Luria Nova/Dwilight University Economic Syllabus

First Semester

Dean of Economics: Margravine Ciarghuala Dubhaine, [Grand Panetier of Luria Nova]

Dialogue with Principal Staedtler la Stylo

What would be the primary concerns for orchestrating a productive region and maintaining its health?

I would say that the first and foremost concern is the welfare of a region's commoners. It's perennially fashionable amongst the upper nobility to look upon peasants as a resource to be exploited and little else but just as a healthy blend of love and respect will bring a hound to heel of his own free will, so too will a just Lord be well served by those who fear the loss of his respect much more than by those who fear the overseer's whip.

There are many ways to build such love, from the widespread practice of holding regular courts to the gentle reassurance a diplomat can bring a concerned merchant or other prominent member of the gentry. And conversely it can be easily lost if circumstances sour. As such it is always wise to keep an eye on how the peasantry respond to the perfectly reasonable taxes we levy to pay for their defence, and to the state of their stomachs. Long periods of rationing can be sustained where necessary but always at a cost.

One should also not overlook the benefit of maintaining militia. We all experience periods when peasant unrest - whether due to religion, taxation or hunger - necessitate the use of force to blunt dissent. There is nothing shameful in this. The interests of the commons are inchoate at best and only the forceful reminder that we the nobility serve the interests of all, not just one segment, will maintain public order. Not that the purpose of a well-regulated militia is to impose tyranny - at least not in the Lurian Empire!

How best would a Lord manage food storage, trade, and movement in the name of maintenance of prosperity?

One of the privileges the office of Grand Panetier confers is the ability to track changes in production and demand across the Empire not only on a daily basis but also year-on-year, though to be honest this has often been a most sobering experience during my terms of office. The uncontroversial finding from analysing these daily reports is that regions really divide into three broad categories: rurals which are good food producers; townslands which generally produce some food as well as gold; and cities which rarely produce much food except perhaps at the height of the Autumn harvest but are reliable sources of gold if well managed.

The situation is actually somewhat more complex than this as no two regions are entirely comparable due to climate, location and population. However the complexities are normally fairly easy for a Lord to identify if they pay attention to their daily reports.

For convenience let us also assume that realm policy on food is to encourage reasonable efficiency in production and storage without requiring perfection. For the Grand Pantry this is a practical position to adopt as there are no realm-wide accounts of food spoilage and losses due to catastrophe have to be gathered on an event-by-event basis.

Firstly, any Lord who aspires to economic competence needs to ensure their region has at least one granary. Without granaries to protect them from the elements any food stores will be subject to noticeable spoilage, whereas for each granary up to one thousand bushels of food can be stored with only modest spoilage. It makes little sense not to have one granary even in quite harsh climates such as deserts or ice fields.

The commoners are normally fairly unconcerned about food if there are somewhere between one and two weeks' supply in the region's stores and my own rule of thumb tends to be to maintain at least 10 days of supply at full rations where possible. This is not only to assuage the peasants' concerns but also to allow for misfortune or illness which might interfere with otherwise well-regulated management routines.

Cities need food and rurals produce food so once a surplus of food is stockpiled it's only natural to consider the trading possibilities. In an ideal world all trade would be handled by Lords without any need for government intervention however there are numerous practical difficulties which often interfere with this, not least physical distance. Very few nobles make trade the focus of their endeavours and consequently most will find their trading activities restricted to a range of 250 miles or so and in an Empire the size of Luria that's very much a local market.

Trade can therefore necessitate frequent travel to marketplaces in towns or cities and this can obviously conflict with both military duties and region maintenance. For this reason it's advisable to either appoint a steward or establish automatic trade offers.

Are there any changes that I, as Lord of a region, could undertake now to improve it's prosperity that I would not be aware of upon immediate observation?

Assuming the region is already stable you should raise the tax rate to the maximum the peasants will support before trade and production are damaged. Whereas if the region is in poor condition slashing the tax rates will greatly ease restoration efforts.

Second Semester

Dean of Economics: Margravine Ciarghuala Dubhaine, [Grand Panetier of Luria Nova]

On Rationing

Sir Myr Arnickles Renodin, a young nobleman of impeccable character and generous inclination, visits Ciarghuala at the the University. His desire is to see the daily ration doubled in Askileon to forestall a brewing insurgency following the wounding of Emperor Aldrakar.

I appreciate that your intent is a kindly one, but the peasants of Askileon already enjoy double the rations of those in Giask and the latter have borne this without complaint for the majority of the past four years. The hard truth is that the Empire cannot afford to be so indulgent with both Winter and a change of organisation fast approaching.

To put this in hard numbers, doubling the rations in Askileon would cost the realm an additional 102 bushels of food per day. That's approximately the output of our four most marginal net food producers. It would also see us entering the next Winter with less than the 18K bushels we need to have a reasonable chance of riding out the following year without widespread rationing.

This is not a matter of gold as there are no foreign markets at present from whom we can purchase the hundreds of bushels of food which you seem so eager to lavish on every burgher with a sense of entitlement. But even if it were what kind of example would we be setting by pandering to an indolent people who've so long lived at ease beneath the benevolent protection of our beloved Emperor that they've forgotten the hard realities faced by their countrymen on the frontier every day?

The people of the Silver City enjoy as good a standard of living as can be found anywhere in all Dwilight - and considerably better than that of the Emperor's stalwart subjects in the Imperial Capital of Giask who've had to make do on half-rations for most of the past four years. If that is not enough to buy their loyalty then perhaps they should be reminded that Imperial Law imposes obligations as well as defends privileges...

But just so the entire realm is clear on this situation. Were I to allow double rations in Askileon for a single day that would cost the Pantry an extra 102 bushels which would be drawn not from some foreign port but from the stomachs of women and children two seasons hence, when the stockpiles are running towards empty and the first signs of Summer sun are as much an omen of impending drought as the promise of a bountiful harvest.

And let me be very clear, based on the Autumn harvest reports to date I do not expect the Pantry to accrue the 18000 bushels necessary to not only carry us through until next Summer but also allow for the possibility that that Summer will bring another severe drought as was the case last year, or that we will find ourselves infested with ever-hungry monsters as in previous years.

If I also commit an additional 408 bushels (sufficient for a mere 4 days of double rations with marginal effect) in an effort to mollify a situation which could probably have been prevented in the first place with a few well-planned police raids, well then my expectation will become an unavoidable certainty.

On the Economics of Partition

It is true that the Euschean bisects the Empire most splendidly and therefore a division along this line is the easiest to envisage, providing two jurisdictions with a natural claim on eleven provinces and two cities each:

1. Askileon, Askileon Purlieus, Ciarin Tut, Mattan Dews, Lupa Lapu, Santoo, Nid Tek, Poryatu, Poryatown, Dantooine, Flying Hongrns
2. Giask, Outer Giask, Orz, Cadier, Irvington, Grodno, Sulorte, Shinnen, Shinnen Purlieus, Garuck Udor, Thar Gortauth

Either realm has the possibility of expanding beyond this but doing so would reintroduce the pressures we currently experience on tax rates and borders.

I cannot definitively state the extent to which tax rates will be affected by the planned reforms, but at nine regions per Imperial Legation I would not expect our cities to sustain rates in excess of 20% and perhaps not even to attain more than 18%. These guesstimates are based on close reading of family journals which by their very nature are anecdotal and quite likely specific to the unique conditions pertaining to the lands and times in which they were written. They do however give me pause for concern.

However improving our tax base will be a benefit regardless of how we go about it, and the Empire will naturally cut its cloth according to its means as it always has.

Logistics however are a key consideration for the defence of the Empire's borders. Recent events in Orz, Mattan Dews and Nid Tek have demonstrated the difficulties of moving swiftly across our territory and when I look at the map of the Northern Legation it is clear that Askileon is poorly placed to defend the northern reaches of Earth's Hall even if an emphasis is based on naval operations. If there is to be only one recruitment point in the north it would be better that it be in Poryatown and thus more centrally placed to the regions most at risk of attack.

Likewise in the South Legation it's a long yomp from Giask to Thar Gortauth, but as these lands stretch like a ribbon along the entire sea coast this is more difficult to address. The South Legation will definitely need to invest in harbours and emphasise naval operations.

So whilst I share Lord Sholan's concern that a four-fold division will leave each Kingdom so small as to make a tempting target for the raiders habitually plaguing our borders, at the same time I have my own concerns that beyond the civilised shores of the Euschean - and especially in the fertile plains of the far north - a two-fold division will leave our borders under at least as much pressure as they are today.

Ultimately this is a decision which only our Suzerain Emperor has the wisdom to make and we will make a success of it whichever way he decides.

The Poor Are Always With Us: An Introduction to Trade and Supply

So, food. Where to begin? There's much to be said for keeping the commoners generously fed if there's grain available to do so and the Grand Pantry aims to keep every family well provided for. This is what our civil servants refer to as full or 100% rations. Where we currently fail with this is in Giask which is habitually at half-rations and at times must struggle by at quarter-rations. As you can imagine rationing like this is never popular but neither is it necessarily disastrous.

Harsh though it may sound the gentry are accustomed to seeing poverty and squalor in their midst, so as long as they can care for their own families they'll generally maintain reasonable order. This of course means keeping tax rates low and doing various administrative tasks such as holding courts, civil work, preaching supportive sermons, and so forth. So long as control is maintained at at least Province the local recruitment centres will supply troops to the Capital and if the other stats are at 75% then the region can be considered to be running smoothly.

There are circumstances when providing double rations can be beneficial if combined with low tax rates but the primary effect I look for is to increase birth rates and immigration when rebuilding a region, not to improve all important control.

Trade in food is what keeps most realms from starving and is restricted to traders, landed nobility, their stewards, and the realm Banker. Within the Empire I currently exercise a de facto monopoly which dates back to the first assaults on our borders and the loss of much agricultural land. This will change when the Empire reforms and it will be for each Kingdom of Luria to decide how best to balance production and trade.

With the exception of the landed households who can always trade in their own regions, the only markets which matter are those in urban regions. From these even the least experienced merchant can trade with markets at least 250 miles away, the precise distance being largely a consequence of experience. I've personally been trading for many years and can now converse with markets a good 500 miles away.