Wars Of Seignior Download For Pcl
Toni Jarels
THE CAPTAINS OF MILITIA THE long period during which the captains of militia in Canada retained their position and influence is a proof of the usefulness of the system they embodied, and of the happiness of their choice for the functions they discharged. Everyone of them was an habitant-the foremost in his locality for intelligence, activity, and good character. He was a true representative of the people, and at the same time he was an agent of the central power, an homme de confiance, a factotum in every sense of the word. He dealt direct with the governor-general, with the lieutenantgovernor , the judges, the cure, the seignior, and with every family. He served without pay, but the honour was great, and no capitaine de la cote would have accepted any re:rnuneration. It is a strange oversight on the part of the historians that they have not, as a rule, seen the extraordinary significance of the captain of m.ilitia in Canadian history. They must have been deceived by the military aspect of the title. As a matter of fact, the captain of militia was not only a military personage; he was five or six other personages, all in the same man. He was recorder, and he was superintendent of roads. No government case before a tribunal was examined without his being present, notwithstanding that the official attorney was there also. Any dealings between the seignior or the cure and the civil authorities passed through him. If an acciderit happened somewhere, it was the captain of the place who wrote the report, and any action taken subsequently was under his management. If a farmer wished to approach the government or the judge, the captain took the affair into his hand. When a seignior trespassed on the land of a farmer, the captain came between the two, and his report was considered-first of all. When the high functionaries, such as the governor, the intendant, or the judge, travelled, they were invariably the guests of the captain. He had even an eye on the mail bags and the transport of packages. He was of more importance in the community than is one of our members of parliament today. 241 ;/:.,t, ':c" ,. .., { 242 THE CANADIAN HISTORICAL REVIEW Let us see how the office of the captain of militia arose. By 1636, wh,en about thirty families had settled near the spot where the city of Quebec now stands, the danger of the Indian war had become visible. From the first, the little colony was exposed to the attacks of an enemy far superior in numbers, and -what was Worse-an enemy who fought, not like a soldier, but like an assassin, stabbing by ruse in the dark, and then running away. The Iroquois made these raids under the pretext of "coming to kill the Algonquin", as had been their practice of old, but the French. settlers were not exempt, being the friends of the Algonquins among whom they lived. The Iroquois had also a vendetta with the Hurons of Lake Simcoe, and as the Hurons came down annually to the St. Lawrence to sell furs to the French at Three Rivers, they too attracted the Iroquois to the French settlements. Governor d'Ailleboust, who took charge of the colony of New France in 1648, was a military man. Though the white popula-. tion of the colony at that .time did not exceed six hundred souls, he organized a flying camp of about fifty men from among the settlers, to try to ward off the invaders. The device was only partly successful. Like flies, the Iroquois would disappear at the first sign of danger, and would go to another locality where they might find a chance to strike without the risk of a battle. To some extent, however, d'Ailleboust's volunteers effected their main object, as they prevented the prowlers from operating, here and there, as they wished. This state of affairs continued for nearly twenty years, and during this time practically all the men and boys in the colony were trained as militiamen ; so that, although there were no professional soldiers in their ranks, the inhahitants of the...
"Monetary seigniorage" is where sovereign-issued securities are exchanged for newly printed banknotes by a central bank, allowing the sovereign to "borrow" without needing to repay.[3] Monetary seigniorage is sovereign revenue obtained through routine debt monetization, including expansion of the money supply during GDP growth and meeting yearly inflation targets.[3]
An example of an exchange of gold for "paper" where no seigniorage occurs is when a person has one ounce of gold, trades it for a government-issued gold certificate (providing for redemption in one ounce of gold), keeps that certificate for a year, and redeems it in gold. That person began with and ends up with exactly one ounce of gold.
In another scenario, instead of issuing gold certificates a government converts gold into non-gold standard based currency at the market rate by printing paper notes. A person exchanges one ounce of gold for its value in currency, keeps the currency for one year, and exchanges it for an amount of gold at the new market value. If the value of the currency relative to gold has changed in the interim, the second exchange will yield more (or less) than one ounce of gold (assuming that the value, or purchasing power, of one ounce of gold remains constant through the year). If the value of the currency relative to gold has decreased, the person receives less than one ounce of gold and seigniorage occurred. If the value of the currency relative to gold has increased, the person receives more than one ounce of gold and demurrage occurred; seigniorage did not occur.
Ordinarily, seigniorage is an interest-free loan (of gold, for example) to the issuer of the coin or banknote. When the currency is worn out the issuer buys it back at face value, balancing the revenue received when it was put into circulation without any additional amount for the interest value of what the issuer received.
Under the rules governing the monetary operations of major central banks (including the Federal Reserve), seigniorage on banknotes is the interest payments received by central banks on the total amount of currency issued. This usually takes the form of interest payments on treasury bonds purchased by central banks, putting more money into circulation. If the currency is collected, or is otherwise taken permanently out of circulation, the currency is never returned to the central bank; the issuer of the currency keeps the seigniorage profit by not having to buy back worn-out currency at face value.
The solvency constraint of a standard central bank requires that the present discounted value of its net non-monetary liabilities (separate from monetary liabilities accrued through seigniorage attempts) be zero or negative in the long run. Its monetary liabilities are liabilities in name only, since they are irredeemable. The holder of base money cannot insist on the redemption of a given amount into anything other than the same amount of itself, unless the holder of the base money is another central bank reclaiming the value of its original interest-free loan.
Economists regard seigniorage as a form of inflation tax, returning resources to the currency issuer. Issuing new currency, rather than collecting taxes paid with existing money, is considered a tax on holders of existing currency.[5] Inflation of the money supply causes a general rise in prices, due to the currency's reduced purchasing power.
Banks (or governments) relying heavily on seigniorage and fractional reserve sources of revenue may find them counterproductive.[6] Rational expectations of inflation take into account a bank's seigniorage strategy, and inflationary expectations can maintain high inflation. Instead of accruing seigniorage from fiat money and credit, most governments opt to raise revenue primarily through formal taxation and other means
The 50 State Quarters series of quarters (25-cent coins) began in 1999. The U.S. government thought that many people, collecting each new quarter as it rolled out of the United States Mint, would remove the coins from circulation.[7] Each complete set of quarters (the 50 states, the five inhabited U.S. territories, and the District of Columbia) is worth $14.00. Since it costs the mint about five cents to produce one quarter, the government made a profit when someone collected a coin.[8] The Treasury Department estimates that it earned about $6.3 billion in seigniorage from the quarters during the program.[9]
Some countries' national mints report the amount of seigniorage provided to their governments; the Royal Canadian Mint reported that in 2006 it generated $93 million in seigniorage for the government of Canada.[10] The U.S. government, the largest beneficiary of seigniorage, earned about $25 billion in 2000.[11] For coins only, the U.S. Treasury received 45 cents per dollar issued in seigniorage for the 2011 fiscal year.[12]
Occasionally, central banks have issued limited quantities of higher-value banknotes in unusual denominations for collecting; the denomination will usually coincide with an anniversary of national significance. The potential seigniorage from such printings has been limited, since the unusual denomination makes the notes more difficult to circulate and only a relatively-small number of people collect higher-value notes.
Over half of Zimbabwe's government revenue in 2008 was reportedly seigniorage.[13] The country has experienced hyperinflation ever since, with an annualized rate of about 24,000 percent in July 2008 (prices doubling every 46 days).[14]
The international circulation of banknotes is a profitable form of seigniorage. Although the cost of printing banknotes is minimal, the foreign entity must provide goods and services at the note's face value. The banknote is retained as a store of value, since the entity values it more than the local currency. Foreign circulation generally involves large-value banknotes, and can be used for private transactions (some of which are illegal).
Although this military justification for including settlers and Indians in the new community was perfectly true, their presence also supported Cadillac's personal agenda. Cadillac hoped not only to further the cause of France but also to profit personally from the new settlement. When Cadillac had served as commander of Fort Michilimackinac from 1694 to 1699, he had profited substantially from the fur trade. Thus, when documents were drawn up for his new settlement, Cadillac took care to be appointed both commandant of the soldiers and seignior of the settlement. As seignior Cadillac exercised the feudal rights of royal France over the land and its settlers. His most lucrative right, however, was not based on feudal custom. It came from Cadillac's royally granted control over Detroit's fur trade. It was this provision that the spokesmen for the traders from Montreal had objected to in Paris. But the provision had been included nonetheless. In order to profit from the fur trade, Cadillac needed a large number of Indians to serve as trappers as well as a smaller group of merchants and artisans to supply the Indians with the goods and services that the furs would be used to buy. Including settlers and Indians in the community made military sense and also forwarded Cadillac's personal ambition.
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