states for increasing gold and silver and concludes that these are conquest and commerce.

He advocates the maintenance of a favourable BALANCE OF TRADE (q.v.), and places this in the predominance of exports over imports, the development of the navy, agricultural industry and manufacture, and the increase of national products.

Dissertazione sopra la giusta valuta della moneta e la necessità del commercio per arricchire gli stati. Faenza, 1757.

[Graziani, Le idee economiche degli scrittori emiliani e romagnoli, etc. Modena, 1893.] u. R.

PEREIRE, ÉMILE (1800-1875), was in his youth one of the most devoted of the St. Simonians (see ENFANTIN; ST. SIMON), and a contributor to their journal, the Globe. He also wrote in the National and the Revue Encyclopédique. After the dispersion of the St. Simonian school, he, like most of its members, showed himself a very enterprising With the co-operaand active business man.

tion of his brother, Isaac PEREIRE (q.v.), also earlier in life a St. Simonian, he constructed the first line of railway in France, between Paris and Saint Germain, and later contracted for the main lines of the Compagnie des Chemins de Fer du Nord. In 1852 the two brothers jointly founded the Société Générale du Crédit Mobilier, which gave a wonderful impulse to great financial and industrial enterprises both in France and elsewhere.

Émile Pereire published in separate form :Examen du Budget de 1832. Réformes financières ... moyen de supprimer les impôts du sel, des boissons, du tabac et la loterie (1831).-De l'assiette de l'impôt; examen critique de travail de la Commission de la Chambre des Députés sur le budget des recettes (1832).-Considérations sur les Finances de la France et des États Unis (1832). These belong to his St. Simonian days, and are republished from the Revue Encyclopédique.

[G. Weill, L'École St. Simonienne, 1896.]

E. Ca.

PEREIRE, ISAAC (1806-1880); for biographical details see note on his brother EMILE PEREIRE.

Isaac Pereire published Le Rôle de la Banque de France et l'Organisation du Crédit en France (1864).-Budget de 1877; questions financières réforme de l'impôt (1877).- La question des chemins de fer (1879).- La Question Religieuse (1879).-La Politique Financière (1879).

E. Ca.

PERI, GIOVANNI DOMENICO, a rich and learned merchant of the first half of the 17th century, desired, as he says in his preface, "to communicate to the world some collections about the establishment and maintenance of his business," which were originally intended for his sons Girolamo and Tomaso, successors to their father's business.

These collections he printed in his Negoziante, a work which, however, has much wider aims than

the author would lead us to believe. It is a technical handbook for merchants, to teach them trading and book-keeping, treating at much length of the method of mercantile accounts called the system of double entry. It contains also interesting historical notices on the exchanges between the principal Italian and foreign cities, explained in twenty statements in the second part. Following the impulse given to comparatively liberal opinions in public economy and commerce, as by SCACCIA, STRACCA, and other followers of commercialist doctrines, Peri demonstrates the importance of merchants, and pleads for them and commerce. He treats also of mercantile contracts, giving all the necessary explanations for entering into them conformably with the ideas of the jurisconsults of his epoch. The work is divided into four parts, and is still interesting, especially for the history of the mercantile customs of those times.

Il negoziante, Genoa, 1638, and Venice, 1672, parts i. and ii.; 1673, parts iii. and iv., presso Gio. Giacomo Herz.

PERICULUM SORTIS.

A. B

This term is used

by medieval writers on usury to describe the danger on the score of risk to which a man might expose himself by lending money. Although usury and interest, in the modern sense of the term, were forbidden, exceptions to and evasions of the strict letter of the law became increasingly common; among others we find payment widely taken on the ground of periculum sortis in cases where an individual incurred a distinct risk of losing his loan altogether; or, where he was inconvenienced by the failure of a borrower to return it at the stipulated time.

[Ashley, W. J., Introduction to English Economic History, i. (1892).—Cunningham, W., Christian Opinion on Usury (1884).—Cunningham, W., Growth of English History and Commerce (1890).]

E. A. M.

PÉRIER, CASIMIR (1777-1832). Originally an engineer officer, he left the army in 1802 to found a bank. Under the government of the Bourbons, he was in the Lower House, and a steady opponent of the reactionary measures passed during their reigns; after the revolution of 1830 he became minister of the interior, and held this post at the time of his death.

His Réflexions sur le projet d'emprunt (1817), and his Opinion sur le projet de loi relatif au remboursement et à la réduction des rentes (1824), were directed against foreign loans and the conversion of state loans. In 1838, a collection of his speeches was published under the title of Opinions et Discours de M. Casimir Périer (4 vols.) with a prefatory notice by M. de Rémusat.

E. Ca.

PERIODICITY OF CRISES. See CRISES. PERIOT (or PERIT). A fractional part of the troy grain formerly used in calculating the value of the precious metals, but not actually existent as a weight. Taking the standard troy pound as a unit, the subdivisions were as follows:

The periot, therefore, was equal to th grain, and the smallest subdivision, the blank, toth grain. As no weight less than aboutth grain is appreciable on a good assay balance of the present day, it is evident that no such weights as the above could actually exist, and there can be little doubt that they were used in calculating the value of bullion in bulk in the same manner as we now use decimals. Thus the schedule to the Coinage Act 1870 gives the weight of a sovereign as 123-27447 grains, but if the weight be calculated from the data given in the note to the schedule (934 sovereigns and one half-sovereign in a pound troy of standard gold), it is seen that this is only an approximation, the exact weight being indeterminate (see GUINEA), and, where minute accuracy is aimed at, the number of decimal figures used will depend on the multiple of the sovereign under consideration.

66

It is not possible to state precisely when these weights were first introduced, or when their use was discontinued, but they are referred to in an old manuscript volume in the Royal Mint. library, entitled Mint and Moneta, which bears no date, but appears to have been written during the latter half of the 16th century, as only used by the goldsmiths for the making of an assay of gold and silver." They are also used in an act of Queen Elizabeth (43 Eliz. 1601) in defining the weights of silver coins, and for a similar purpose in regard to both gold and silver coins in an act of the Long Parliament (see Scobell's continuation of Pulton's Acts and Ordinances, 1640-57, under date 1649 c. 43, Moneys and Coins of England). References will be found to them also in various modern text-books (Chaffer's Hall-Marks on Plate; Kelly's Universal Cambist; Ruding's Annals of the Coinage; Chaney's Our Weights and Measures. It is interesting to note that three of the names used for these subdivisions of a grain are those of ancient coins; also that they are alternately one twentieth and one twenty-fourth, as in the case of the ounce, pennyweight, and grain at the present day.

E. R.

PERMIT, a license or writing granted by the officers of the excise certifying that the duties on certain goods have been paid, and authorising or permitting their removal from one place to another. Previous to 1848 all spirits sent out by spirit dealers were accompanied by permits, but by the 11 & 12 Vict. e. 121, an excise certificate was substituted for the permit. This provision was extended to the removal of spirits by rectifiers and compounders by the 23 & 24 Vict. c. 114.

The use of permits is at present restricted chiefly to the removal of duty-free malt and of

95

spirits from distillers' spirit stores or from dutyfree warehouses.

Permits and certificates are regarded as a valuable means of identifying articles on transit, and of distinguishing those upon which the duties have been paid from those upon which duties have not been paid. They also afford a means for checking the receipt of illicit spirits, and of preventing a fraud on the revenue laws.

J. E. C. M.

PERPETUITIES, RULE AGAINST. The rule against perpetuities is intended to prevent the tying up of land or other property for an indefinite period. The love of power, and the wish to perpetuate the opulence and consideration of their families, has often induced owners of property, especially of landed property, to settle beforehand its devolution for as long a time as possible. But the English courts of justice have always endeavoured to limit this action in the public interest and to maintain freedom of trade in property. When the landowners procured the statute De Donis Conditionalibus, 13 Edw. I. c. 1, which made entailed land inalienable, the courts evaded the statute by means of the collusive actions known as fines and recoveries. When the Statute of Uses, 27 Hen. VIII. c. 10, contrary to the intention of those who enacted it, made possible new contrivances for guiding the devolution of landed estate, the courts again took alarm, and by degrees worked out what is now known as the rule against perpetuities. Under this rule, any disposition of landed estate, or other property, which is to be valid, must take effect within the period of a life, or lives, in being at the time when it was made, and twenty-one years afterwards, with an additional allowance for the period of gestation where the party entitled is a posthumous son. The practical importance of this rule, as ensuring the restoration of land sooner or later to free commerce, is vastly diminished by the fact that every tenant for life has now a statutory power of selling the settled land (see SETTLEMENT, LAND; ENTAIL, Law of).

A

In connection with the rule against perpetuities may be noticed the rule limiting the period during which the income of property, real or personal, may be accumulated for the benefit of the person or persons who will ultimately take that property. The rule is contained in the act 39 & 40 Geo. III. 98, popularly known as the Thellusson Act. certain Mr. Thellusson had ordered in his I will that the income of his estate should be accumulated during the lives of all his chil. dren and grandchildren alive at the time of his death for the benefit of some future descendants. Such a disposition did not contravene the rule against perpetuities, but it was felt to be unreasonable and contrary to public policy. It thus led to the passing of the act

96

above mentioned, which forbids the accumulation of the income of property for any period longer than the life of the grantor, and twentyone years afterwards, with an allowance for the period of gestation where the person who is to take is still unborn at the death of the testator. Any direction to accumulate income, which contravenes the act, is void for the time in excess of the period prescribed by the act. The income during such time is to be paid to the person who would have been entitled to receive it had there been no direction to accumulate. A further check on the accumulation of income for the purpose of purchasing land is imposed by the Accumulation Act 1892 (55 & 56 Vict. c. 58). (See THELLUsson.)

[Williams, Principles of the Law of Real Property, and Principles of the Law of Personal Property, and Lewis on Perpetuities.]

F. C. M.

PERSONAL PROPERTY. Personal property is, roughly speaking, movable property; as real property is, roughly speaking, property in land. It consisted originally of movables or chattels in the strict sense, but its scope was afterwards extended. Certain interests in land which were of little consequence at the time when the definition of real estate became fixed, are described as chattels real, and treated as personalty. These include all leasehold interests and estates at will. Again, the right to enforce payment of a debt or to recover damages in an action at law are included in personalty under the name of choses in action. Personal annuities, money invested in the funds, the shares of most companies, patents and copyrights, are described as incorporeal personal property. Indeed many objects now included in personal property have hardly any. thing in common save that on the death of the person entitled to them, they pass to the executor or administrator, whilst realty before 1898 passed to the heir or devisee.

[Williams on Personal Property.]

F. C. M.

PERSONAL SERVICES are those which are expended in guarding, conveying, or otherwise preserving (a) the objects of production; (b) the persons of the producers. These services may be, as SISMONDI observes (Nouv. Princ. de l'Econ. Pol., p. 147), "of the most elevated as of the most menial kind. . . as for instance those of a physician. . . or those of a valet de chambre."

Economists differ as to whether the possession of such services may be rightly esteemed wealth, and as to whether those who render them should be styled productive or unproductive labourers. Adam SMITH observes that "the labour of a menial servant. . . adds to the value of nothing" (Wealth of Nations, edited by M'CULLOCH, p. 149). J. S. MILL, following his lead, writes of domestic servants and all other unproductive labourers" (Principles of Pol. Econ., ch. iii.), and sharply criticises M'Culloch and J. B. Say for classing them as "productive." Again, in

his Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy (Essay iii.), Mill distinctly repudiates the idea of domestic servants being productive labourers, yet, inconsistently, admits (cp. also Sismondi, Nouv. Princ., p. 147) that most of such persons

occasionally, and some habitually, render services which must be considered as of a productive nature" (p. 85 ib.).

The French economists of the 19th century opposed both Smith and Mill. Thus J. B. SAY, referring to the consumption of wealth, observes that the most rapid consumption is that made des services personnels (L'Écon. Pol., ii. p. 231; also quoted by Sandelin, Répertoire Gén. d'Écon. Pol., art. "Consommation"). Sismondi thought them productive, yet he makes the confusing remark that "they only differ from productive labour in the fact that their results cannot be stored up" (ib. p. 147).

"

F. BASTIAT argued against both Smith's and Mill's reasoning. In his chapter on value, he examines the nature of a "service," laying stress on Say's doctrine-as old as Bacon-that there is really no such thing as creative or so-called "productive" human labour. Man can only combine or displace the forces and materials which already exist. It follows from this that all labour being equally "unproductive," the importance of any service is only a question of degree. Bastiat considers the services of soldiers, guards, etc., as "undoubtedly" "productive,' "seeing that the sole object of the arrangement is to increase the proportion which the aggregate satisfactions of the community bear to the general efforts" (p. 146 ib.). He proceeds to argue that personal services have “value” quite independently of their transiency, and referring to those services which "vanish and leave no trace behind," he remarks: "The very same thing holds of personal services. The consumer makes the value disappear, for it has been created only for that purpose. It is of little consequence, as regards the principle of value, whether the service is undertaken to satisfy a want to-day, to-morrow, or a year hence."

Modern English economists have not all agreed with Bastiat. Prof. Alfred MARSHALL is, however, very decided on the question. Defining wealth as consisting of the desirable things a man possesses, he confines the term to a man's "external goods," but he extends this to include "personal services of all kinds" (Princ. of Econ., bk. ii. ch. ii. § 1). Prof. J. E. CAIRNES (Some Leading Principles of Pol. Econ., p. 25) brackets commodities and services interchangeably as wealth; but H. SIDGWICK (Princ. of Pol. Econ., 3rd ed. bk. i. ch. iii. p. 88), going back to Smith's definition of wealth, places both sides of the question with almost equal force before his readers. "A man's money-income," he observes, "is not entirely . . . spent in consumable things. . . it is partly spent in what we may call 'consumable services,' i.e. utilities furnished

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system must be modified. Those who do not expect well-being to result from individual effort are confident that it can be produced by the action of the community.

The rising generation of economists may probably be less optimistic in tone. The very diffusion and intensity of the desire for comfort tend to produce a formidable discontent which may at first discharge itself upon obnoxious institutions or classes, but must finally break against the unalterable facts of nature. Certain characteristics of modern civilisation, notably the resulting prolongation of the lives of the weak, both in mind and body, and the heavy burthens imposed on the capable members of society, seem likely to retard progress as hitherto understood. The limits to the physical resources of our globe are becoming more apparent. Nearly the whole of its surface has been explored; the area which civilised occupy has been pretty well ascertained; the great forests are disappearing, the virgin soils are losing their spontaneous fertility, and mines are worked upon a scale which in many cases threatens exhaustion in no distant future (MINES AND MINERALS, EXHAUSTION OF). The assumption that mankind are destined to a practically infinite economic development is thus shaken. The economists of a past age were chiefly concerned with the advantages which would follow the destruction of artificial barriers; but the stringency of natural limitations which cannot be removed will probably attract more attention from the economists of the approaching time.

man can

[J. Sully, Pessimism, A History and a Crilicism.-W. Wallace, art. on "Pessimism" in the Ency. Brit., 9th. ed., and the authorities therein cited, see also Ency. Brit. 11th ed.] F. C. M. PESTEL, FRIEDRICH WILHELM VON (17241805), was born at Rintelen (Lippe-Schaumburg), studied at Göttingen, became doctor utriusque juris (1747), and professor of law, first at Göttingen and afterwards (1763) at Leyden. He was dismissed from his office in 1795, when the revolution broke out; and then went to Germany, but returned in 1803 and remained at Leyden until his death. 1792 he was ennobled by the Emperor.

In

His works mostly deal with law; the following, however, contain parts which are important in connection with economic study; Gedanken von der Rechtmässigkeit der Reichsständischen Landposten und der Unerweislichkeit eines diese ausschliessenden fürstlichen Taxischen Reichspostmonopols (Thoughts on the lawfulness of the posts managed by the different governments of the empire and the absence of evidence for the monopoly of the posts enjoyed by the Prince of Taxis), Rintelen, 1759.-Fundamenta jurisprudentiae naturalis delineata in usum auditorum, L.B. 1773, 1774, Ultraj, 1776, translated into French (1775) and into Dutch (1783).-Commentarii de Republica Batav., L.B., 1782 and

Even

PETER'S PENCE, called also Rome Scot An annual payment made to the pope of Rome till the reign of Henry VIII. Its origin is almost lost in antiquity, but tradition says that it was instituted by Offa, king of Mercia, who, after a visit to Rome, ordered that every person having land or cattle of the annual value of 30d. should contribute a penny annually towards the support of the English college at Rome, the whole to be collected each year during the time between the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul and the first of August. Before the beginning of the 13th century Peter's Pence had been commuted for a fixed annual payment, about £200. this soon came to be looked upon as a papal exaction, rather than a free gift, and the threat of withholding it was a valuable weapon against papal aggression: when therefore in 1305 A.D. Clement V. tried to go back to the old system of a penny from each household, the attempt was stoutly resisted, and it was never again repeated. The term is still used as describing voluntary payments made to the Pope. The payment of Peter's Pence as a national gift was abolished in 1533 by 25 Henry VIII., c. 21. [Stubbs, History of England.]

Constitutional

History.

Froude, A. E. 8.

PETIT SERJEANTY. See SERJEANTY. PETITTI DI RORETO, CARLO ILARIONE (1790-1850). Born in Turin of a noble family, he held important offices under the Piedmontese government, and occupied himself much with the duties of administration and economic study, discussing and proposing important liberal reforms in the state, and exercising a useful influence.

His principal work, on the best manner of dealing with beggars, will bear comparison with DB GERANDO's classic. In this book Petitti discussed the precautions taken to prevent begging in different states, and the question of legal intervention. Another work on Italian railways, in which he studied the organisation of railways thoroughly, giving many useful statistics, was of great importance in Italy, as the first example of this kind of investigation at a time when great industrial questions were still not familiar in that country.

Petitti wrote also on prison discipline (Turin, 1840), on children's labour (1841), customs unions (1844), reform in taxation (1844), and on many other subjects.

After his death another of his works was pub. lished, on the subject of the lottery. In this are collected facts from different countries, their laws on the subject, and the history of the different systems; he attacks government lotteries with much force. Sul buon governo della mendi