND-TAX, who between the Mughal and British conquests

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claimed lordship over the soil. The land-tax was, in the laws of Manu (500 B.C.), a right to 4th produce, under the Mughal laws to rd value of the produce of the soil. The farmer retained, say th the land - tax, and was appointed for life, but his son or sons succeeded on paying fines. As the central power decayed he usurped hereditary rights, rights to the soil, and to make arbitrary levies on its occupants.

The first British land settlement was that by Lord Cornwallis (1793) of Bengal; in which he treated with large zemindars, each of whom was regarded as owning a village or several villages, including the waste, but excluding certain free, or nearly free estates, called "taluq," carved out of the larger unit. The chief flaws in this scheme were that (1) it was permanent (permanent settlements were finally condemned in 1882); (2) it alienated the waste (see Sir J. Caird, India, the Land and the People, p. 95); and (3) ignored (a) the status of the RYOT-whom it regarded as an English tenant prior to the Agricultural Holdings Acts, but whom subsequent legislation in 1859 and 1885 has turned into something like the English copyholder; (b) and the relation of co-proprietors in village communities.

In the village community-from which Sir H. Maine tries to derive other forms of tenure, but which is unknown in the laws of Manu-a group of families are found who take rent or services from the artisan officials; and sometimes the dominant group employ others to plough, etc. They exist all over the NorthWest Provinces and Panjab. There the state treats with the community-represented by its council of elders, but usually makes one member stand surety for the rest. The state reserves a fraction, usually, of what we should call the total fair rents of the village, including waste. This tenure is called "Zamindarí mushtarka"; settlements like that of Bengal being called Zamíndárí Khális"; but the settlement is usually called "Mahál," village, to distinguish it from the individualism of the normal "Zamíndárí" settlements. In Oudh both forms of settlement are sometimes applicable to the same area.

Economists adduce facts such as these to

show that in the beginning there was no difference between the power which gives the right to tax and the power which confers the right to exact rent" (H. Maine, Village Communities, 1876); that "the distinction between a tax and a rent is merely "a matter of amount" (Sir G. Campbell in Systems of Land Tenure (Cobden Club), p. 219); that is to say, either to deduce rents from taxes, or, with Richard JONES, Literary Remains (1859), pp. 279-290, taxes from rent.

[B. H. Baden Powell, Land Revenue and Tenure in British India (1894) (the best short Account); Land Systems of British India, 3 vols.

(1892); Indian Village Community (1896); and Sir G. Campbell, ubi supra. Yule and Burnett's Hobson Jobson, a glossary of Anglo-Indian words.]

J. D. R.

ZERBI, GIOVANNI ANTONIO (16th century). A Milanese merchant.

During his travels he studied the Spanish and Sicilian banks, especially the bank of San Giorgio of Genoa (BANKS, EARLY EUROPEAN), and conceived the idea of establishing a similar bank in Milan; he wrote three dialogues on this subject. In the first, Zerbi proposes the establishment of banks in general, in the second he explains their organisation, and in the third he completes his explanation by illustrating the advantages of the institution he proposes. On the general theory of money he falls into serious errors. The results of the bank of Sant Ambrogio, promoted by Zerbi, were very unsatisfactory; it was started in 1598, and was almost bankrupt in 1630; it was then converted into an office in connection with the public debt.

Dialogo del Banco de Santo Ambrosio, 1593 (and two other dialogues on the same subject, 1597 and 1599).

[See Cossa, Introduction to the study of Political Economy, 1893. - Gobbi, L'economia politica, etc., 1889.-Greppi, Il banco di S. Ambrogio, 1883.]

U. R.

ZINCKE, Rev. FOSTER BARHAM (1817-93), vicar of Wherstead, near Ipswich, from 1847 to his death; greatly interested himself in educational and latterly in economic and agricultural questions, to which his books of travel are specially devoted; wrote:

Last Winter in the U.S., Lond., 1868, Crown 8vo.-Egypt of the Pharaohs and of the Khedive, 2nd ed., Lond., 1873, 8vo.-A Month in Switzerland, Lond., 1873, crown 8vo.-Swiss Allmends, or a Walk to see Them, Lond., 1874, crown 8vo (an investigation into the Swiss commonable land). -A Walk in the Grisons, being a Third Month in Switzerland, Lond., 1875, crown 8vo (the industry, thrift, and helpfulness of the Swiss peasant proprietors).

[Athenæum, Aug. 26, 1873, p. 290.] H. R. T.

ZINCKE, GEORG HEINRICH (1692-1769), was born in the neighbourhood of Naumburg. After a complete theological course he studied law and cameral science, and entered first the Prussian service, and afterwards that of Weimar, where, however, he fell into disgrace, and suffered imprisonment with confiscation of his property. From 1740 to 1745 he delivered lectures in the university of Leipzig, and in 1746 was appointed curator of the recently established Collegium Carolinum at Brunswick, where he died.

Zincke has the distinction of having founded and conducted the first valuable economic journal which appeared in Germany, the Leipziger Sammlungen von wirthschaftlichen, Polizei- und Finanz-Sachen. Besides the many articles he contributed to this journal, he published, amongst other works, Grundriss einer Einleitung zu der Cameralwissenschaft, 1742; a cameralistic bibliography 1751, and two dictionaries, one of General Economy, 1742

of which the 7th ed. appeared in 1820, and the other of German Trade and Manufactures, 1745. Zincke exhibits a reformed mercantilism, such as was preached in France by FORBONNAIS; he even shows tendencies towards the new doctrine He holds that which was destined to supplant it. a country does not necessarily lose by the export of the precious metals. He sets himself against the extravagances on the subject of population which afterwards prevailed in his school, and accentuates the importance of agriculture as a source of national wealth more than the members of that school commonly did.

J. K. I.

[Roscher, Gesch. der N. O., p. 432.] ZOLLVEREIN (Customs Union), a word practically adopted into the English language to express the idea of a customs union. The name was originally given by the Prussians to the union which, under the treaty of March 1833, they formed with various independent German states (in the first instance Hesse Cassel, Hesse Darmstadt, Bavaria, and Würtemberg) for the purpose of establishing a uniform tariff against the outside world. Up to that time each of these states had levied its own customs duties, and had treated the neighbouring states just as it treated the most distant countries. Under the compact on which the zollverein was based all these states undertook to abolish import duties between one another, and adopt a common tariff of import duties as against the rest of the world. This is the essence of a customs union, which is designed to break down interprovincial restrictions, and to simplify commercial intercourse. Zollverein is still one of the best instances of a customs union, because it comprised several states, and the effect at which it aims is clearer, the greater the number of restrictions abolished.

The

There are, however, several instances where a small state has grouped itself with a larger state for customs purposes. There is a customs union of San Marino with Italy under treaty of 22nd March 1862; of Monaco with France under treaty of 9th November 1865; Lichtenstein with Austria under treaty of 11th December 1875; Portuguese India with British India, 26th December 1878.

The most complete attempt to form a customs union in recent years has been the South African customs union of 1889. The original members of this were two only, Cape Colony and the Orange Free State, but British Bechuanaland, Basutoland, the British Bechuanaland Protectorate, and the Transvaal and Southern Rhodesia (1903) successively joined. In this case there is no continuity of land-frontier, and one of the members was a foreign state; but the essence of the union is the same-free

trade between the members of the union, and on the external boundary of the union one customs tariff as against the rest of the world.

The terms "Zollverein" and "Customs Union" have been frequently used during the

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century), a

His Dialoghi form an interesting discussion on socialistic ideas; he asserts, with some spirit, that moderate wealth is essential for citizens, and in order to maintain this, he would prohibit the sale or mortgage of farms on the part of citizens with small fortunes. He understands the relations between the division of wealth and the increase of population, and points out the rapid increase of the latter; he considers that to equalise wealth would be an adequate remedy for the difficulties which might arise from over-population. Zuccolo criticises the Utopia of Thomas MORE, expressing the opinion that such a republic could only exist if all men were good and just; he gives a plan of an ideal state of things, as he would desire to see them-but not based on economical communism. Dialoghi, 1625.

[See Gobbi, L'economia politica, etc., 1889.Graziani, Le idee economiche degli scrittori emiliani e romagnoli, 1893.]

U. R.

ZUNFT is the term commonly employed by modern German writers for what English writers usually call a "craft gild"; and "Zunft-System" is used in the same general sense as "gild system" (see CORPORATIONS OF ARTS AND TRADES, Germany; and GILDS). The word itself, however,-which is variously explained as originally meaning "order" or gathering,' '-was specifically High German, and was unknown in North Germany until the Reformation. In North Germany its place was taken by Amt, Gilde, and other terms. In South Germany, moreover, if we may generalise from the policy of the authorities of Nuremberg in the 16th century, Zunft was understood to imply a degree of autonomy in matters of trade regulation which the organised craft or Handwerk was not always allowed to exercise, and in such cases the term was sedulously avoided.

[An excellent brief account and history of the Zunftwesen will be found in the article under that title by W. Stieda in Conrad's Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften, vi. On the term itself cp. Ashley in Political Science Quarterly, xii. 129.]

W. J. A.

NATIONAL DEBT.* In regard to any narrative of bare historical facts revision can mean little more than bringing the history up to date. The subject of national debt is peculiarly one for such treatment. The years which have elapsed since 1895 have altered no principle, though they illustrate in a degree which could not have been anticipated the growth of public debt and the capacity to bear it.

In the latest year mentioned in the original article (1894) the total public debt of the United Kingdom was given as £664,163,141. Later returns corrected this to a somewhat higher total. But it may give a more accurate idea of the burthen if certain other capital The figures on that

liabilities are included. basis are for:

The full returns shew that the capital liability was steadily decreasing year by year till the years of the South African War, which added close on £200,000,000, in fact, to the debt. As it turned out (though this was one of those things which cannot be foreseen) the South African War saved the British nation in the great struggle that was to come. As a matter of statistics it simply illustrates the rule, for the United Kingdom, at any rate, that wars invariably add to the debt of the nation.

In the ten years which followed 1903 the gradual reduction of the debt again became the rule, and it was nearly £100,000,000 down by 1914 (£706,154,110) when the nation had suddenly to face a crisis which has left behind a completely new standard of national debts. In a single year the figures for 1914 were nearly doubled; at the close of the war the total had mounted to more than eleven times

The government returns claim as a set-off against this debt the estimated market value of Suez Canal shares (which on 31st March 1923 was £19,206,335), advances for certain purposes presumed to be recoverable, holdings in certain concerns such as the Anglo-Persian Oil Company, and other outstanding credits, besides the bonds held in suspense by the National Debt Commissioners. These assets are merely recorded, not deducted from the gross debt.

It is specifically stated in a prefatory note to a Parliamentary Paper (Cd. 1924 of 1923) that assets arising out of the European War (such as loans to allies and dominions, etc.) are not reckoned. The aggregate indebtedness given above for 1923 is the amount which at the worst the United Kingdom has to face. It includes £2,095,814,312 incurred for others.

It is worth noting that the aggregate includes sums raised under Acts of Parliament going some distance back for naval and military works, telegraphs, the Uganda Railway, and several other services. It also includes some £400,000,000 for old guaranteed loans.