Coffee: The Epic of a Commodity (26 page)

Another step taken at that date served to promote the drinking of coffee—a step that was extremely ill-advised. I refer to the tax on alcoholic beverages imposed by Maria Theresa (1779) in accordance with a proposal made by Councillor Greiner. The empress was guided by the wish to transfer taxation from the shoulders of the poor to the shoulders of the rich, and chose this injudicious method.

As a preliminary, various taxes were abolished which were considered to press heavily upon the poor. This was, naturally, a popular measure. The consequent loss of revenue was to be made good by the new taxes on liquor. Councillor Greiner justified his advice on the ground that anyone who chose could avoid taxation by abstaining from alcoholic beverages. Above all, he declared, the poor, whose limited means made it impossible for them to drink such beverages, would be exempt from taxation. It seems hardly credible that Maria Theresa, towards the end of her long reign, should have agreed to so amateurish a proposal. The upshot was that in a land where wine was exceedingly cheap and was the ordinary beverage of the population, it was greatly increased in price.

The new tax made the empress unpopular, but it certainly favoured the drinking of coffee, which, being non-alcoholic, was left untaxed.

Maria Theresa’s liquor tax was a typical luxury-tax of the wrong kind. It was not followed up by other luxury-taxes. Austria was never a puritanical country, and none of its sovereigns ever ruled it in a Draconian spirit. They were always inspired with kindly sentiment towards their subjects.

The sociology of Sonnenfels, a noted political philosopher during the days of Emperor Joseph II, was almost eudemonist. Sonnenfels assumed that man should try to obtain more than mere necessities, and that he has a right to more! “The needs of man,” he wrote, “are extremely restricted if we use the term ‘needs’ in the narrowest sense. If, however, people were to be confined to the satisfaction of bare need, their activities would likewise be exiguous. That would be most undesirable! An increase of need is characteristic of the growth of comfort and the provision of superfluity—these two together comprising what we term luxury. To rail against luxury and ostentation is, therefore, misguided, except in so far as we wish to hinder extravagant.”

Under the regime of a statesman holding such views, it was only to be expected that the import duties upon “articles of luxury” (Sonnenfels was thinking of such foreign goods as pickled herrings, coffee, and southern wines) would remain moderate. People must not be prevented from satisfying their natural desire for good things. In an age that was in most respects illiberal, the advantages that would accrue to the State from a liberal economic order were already beginning to be recognized. “Liberty multiplies desires.” A cheerful citizen would consume more and would work better than one who was gloomy and oppressed.

Like other apostles of enlightenment, Sonnenfels was an adversary of the guilds. They prevented freedom of occupation, and thus checked the growth of population! In those days, an increase in population was not merely one of the chief aims of the state, but also, as Sonnenfels in his eudemonism, in his desire to promote general happiness, was ready to prove to all and sundry, would redound to the interest of individuals:

“The larger the population, the greater its stability. This is one of the first principles of politics.

“The larger the population upon whose support a ruler can count, the less has the latter to fear from his subjects. This is one of the first principles of the promotion of public order.

“The more people, the more needs to be satisfied; the more hands there are, the more abundant the possibilities of creating the wares necessary for domestic and foreign trade. This is one of the first principles of political economy.

“The more citizens there are, the more persons to contribute to public revenue, and consequently the smaller the amount that has to be demanded from each individual. This is one of the first principles of sound taxation.”

These four “rational principles” for a policy that would increase population are of dubious validity, and were supported by an extremely lame logic. But they were characteristically Austrian in their goodnature.

Very different was the Prussian creed, as formulated by Johann Gottlieb Fichte in relation to the problem of superfluity. In his
Der geschlossene Handelsstaat
, published in the year 1800, he flatly repudiated the right to luxury and display, and advocated a planned economy:

“All must first be well fed and properly housed before anyone sets about decorating his habitation; all must first be comfortably and warmly clad before anyone tries to dress splendidly. There must be no luxury in a state where agriculture is still backward, and where there is still a lack of hands for the simplest mechanical crafts. A man does not excuse himself adequately for the indulgence of luxurious tastes by saying, ‘I can pay for what I want.’ It is unjust that anyone should be able to pay for things he does not really need, and the money with which he pays for luxuries is not rightfully or reasonably his own.”

There is an echo of Luther’s zeal in these words. Above all, however, Fichte was inspired by reminiscences of an outstanding man who had passed away more recently—Frederick the Great.

Sonnenfels and Joseph II were not soldiers like their arch-enemy Frederick II of Prussia. The hardships of his life had made King Frederick a stoic rather than an epicurean. Experience had determined his attitude towards “superfluities.”

In his early years, indeed, he had been an epicurean. That was when he was only crown-prince at Rheinsberg; when his humanism was not the outcome of ripe observation, but was the expression of his natural philosophical promptings. Why should he not allow himself and the world at large the happiness of luxury? Writing to Voltaire, he said: “I like the French love of pleasure. It pleases me to think that four hundred thousand town-dwellers are concerned only to enjoy themselves, and know practically nothing of the seamy side of life; that proves to me that these four hundred thousand persons are happy. . . . It seems to me that every ruler must do his utmost to make his subjects happy, even if he cannot make them wealthy; for there is no doubt that there can be content without wealth. A man, for instance, at a banquet or at the theatre, one who can mingle freely with congenial associates-such a man, at such times, is happy, and takes home with him a number of impressions that have fertilized his spirit. We must therefore do our utmost to provide for these masses many such moments of refreshment, which can sweeten the bitterness of life, or can make people forget their troubles for a time! The most tangible good in life is pleasure; and therefore we do good, much good, when we provide a large community with possibilities for enjoying itself.”

Words of a green youth, wishing to supply circuses in abundance, because he has never known the need for bread! But when, during long years of warfare, the crude need for bread had been brought home to the lonely monarch, he ceased to dream of making his people happy by “spectacles and superfluities.” Still less did he continue to think it a king’s duty to act as a purveyor of pleasure.

When Frederick the Great returned home on the evening of March 30, 1763, though only fifty-one, he was already an old man. Seven years of warfare had aged him as much as seventy might have done. The well-ordered country he had once thought of establishing no longer existed even in his dreams. He had won a province, and had lost everything else. Financial devastation was obvious as far as the eye could reach.

With the native force of genius, Frederick now devoted himself to the task of reconstruction. This was a war that lasted more than seven years. It began on the day when the king converted his war-chest into a peace-chest. The eastern provinces had been laid waste by the Russians. Frederick sent hundreds of thousands of gold pieces rolling thither, and bestowed his cavalry horses upon the impoverished peasants. In the towns, he provided subsidies for manufacturing industry. Just as a hundred years before Colbert, in France, had conjured manufactures out of the ground, so now in Berlin, Breslau, and Königsberg thriving factories appeared as if by magic. The old man on the throne set his subjects an example by working twelve hours a day himself. The “excessive diligence” of the Prussians had come into its own.

Great financial schemes were drawn up. The new industrial policy must be safeguarded by a protective system. As a mercantilist, the king laid stress, above all, upon a favourable balance of trade. Exports began to exceed imports. Silesian linen was sent to Russia. Only two articles of daily use took the form of costly imports. These were things paid for in Prussian thalers, which had much better, thought Frederick, have been kept in the country. All the same, they were things for which the monarch himself had a taste: good tobacco and good coffee.

As regards tobacco, the problem was not difficult to solve. He had tobacco planted in his own land. Certain kinds throve well enough, others not so well. One day Frederick asked Achard, the chemist, whether it was not possible “to discover a sauce which, without being in any way injurious, could improve Prussian-grown tobacco so that it would rival Virginian in flavour.” But no such sauce could be found; and everyone who could afford it smoked imported tobacco.

Even Frederick had no scruples about establishing a state monopoly in coffee and tobacco. He regarded them as luxuries that could bear high taxation, since in any case the poor among his subjects could not afford to buy them. That was the way in which he justified a policy that was ill-conceived and unsuccessful. Following the French precedent, the monarch farmed out both these monopolies. He was influenced, no doubt, by his usual tendency to overvalue all that was French. Just as in youth he had believed that only in Paris good plays could be seen and good poetry written, so, in his old age, he swore by French political economy.

Frederick prepared a sackful of troubles for himself and his country through the malpractices of the French lessees of the monopolies. (One of them, it was currently reported, was a bankrupt from Marseille.) As with all hide-bound mercantilists, nationalist aims were more important to him than nationalist means, with the result that he used means that were anything but nationalist. One of the main principles of mercantilism was: “Skilled workers must be imported whenever they are needed.” Since the king was convinced that French officials would work in monopolies better than his German subjects (who were, in his estimation, clumsy, inexperienced, and too good-natured), the king filled two hundred posts in his monopoly services with French officials. The upshot was a manifest recalcitrance on the part of the Prussian burghers, who could not understand to what end they had conquered the French at Rossbach and elsewhere if the vanquished were to occupy lucrative and respected posts. High-handed actions on the part of the foreign monopolist officials, which might have been overlooked if they had been committed by Prussians, became a serious grievance when committed by Frenchmen.

The habit of coffee-drinking became established later in Berlin than in Hamburg and Leipzig, these latter towns being centres of foreign intercourse in northern Germany. It was plain enough, as the outcome of a careful inquiry that the king instituted, that in Prussian towns there was a growing demand for the anti-Bacchic beverage; and this was surely a good thing, in view of the fact that his subjects must work harder if they were to increase their output. Still, Frederick pulled a wry face when he learned that seven hundred thousand thalers or more were going abroad year by year to pay for coffee, the money being sent chiefly to Holland. Meanwhile there was a corresponding decline in the brewing trade. We cannot doubt that Frederick knew well enough that his subjects drank coffee in order to work better and for longer hours. Still, he was vexed to discover that the increase in the consumption of coffee was set off by a decline in the consumption of beer. When, however, he reacted by imposing a tax of eight silver groschen per pound of imported coffee, it was only to find that he had equipped his state with a new industry—that of smuggling! The “hole in the West” began at Emden, and extended up the Rhine as far as Cleves. There was also a “hole in the North,” through which coffee found its way illicitly in to Prussia, across Swedish Pomerania. The most earnest attempts were made to stop such abuses. Revenue officers were multiplied. Many of these “coffee-watchmen” were in league with the smugglers, and shared their ill-gotten gains.

With French subtlety, the monopoly administration now advocated a new expedient to stop smuggling. The coffee that was imported above-board was to go straight to the roasting-houses that the king had established, and none but roasted coffee was to be sold. This provided a check upon the consumption of smuggled coffee. If a house-owner or an innkeeper were to roast smuggled coffee, the volatile oils, the pyridine and the furfural, would assail the nostrils of the neighbours and the police, acquainting them with the fact that there was illicit coffee on the premises, and the smuggled goods could be promptly confiscated. The king was assured that this measure would not interfere in any way with trade. Frederick agreed to this plan when it was explained to him that the new method of control would provide employment for time-expired soldiers. Now there were to be seen veterans from the Seven Years War ferreting about in town and countryside-all of them replicas of Frederick, wearing uniforms, sporting pigtails, carrying crutch-sticks—a sad spectacle. In the towns that were big enough to have a public opinion, in Berlin, Breslau, and Königsberg, there were loud complaints when members of this guild of “coffee-smellers” made their way into private houses, impounded coffee-pots, searched the store-rooms, making a mess and giving trouble. In the countryside people were more dutiful; but the gentry of the regions of Lauenburg and Bütow gave the royal customs service to understand that they would promptly expel any coffee-spy who should venture to set foot upon Pomeranian estates.

The surveillance thus exercised over consumers became preposterous, with the natural result that trade fell off. By now, the import duty imposed on coffee had been increased to one thaler per pound. When coffee could not be sold at the consequent high price, the duty was reduced by one-half. That did not help matters. People began to use coffee substitutes. The curtain had risen on the first act of a tragicomedy. In the dispute between coffee-drinkers and potentates, a laughing third character, chicory, had entered the stage.