Chapter 59: Ottoman Market Reform

Chapter 59: Chapter 59: Ottoman Market Reform

I

Constantinople, Emin?nü — 6 July 1915

Hac? Arif came to the house after the evening prayer with a small brass weight wrapped in a cloth.

He placed it on the table beside the lamp and asked Ayaan to hold it in his hand.

"It is sold in the bazaar as one hundred dirhem, and I bought it this morning from a stationer in the Mahmutpa?a lane," he said. "Weigh it against the stone of the guild, and tell me what you find."

Zeynep brought the guild stone from the study, and she set the two upon the scales.

The brass weight rose, and the stone stayed on the lower pan.

"It is short by nearly one part in twelve," she said. "A man who buys a hundred reams of paper by this weight pays for eight reams that he never receives."

"And the war makes it easy, for every shopkeeper says that the scales are strained and the prices are driven by the times," said Hac? Arif. "I have been forty years in the guild, and I have not seen the bazaar so careless of its own honour."

Ayaan set the weight down and said nothing for some moments.

"A price board is worth little if the weight behind it is false," he said. "Let us find how many such weights there are before we say anything to the guild."

"The House shall pay for the testing, and the guild shall choose the shops," said Zeynep. "No man will say that the House has picked his shop to shame it."

Hac? Arif wrapped the brass weight in its cloth and promised to bring forty more within the week.

II

Constantinople, Darülfünun — 15 July 1915

Mazhar Bey received them in the physics laboratory, where forty brass weights lay in two rows upon a long bench.

Hac? Arif had gathered them from forty stationers’ shops in a single week, and each had been marked with a numbered slip.

"I have tested them against the standard kilogram of the Bureau at Paris, which the university has held since the exhibition," said Mazhar Bey. "Eleven are false, and four more are so worn that they cannot be trusted."

"Eleven in forty is more than one in four," said Zeynep. "Do the shopkeepers know?"

"Most of them do not, for the weights were bought from the same two makers in Mahmutpa?a, and they have used them for years." He turned a slip over. "A shopkeeper who cheats by habit is easier to correct than one who cheats by plan."

Ayaan examined the row of weights and thought of the sealed counts of the House’s own sheds.

"Can the Darülfünun stamp the true ones, Mazhar Bey?" he asked.

"It can stamp them in a day each, if the guild pays for the stamp and the House lends the foundry’s bench." The professor smiled. "I would rather my students learned that a weight is a promise."

III

Constantinople, Galata — 28 July 1915

The hall of the Compact was crowded to the doors, for Hac? Arif had called every guild elder who sold by weight or by measure.

Zeynep stood at the lower end of the long table and read the five articles of the Market Code in her clear voice.

The first required every shop to keep a stamped weight and a stamped measure, and the second required a printed price board in the shop window.

The third required a written receipt for every sale above ten kuru?, and the fourth established a guild witness who might test any weight on any day without notice.

The fifth was the shortest, and it provided that a shopkeeper whose weight was found false should pay a fine of two liras and be named in the guild notice for a month.

A grey-bearded elder of the coppersmiths rose with his hand upon the table.

"This is the work of a young man who has never kept a shop in the bazaar," he said. "The Porte has laws, and we have our customs, and neither of them requires a receipt."

"The Porte’s laws have not been kept in the bazaar for a generation," said Vlastos, who had come in quietly and stood by the door. "I have bought false weights myself, and I do not care to do it again."

The elder turned to look at him, and he stood for a moment in silence.

"If the Greek of Pera will accept a witness in his shop, I shall accept one in mine," he said at last.

IV

Constantinople, Sirkeci — 12 August 1915

Server Bey received Ayaan in a small room of the Ministry of Finance, where a single window gave on the courtyard.

He read the Market Code through twice and laid it on the blotter.

"The Treasury is troubled by the rumours of hoarding, and every deputy has his own proposal for price decrees," he said. "A code that the guilds have drawn up for themselves is worth more than any decree that I could write."

"Does it need the Ministry’s seal?" asked Ayaan.

"It needs a letter of recognition, and I may be able to write one if the House asks for nothing in return." Server Bey tapped the paper. "I would also ask that the first stamped weights be tested in public, in front of the gazette men, so that no deputy may say that the code was written in secret."

"The House will ask for nothing, and the guild will test the weights at Rüstem Pa?a on the fourteenth of September."

Server Bey wrote the date on the margin of the code, and he looked up with something near warmth.

"You will find that the war makes honest men impatient with dishonest ones, Efendi," he said. "It is the only good effect of it that I have seen."

"The House will keep the first test open to every shopkeeper, even those who have spoken against the code," said Ayaan. "A reform that excludes its critics will be broken by them within a year."

"Then let Allah grant that every critic is as easily persuaded as the Greek of Pera," said Server Bey, and he rose to see his guest to the door.

V

Constantinople, Galata — 30 August 1915

Cevdet came to the office at the lamp hour and waited until Mihran had gone to the strong room.

"A deputy in the Chamber is asking whether the House holds paper in excess of its needs, and whether it should be taken under the new decrees on stocks," he said. "The question comes from the same circle as the clerk who spoke at Galata."

"Is there a ground for it?" asked Zeynep.

"None that I can find, Han?m, but a rumour needs no ground." He folded his hands. "It is easier to answer a rumour before it is asked."

Zeynep considered the matter for the space of a minute and wrote a note upon a clean sheet.

"The House will print its stock in weeks upon the price board every Friday, with the grade and the shed," she said. "Any deputy or clerk may read it, and no one need ask the Chamber."

"It will show your reserve of paper to the street."

"It will show eight weeks of stock, Cevdet Efendi, and the street may read that and be reassured." She pinned the note to the wall. "A secret that is guarded by silence invites a thief, and a figure that is posted in the open is guarded by the crowd."

Cevdet bowed, and for the first time in some weeks he smiled without reserve.

VI

Constantinople, Rüstem Pa?a — 14 September 1915

The warehouse yard was crowded with shopkeepers from Emin?nü and Galata, and each held a weight in a cloth.

Mazhar Bey sat at a table under an awning with his brass scales and the two stamps of the Darülfünun.

Hac? Arif called the names in order, and each man came forward and set his weight upon the pan.

The true ones received the stamp and went away with a printed slip, and the false ones were laid on a separate table without remark.

At noon a grocer from Galata, a stout man with a gold ring, set down a weight and stared when the pointer swung.

"It was my father’s, Efendi, and he used it for thirty years," he said.

"Then your father was honest by accident, or the weight has worn, but it is short by six parts in a hundred," said Mazhar Bey. "You may buy a true one from the guild for four kuru?, and you will pay two liras for the one that you have used."

The grocer paid, and he looked at the stamped weight in his hand with an expression that was almost relieved.

Vlastos came forward next with six weights wrapped in a silk handkerchief, and every one of them passed.

"I told you on the twenty-eighth that I would stand in the line like any other man," he said to Hac? Arif. "I did not say that I would enjoy it."

By evening, two hundred and eighteen shops had been tested, and the fine collected had paid for the stamp and the foundry bench.

Ayaan stood at the edge of the crowd with the Friday sheets under his arm, and he watched a gazette man write the figures.

VII

Constantinople, Süleymaniye — 2 October 1915

Mustafa sat beside the fountain with Mehmed, who was dropping crumbs for the pigeons and counting them aloud.

"I am told that the bazaar has agreed to a code, my son, and that the Ministry has written a letter," said Mustafa. "Who will keep it when the gazette men have gone home?"

"The guild witness will test any weight on any day, and the fine is posted for a month," said Ayaan. "The shopkeepers who keep the code will be named in the guild notice as well."

"Naming the honest is a better rule than naming the false, for a man will go a long way to be thought honest." The old man smiled. "But a rule that rests upon the pride of the shopkeeper will wear thin unless the customer also demands it."

"The receipt does that, for a customer who holds a receipt may bring a complaint to the witness."

Mustafa nodded slowly and pulled his shawl around his shoulders.

"A reform is only finished when the poorest buyer in the lane has learned to ask for it, Ayaan," he said. "Allah grant that your clerks teach the women to ask for the receipt."

"Then I shall ask the Saturday school to teach the boys to read a receipt before they read a ledger," said Ayaan. "The mothers will learn it from the sons."

Mustafa laughed softly and lifted a crumb for the child.

Mehmed looked up and announced that he had counted twenty-three pigeons.

VIII

Constantinople, Galata — 25 October 1915

The letter of recognition from the Ministry of Finance reached the Financial Office on a grey afternoon.

It bore the Ministry’s seal and the signature of the Under-Secretary, and it recognised the Market Code of the Emin?nü and Galata guilds for the duration of the war and thereafter.

Zeynep read it aloud to Elias and Mihran and Samuel Aboab, who had gathered at the long table.

"Six hundred and four shops have been stamped since the fourteenth of September, and sixty-one have been fined," said Elias. "The witness has tested forty more without notice, and thirty-seven were true."

"Then the code is working, and the fines are paying for the stamps," said Zeynep. "Mazhar Bey wishes to teach the guild boys to use the scales at the Saturday school."

"And the receipts?"

"Samuel Efendi shall print them at the stationers’ cost, and the House will supply the first thousand free." She smiled at the three clerks. "The women of Emin?nü shall learn to ask for them by Christmas."

Samuel Aboab noted the order in his book and asked whether the Armenian and Greek quarters should receive their receipts in their own scripts as well.

"Print them in three scripts," said Zeynep. "A receipt that the buyer cannot read will not be asked for."

When the clerks had gone, she took the small ledger of the office from the shelf and wrote beneath the entry of the twentieth of June.

*The fifth quarter of the office: Market Code adopted by the guilds.

Six hundred and four weights stamped. Stock eight weeks, posted on the board each Friday.*

She closed the book and placed it beside the lamp, where Ayaan would see it when he came up the stair.