Léon Say

Léon Say

Jean-Baptiste-Léon Say (born June 6, 1826 in Paris , † April 22, 1896 ibid) was a French economist and politician. He was finance minister several times in governments of the Third Republic .

Live and act

origin

Léon Say came from a family of well-known economists. His grandfather Jean-Baptiste Say and his father Horace Émile Say had already earned a reputation in this subject.

Entry into politics; Prefect of the Seine department

After a first, unsuccessful candidacy in 1869, he succeeded on February 8, 1871 in the Chamber of Deputies for the Seine department . After Jules Ferry's resignation as prefect of this same department on June 5, 1871, Say was his successor. In this role, he unified the organization of the administrations of the Paris boroughs and reformed the central administration. He also persuaded the city council to decide to issue a bond, the issue of which was a great success, actively dealt with elementary school education and the restoration of civil records.

Finance Minister, Senator and Senate President

Léon Say, caricature by Alfred Le Petit (1873)

On December 7, 1872, he was appointed Minister of Finance by President Adolphe Thiers . As such, he signed an agreement with the Rothschilds in January 1873 , which guaranteed reparation payments to Germany after the war of 1870/71 . Although he was opposed to Thiers' ideas about economics and finance, he remained in office until his resignation on May 23, 1873.

During the efforts to re-establish the monarchy in the mid-1870s, Léon Say, as the leader of the center-left camp, clearly sided with the Republicans. On March 10, 1875, he was again Minister of Finance, this time in the cabinet of Louis Buffet , to whose conservative attitude Say was the liberal counterpart. From December onwards, there were political and personal differences between Buffet and Say, which President Patrice de Mac-Mahon had to intervene to resolve. In January 1876, Say ran in the Seine-et-Oise department for a seat in the Senate and, together with two other Republican politicians, Feray and Gilbert-Boucher, published an election campaign circular that Buffett viewed as an alliance between Says and his political opponents. Mac-Mahon had to take action again and asked Say to withdraw his candidacy. Instead of following this request, Say submitted his resignation as finance minister. Mac-Mahon initially accepted this, but then rejected it. On January 30, 1876, Say was elected Senator with 589 votes out of 783. He kept the Ministry of Finance, even when Jules Dufaure replaced Buffet as Prime Minister (March 9, 1876).

In May 1876 Say traveled to London, where he gave a speech at a ceremony in honor of the economist Adam Smith . In his native France, he often spoke in both chambers of parliament, especially on financial and economic issues.

On December 12, 1876, Jules Simon became Prime Minister and Léon Say took over as Minister of Finance. On May 16, 1877 Say resigned along with Simon and all other cabinet members. The government crisis was the result of an uproar in the attitude of the state president and government towards ultramontanism . Say then joined the left-wing protests against the policies of Simon's successor and opponent of the Republic of Albert de Broglie . After the final victory of the Republican camp, he was again Minister of Finance, from December 13, 1877 in the cabinet of Jules Dufaure V and then (February 4, 1879) in the government of William Henry Waddington until December 21, 1879.

Léon Say, caricature by Carlo Pellegrini (1880)

On April 30, 1880, he was appointed ambassador to England, where he should prepare the negotiations for a trade agreement. A few weeks later he returned to Paris, where he took over the chairmanship of the Senate. The members of the House had elected him to this office on May 25th. In the partial elections to the Senate in January 1882, he was re-elected in the Seine-et-Oise department with a large majority (655 of 786 votes cast) and then again President of the Senate. On January 30, 1882, he was again a member of the government with the portfolio of finance he was familiar with, this time in the second Charles de Freycinet government , until its overthrow on July 29 of the same year.

Union Liberale ; Member of the Chamber of Deputies

In 1889 Say took part in the founding of a new political movement, the Union libérale républicaine , the aim of which was to unite all moderate-liberal forces that opposed national populist Boulangism on the one hand and radical and socialist positions on the other.

In order to be as active as possible in parliament for this policy, Say ran successfully for a seat in the Chamber of Deputies for a constituency in Pau in the parliamentary elections on September 22, 1889 ; he was able to defend the seat in the subsequent elections in 1893.

Léon Say died on April 22, 1896 in Paris during the legislative period. He had been active as a parliamentarian until the end.

Member of academies

Since December 12, 1874, Léon Say has been a member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques , initially as a "free member" ( Membre libre , today corresponds to Section VI, Section générale ), from April 24, 1880 to Section IV (Political Economy ).

On February 11, 1886, Léon Say was elected to the Académie française , where he took over the seat of Edmond About .

Achievements and political positions

As Finance Minister of the Dufaure government at the end of the 1870s, he supported the policy of civil engineering minister Charles de Freycinet of taking over private railway lines and a massive expansion of the state railway and other infrastructure network. To finance these projects, he brought in bills to borrow 331 million francs through bonds. He also spoke out repeatedly against tax breaks.

In April 1878 he implemented a reduction in postal rates.

Léon Say was a staunch business liberal and supporter of free trade . As such, he vehemently opposed the introduction of a general tariff and other protectionist measures.

As a bitter opponent of socialism , he attacked it sharply both in his publications and through active and decisive opposition in parliament to socialist bills. In particular, he opposed the introduction of the progressive inheritance tax (1895) and a general income tax (1896).

Léon Say left behind an extensive oeuvre of economic literature and non-fiction. Even before entering politics, he had published a number of works.

Works

As an author or translator

• Histoire de la caisse d'escompte, 1776 à 1793 . P. Régnier, Reims 1848 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Léon Say, Natalis Rondot: Enquête sur l'industrie de Paris et du département de la Seine . Chambre de commerce de Paris / imprimerie P. Dupont, Paris 1848 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Observations sur le système financier de M. le Préfet de la Seine (1865) . Guillaumin, Paris 1865 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Examen critique de la situation financière de la Ville de Paris (1866) . Dentu, Paris 1866 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• Les Obligations populaires . Guillaumin, Dentu, Paris 1866 ( limited preview in Google Book search).
• George J. Goschen : Théorie des changes étrangers . Guillaumin, Paris 1866 ( limited preview in the Google book search - English: The Theory of the Foreign Exchanges . London 1861. Translated by Léon Say).
• La ville de Paris et le Crédit foncier . Guillaumin, Paris 1868 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• La comptabilité des finances publiques . Chaix, Paris 1869 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Dégrèvement de l'impôt foncier . A. Degorce-Cadot, Paris 1881 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• La Politique des intérêts . C. Lévy, Paris 1883 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Dix jours dans la Haute-Italie . Guillaumin, Paris 1883 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Le socialisme d'État . C. Lévy, Paris 1884 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• The solutions démocratiques de la question des impôts . Tome premier. Guillaumin, Paris 1886 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• The solutions démocratiques de la question des impôts . Tome second. Guillaumin, Paris 1886 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Institut de France. Académie des sciences morales et politiques. Considérations sur la comptabilité en partie double, par M. Léon Say. Mémoire lu dans la séance du 19 December 1885 . Firmin-Didot, Paris 1888 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Discours prononcé le 7 November 1889 au dîner du "journal des débats" . P. Mouillot, Paris 1889 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Discours prononcés à Pau et à Nay les 13 et 14 janvier 1892 on la politique d'apaisement et la question sociale . Garet, Pau 1892 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Contre le socialisme . C. Lévy, Paris 1896 ( digitized on Gallica ).

As editor

• Léon Say, Louis Foyot, Armand Lanjalley (Eds.): Dictionnaire des finances . Tome I. AD; Tome II. E-Z. Berger-Levrault, Paris (full texts from Volume I and Volume II on Gallica - 1889–1894).
• Léon Say, Joseph Chailley-Bert (ed.): Nouveau dictionnaire d'économie politique . Tome premier: A – H; Tome second: I-Z; Supplement. Guillaumin, Paris 1900 (full texts from volume 1 , volume 2 and supplement on Gallica ).

literature

• Adolphe Robert, Edgar Bourloton, Gaston Cougny: Dictionnaire des Parlementaires français . Pla-Zuy. Vol. V. Bourloton, Paris 1891, p. 281–282 ( digitized on Gallica ).
• Jean Jolly: Dictionnaire des Parlementaires français . 1960-1977.

Web links

Commons : Léon Say  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Literature by and about Léon Say in the SUDOC catalog (Association of French University Libraries)
• Information on Léon Say in the database of the Bibliothèque nationale de France .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} Anciens sénateurs IIIème République: SAY Léon. French Senate , November 20, 2015, accessed on January 23, 2016 (in French, with biographical information from Robert & Cougny and Jolly, see section "Literature" above).