Merchants

i see your piont about the wages chardonay, but bit is already an unwritten law for many people who look for employees. This is a way to motivate people to enhance thier skills. but this will be an aspect that either the duchy council or the merchants guild will have to vote on. I think that if the vote is a mojority then it should be passed as law.

Merchants that do not wish to belong to the merchant guild are still merchants, the merchants guild is there to help them and to voice thier concerns to the council or public. It is there if they need help, thats all i can ask for and i think thats all anybody wants, is a place to get help when needed.

This moment Somerset is a strong financial center beyond our soil, offering surpluses to other Counties in basic food and stats elite high demanding surpluses.

Why we do that ? most of them want exchange products for their stones and irons.
Not cash...
Despite the fact that i dont like this Kind of trade because this moment WE NEED these resources, we gain good prices, because our advance in Somerset are low prices of trading between Town and County and that WE DONT USE traders for that purpose.

This is very big advantage to sell abroad, because we always work on profit.

But, when in time we adjust our mines in a level that we will not need these quantities of Iron and Stone, the story will be much more different.....

In this scenario come our artillery, the new generation of traders, going from town to town in the surrounding Counties offering our overproduction.

What we want here is more and more people involved, because its really fun to see 2 parties to trade.

In this moment i assure you that Traders Outside of Somerset cannot manipulate our market, they can dumb as much as they want.

Can they put 1.000 vegetables on our market in a low price ? County will intervate and get rid of them from the town, warned by the Mayor about the situation.

Can they put 2.000 fishes ? let them do it , we can afford it

Why ? this is our job, we will stockpit and sell them better, because we have the funds to do it and not let our towns in manipulation.

I am nto coming in the Legal part of the story,it is up to the Mayor-PP-Judge to decide.

I hear some Somerset Citizens to talk about different markets, wrong the market of Somerset has to be one, buying and selling around products, items ,food and surpluses where needed.

About the Merchant wages, it is for their protection such a decree Lady Chardonnay, after all in the mayority of our towns , Citizens IN THAT LEVEL work for no less than 18.00 pounds.
If they dont want payment this is another story and depends on them.

About protected classes, well, what then we can tell about Civil Servants that ask for their services 40 minimum and the most of them 50 pounds for a days job in a town ?
Is this more fair i wonder.

In the future ,in a more demanidng market around England, where the surpluses will began to be cheaper and cheaper- see France for a big example here - we need to have the best trained traders with the knowledge to deal in high demanding exchanges.

So, the sooner, the better....

Now, you see I was opposed to this idea when it was proposed. But you have swayed me to your way of thinking. Very good. I enjoyed this discussion.

I have much to say on this topic, but cannot stay long. I really like this discussion, though.

First, Shane, you have made this merchant proud! I applaud you for putting in this effort, and coming to the Council with a very interesting topic. Not only that, but you wrote up a script for a potential addition to our Legal Corpus. As a Merchant, I am excited for a potential improvement to our standard of living; as a Councilor, I am proud that a citizen would be confident enough to bring this forth to the often intimidating council; as a friend and fellow Chardian, I am rooting for ya, mate! Keep it up!

Secondly, Chardy is right about the different types of merchants. This payment should (and I believe that is Shane's intention) only be offered to those who are doing official work for the town or county. Independent merchants are making their money while trading, Official merchants are making all profit for the town/county. It is the official merchants that loose so much personal money trading for the good of her/his home. I have probably lost thousand(s) of pounds on potential wages and needing to feed myself. Now I am not complaining, I personally do not mind as long as my home gets profit, I am stating fact. It is very difficult to recruit new official merchants knowing that they will probably loose a lot of their money. We are very lucky in Chard to have a strong and dedicated merchant fleet. I would love to be able to pay them, as they deserve some compensation for their work. (ooc. and it will encourage more players to try out trading, which is a very fun and underused aspect of the game.)

I have always been strangely uncomfortable with the Trade Minister's ability to transport materials from one town to the next in mere seconds. Boats can travel hundreds of miles from Chard to GC so quickly! I wish I could travel that fast. It has always made me think that our Trade Ministers are sorcerers, or that someone the TM title gives a persona magical abilities. I would love to see Somerset and each town have merchants traveling about all across our county and England. We will be able to balance our internal markets and bring in good deals from our neighbors. But this may merely be a dream of mine - no more magic!

Regarding the Somerset Trade Guild: I am not exactly sure this serves the purpose that Shane was referring to, at least it doesn't in practice as of now. The Trade Guild is open for membership, and in fact has many members who are not from Somerset. The Merchant Guilde, if I can assume Shane's intentions, would serve to represent Merchant's rights and advocate for them. It would be made up of primarily (if not completely) of Merchants from within Somerset. This may be a false assumption, but I do not think the Trade Guild is what he was looking for.

Okay this is far too long already - sorry for that. I have much to say on this topic, as it is very dear to my heart and passion. But I must run now.

Keep up this great discussion! I love it!

Thank you Rebo you have expressed many things i have not found the words for.

the merchant guild itself would be an extensaion of "Castle of Bristol". hence it would be great to bring more people to the castle and enjoy all these discusions and may even motivate them to jion other areas as well!

Lord_Justinan wrote:

Another thing, i dont agree with the article 1.2.1

Suppose the Mayor find a deal in Lancaster , to send a merchant there need more than 10 days, to get back another 10.
So to avoid these kind of deals i think we have to protect this decree.
County when need it will pay the Merchants, even more, 19 pounds, but when they trade for the town, they have to be paied by the town.

After all in real world this is how it works, be a Mayor have responsibilities, or he doesnt have to put a candidacy at all.

thankyou for your input. I find that the duchy should pay for the Offical merchants. as for your example to solve that problem maybe the duchy could negotiate with TH and Merhcts Guild to arrange fair payment for the merchants. a compromize may be the best solution.

Surely the duchy can spare between 1500-2500 pounds a month to fund a merchant fleet. i dont know exactly but one could only think you spend atleast that much on defence per month.

The merchant guild i would like created here in the castle of bristol and yes we the merchants will vote for the chairperson after the initial creation and organization of the guild.

shanehall16 wrote:

This is my first shoot at this sort of thing so No laughing. hahahahaha

any way here it is

Merchants Proposal.

001 Book 1 :- Merchants

Article 1

Article 1.1.1 All Merchants either for a town or Duchy be recognized as ambassadors of such Town or Duchy.

Article 1.1.2 Merchanting be recognized as an official line of employment by both a Town or Duchy.

Article 2

Article 1.2.1 All merchants employed by the Town or Duchy will be paid by the Duchy.(this is under negotiation)

Article 1.2.2 Merchants that are employed by a Town or Duchy will be paid according to their Charisma and Strength.

Example 1. 0-50 charisma – strength equals 17 pounds pay per day of travel, 51-100 charisma – strength equals 18 pounds per day of travel and so there on.(these are subject to change by the Duchy upon discussion with the Merchants Guild.)

Article 3

Article 1.3.1 A Merchants Guild shall be created and approved by the Duchy. Lord of the Merchants guild will be elected and voted on by the Members fo such Guild.(Guild to be created in The Castle of Bristol)

Article 1.3.2 The Purpose of the Merchants guild is to uphold the rights of merchants employed by a Town or Duchy. It will also co-ordinate and communicate with a Town or Duchy to meet the required needs for all concerned. (this may be later changed by the Duchy or Merchants Guild)

Article 1.3.3 The merchants Guild is open for all to view and ask for help.However there will be areas of the Guild available to members only.
For example current merchant deals and contacts shall remain behind closed doors as it is not relevant to the public.

I have made a few alterations here and there, i am still open to comments.

Should the Duchy pay for the merchants? Why not? how much?

anyone is welcome to awnser these questions for we do need to discuss it further as nothing has been made plain of these matters.

Article 1.1.1 All Merchants either for a town or Duchy be recognized as ambassadors of such Town or Duchy.
Could you please clarify this point, I'm not sure what you imply by this...
Ambassadors, must swear fealty to duke and have to be part of a legal contract that the chancellor drafts.......

I think it's a fantastic proposal

but do you want this constitution to be part of the Somerset Legal Corpus or do you want to keep it seperate?

But on the whole, fantastic initiative, and a great proposal that I support wholeheartedly

I have to disagree with the "ambassador" part of this. We already have county ambassadors who have diplomatic duties. I think economic concerms of merchants are not the same and should be considered separate. Certainly loyalty to the county should be a requirement for merchants, but keep these two offices apart.

mmm.. i have to agree with Suan here. If we go by ambassador then that means every action a merchant might undertake will reflect on the county and its duke. Now if they do something well and people are happy then thats all well and good. but what if they accidentally do something wrong? It could very well cause a crises that quickly blows out of proportion because these merchants are also ambassadors. The potential for disaster plus the added responsibility of acting as your duke/duchess's voice would mean that these ambassadors must be kept up to date on every single piece of politics just in case they must act...

so no i dont think ambassador status will suit. I would go so far as to call them a goverment worker... officer... a procurement officer maybe? :S anyway as thats been dealt with onto your question...

I think The duchy should pay for merchants only if they are working for the Duchy. The duchy cant micromanage every aspect of everything and so like all governments they should delegate authority. In this case town merchants should come under the power of the mayors and is therefore the responsibility of the mayor to pay their upkeep. When the Duchy does not benefit from a cent i do not see why they have to pay for merchants of town which are in effect trying to make their own town more prosperous.

though a way to bypass this would be to have some sort of tax for every trade.. though that would be hard to manage and thus give back something to the county...

ok that might not be making much sense so i'm sorry... its late and i';m half asleep... but in essence i dont think the duchy should pay for trades and deals that are not benefiting them.

When people say the county shouldn't pay for town merchants because its profiting the town and not the county, I ask, "what *is* the county, but a collection of towns?" And isn't making the towns of Somerset more prosperous in effect making the county of somerset more prosperous? I see no issue distributing the wealth of the county among the towns, as opposed to hoarding it in the county vaults.

I don't think merchants should also be ambassadors, merchants are not diplomats

what i mean by ambasadors is that a merchant must conduct themselves properly as they will be in foriegn teritory. wheather they are offically ambasadors or not it deosn't matter as what they do will always reflect upon the Duchy anyway. I therefore think its a good idea to have something in-place to keep some order and responsibilty among our merchants. Ambasador may not be the best but this is only a draft right now, it could be changed to a code of practice or something similar.

by improving the status and pay of merchants will encourage more trade and therefore improve the standing and the wealth of the Duchy as a whole.

that is a lot better m'lord, I'm afraid the risks run to high to count them as ambassadors since ambassadors are also imune from the law of the County....So as I said complex legal matters involved in that....

Your new book is very much acceptable to me, I also believe that the merchant guild "lord" or leader should have clearly defined powers, Also All merchants in a foreign county or territory must alert the apropriate authorities of that area, and the embassy here..Just so we know where are citizens' are

Also remember that some county's have laws about merchants and "dumping", Remember to let your other merchants know of these numerous issues...

On the whole, I am delighted to see the slight change we needed for legal purposes made so quickly....

Thankyou all, and especailly lord shanehall,

I bid you all a good night....

mm... a question on the allocated 12 day paid travel. Does it accumulate over the months or does it remain at max of 12 months. Also what if towns have deals with places that are further then a 6 day travel or things happen like the other town hasnt got the requisite goods or perhaps there are further deals to be had at another town so the merchant goes further afield? Can the towns apply for a special grant to get more money for the merchant upon their return?

also a good question to consider is how a town hall chooses its merchants. Somerset has been fairly safe for travel by a lone person for the most part, but we cannot say the same thing for other counties. So what if the merchant gets robbed and suffer financial loss of their own? Who deals with this? how will they be reimbursed or if they are reimbursed at all? Would it then be better to have older stronger players to be merchants? but then this would mean it would negate the effect of offering pay to players of lesser strength and thus recruiting them. Just something i thought of that we might want to think about...

and mike about the spreading the wealth to the towns and all that... I believe you are right. I think it is right that more money should be spread around and that the towns make up the county. But what i am afraid of is that mayors go willy nilly about their deals and disregard common sense. I'm afraid of people abusing their power so that it becomes a drain on the economy of somerset instead of a boost. However shanehall here has throughly negated to fears with the allocation of days and such. I know it sounds kinda ironic since i'm asking about extensions on the paid days of travel but yeah.. these were my fears...

all in all great work so far... its an interesting project that i hope we can iron out the kinks of soon...

Aye Rob, I never would have asked for a blank check, like when Justinan said he'd send 200 pounds/month for 5 months, thats likely plenty for a town to hire their merchants, and however they use that money for trade is up to them, if they make one big trip, or many little trips, but they can't just hire 10 merchants to travel across England forever since 200 pounds wouldn't stretch nearly that far

And as far as robbery, so long as town hall sends grants, and the merchants knows how to store personal inventory/money in the grant as well, even if they get robbed they wouldn't lose anything

Oh another reason to pay merchants I just remembered, every time a traveller visits a capital they pay 1 pound/day (unless they have an apartment or whatnot which is very unlikely) Now, thats not too much money, but it is an extra expense that is paid simply to be a merchant (if you visit any capitals which are very hard to avoid)

lethion wrote:

that is a lot better m'lord, I'm afraid the risks run to high to count them as ambassadors since ambassadors are also imune from the law of the County....So as I said complex legal matters involved in that....

Your new book is very much acceptable to me, I also believe that the merchant guild "lord" or leader should have clearly defined powers, Also All merchants in a foreign county or territory must alert the apropriate authorities of that area, and the embassy here..Just so we know where are citizens' are

Also remember that some county's have laws about merchants and "dumping", Remember to let your other merchants know of these numerous issues...

On the whole, I am delighted to see the slight change we needed for legal purposes made so quickly....

Thankyou all, and especailly lord shanehall,

I bid you all a good night....

thank you, the issues you speak of will be covered in a "Code of Practice" published by the Merchants Guild.

Robert_Frankel wrote:

mm... a question on the allocated 12 day paid travel. Does it accumulate over the months or does it remain at max of 12 months. Also what if towns have deals with places that are further then a 6 day travel or things happen like the other town hasnt got the requisite goods or perhaps there are further deals to be had at another town so the merchant goes further afield? Can the towns apply for a special grant to get more money for the merchant upon their return?

also a good question to consider is how a town hall chooses its merchants. Somerset has been fairly safe for travel by a lone person for the most part, but we cannot say the same thing for other counties. So what if the merchant gets robbed and suffer financial loss of their own? Who deals with this? how will they be reimbursed or if they are reimbursed at all? Would it then be better to have older stronger players to be merchants? but then this would mean it would negate the effect of offering pay to players of lesser strength and thus recruiting them. Just something i thought of that we might want to think about...

and mike about the spreading the wealth to the towns and all that... I believe you are right. I think it is right that more money should be spread around and that the towns make up the county. But what i am afraid of is that mayors go willy nilly about their deals and disregard common sense. I'm afraid of people abusing their power so that it becomes a drain on the economy of somerset instead of a boost. However shanehall here has throughly negated to fears with the allocation of days and such. I know it sounds kinda ironic since i'm asking about extensions on the paid days of travel but yeah.. these were my fears...

all in all great work so far... its an interesting project that i hope we can iron out the kinks of soon...

The 12 Days PAID travel is the specific Town budget for a month, I think it ois best that any remaining funds for a specific month should be returned to the Duchy as to afoid hoarding or abuse of powers by any specific mayor. I believe that if a comodity is needed and cannot be given by the duchy then a merchant from any specific town should be allowed to travel for more than the four days, however this will not affect the max twelve days allocated to a town.

i find that it is time to move this to be voted on by the council, it has had plenty more than 2 days discusion and many changes, Thank you.

A council member will have to move it to be voted on as i dont have the ability.

Should this be adopted into the Legal Corpus, or run similarly to the way the SAS meat program is run? What does everyone think?

Shane, your proposal hasn't been forgotten, mate. It is a good one, and there has been a lot of good discussion around it.

Cheers,
Rebo

I would vote to have it run the same as the SAS meat program is, thats been a terrific success (in my opinnion) and if we actually have a merchant guild or some such, then the mayor's/county councillors can keep records of merchants in good standing, and that helps to make sure the right people are getting paid for doing the work. Might as well try to copy something similar that seems to work just fine

i have prepared a forum for the merchants guild, i choose a seperate forum from this one to make it easier to acess and moderate.

everyone is welcome to take a look and even have a chat in the taverns

http://somersetmerchants.forumotion.com/index.htm

Including me? I have not taken part in this discussion even up till now.

If this is a county program, should it not be based on this forum?

I really don't need to have yet another board to check.

it could be based on this forum but i think this forum is way too clutered and diverse in the first place. Besides the merchants themselves are not being represented by the county, but are being represented by a person who will be appionted by them, this person would have more freedom to monitor the going ons of the merchants guild if it was seperate from this one.