"I don't know if you were all listening to the druid elf this morning, but she requested that we ban certain substances harvested from dryad trees. I think this committee ought to discuss making a register of such things, which are illegal to harvest or import, whose bans would improve life for those within Cheliax. I'm sure the things she suggested aren't the only ones."

"Sounds like the slavery committee is going to say halflings should be on the list too."

The slavery committee is crazy and they're going to wreck the country.

"We should also have a register of those products forbidden only to import, so that we do not grow reliant on foreign production and dependent on their good will."

"That might be reasonable, Delegate Roig; do you have anything specific in mind?"

"Certainly. The vineyards did not prosper last year, which is unsurprising, and some of their owners and investors are on the brink of ruin. The olive groves have fared somewhat better, but imports from Andoran or Taldor would further destabilize the already unstable situation there. This is especially true if this year they will need to wholly replace and reorganize their workhands, as seems likely. The mines are also likely to be affected, and we would be dangerously vulnerable to foreign influence if all our precious metals came from abroad. Especially spellsilver, of course, but also gold and silver for coinage, given the present crisis there."

"That sounds like it'd make it pretty hard to run a trading voyage, if half the things that might fill the cargo hold abroad aren't welcome in Chelish ports."

"Perhaps higher duties on restricted goods, then?"

"I mean, I guess that's better than not allowing them at all but I'm not actually sure how a vineyard that didn't grow well this year does better if nobody can buy wine and raisins from Andoran either."

Why does he need to explain even the simplest of concepts. He's pretty sure his five-year-old son could figure this one out.

"In order to survive to the next year and then rebuild, a vineyard -- or a mine, or an orchard, the principle is the same -- needs to sell its crop from this year, however meager. One year of disruption and poor harvests due to war is often manageable, if the owner has saved prudently or acquired insurance. More years after that will generally mean the vineyard has become impossible to maintain, and needs to cease operation. Once it has done so, the foreign merchants can feel free to increase their prices significantly, and no one will have a choice but to buy from them or go without, leaving the country as a whole dependent on the imports."

"- well, I wouldn't buy a cargo of wine in Almas if it were expensive there and I wasn't sure it'd sell in Corentyn or wherever, though."

"I'm sure whoever handles bulk purchasing for your ship is familiar with the taxes and duties in the major ports you might visit, they exist nearly everywhere. Provided they don't change too quickly, it would not be a problem."

"Sure, I'm just not sure why things'd get more expensive in Almas in this situation."

"It is not that they would get more expensive in Almas, it's that a foreign ship, seeing that it had little competition, could come in to Corentyn and sell for far higher prices."

"Oh, is this only about foreign ships and not about foreign goods? That seems fine to me."

"No, once Almas knows that it can be sold for a higher price in Westcrown or Corentyn, from the last ships to dock in port, they will raise the price at the docks in Almas as well, especially to Chelish ships." Also your captain or quartermaster does this, unless he's as much of a fool as you.

"I guess we've got enough coastline that we can go on mostly trading between our own ports to avoid the duties, if you think it's that likely that there'll be price hikes overseas without them."

"...Perhaps you should ask your captain about how he reacts to this kind of thing. He's done it a dozen times at least, and apparently without your notice. I'm sure there are subjects on which your input is valuable, but I don't think we have time to explain all of the business of the committee that isn't."

Josep is Chelish, and therefore when he does not fully stifle his laugh, it's because he didn't try that hard.

"He's gone on to Corentyn by now since we didn't know how long this would take. I usually don't go ashore at all, but the general idea's not complicated, is it, you go where a thing is cheap to buy it and not where it's expensive, so if things get expensive we'll buy them somewhere else or buy different things."

"- Gentlemen, the cleric is right," says Ignasi, who cares about tariff policy. "Raising tariffs will have devastating consequences to trade. We should collect our taxes from land, not from trade, land can't go elsewhere and ships can."

"It cannot go elsewhere, but it can lie fallow and be reclaimed by the forest."

"Any land worth farming can grow enough to feed the farmers, or at least the cattle, but tariffs will choke the cities. Do you know what Rahadoum has done in Manaket, Mr. Roig? They've built an artificial harbor to shelter the ships from the storm, and a great crane to lift goods from the supplies, and when they did far fewer ships traveled on to Corentyn and Westcrown. We must match them, not give up the fight!"

"There are a great many people ruined because of deluges of foreign goods at the moment. It's been almost as bad as the damage in the sacks, and over the next few years much harder to recover from. If we ban the goods the druid requested, the farms will be taken care of. Perhaps you are right that tariffs will hurt, but still not as much as the lack of them."

"It's not the foreign goods," Cisterna says, "it's the terrible war and the shortage of coinage. We clearly need to mint more gold and silver so we don't need to get it from abroad, but the mines are not the subject of this committee, are they?"

"Even were that fixed, whole industries would remain ruined, guildmasters penniless and many who traded them desperate. Sir, you clearly never traded in cloth or paper. Something must be done."