Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus, 1810-1823 Part 17

You will have seen by the newspapers that I have been through all the parade and expense, which my office of sheriff imposes on me, when the judges attend the a.s.sizes, without any advantage. The judge came into the town after midnight, by which his commission became void, and, after sending to London, Jury, Witnesses, Counsel, and Sheriff were all dismissed to their respective homes. It is expected that we shall have a new commission in two or three weeks....

I am sorry that you have not made any great progress in the work that you are about. After the reflection you have given to the subject I am not surprised that my reviewer has not shaken your confidence in your opinions. It would have been little flattering to me if he had, for I have had many opportunities, and have taken a great deal of pains to bring you round to my way of thinking without success. Why should he be so fortunate on the first trial? The truth I begin to suspect is that we do not differ so much as we have hitherto thought. I differed very little from the opinions expressed in that part of your MS. which you read to me, but I wish to h[ave an] opportunity of judging of your system as a whole, and therefore shall be glad when it comes forth in its printed form.

I am glad to hear that Sir J. Mackintosh and Mr. Whishaw are well, pray remember me kindly to them. If either, or both of them, should go to Bowood[197] this season, I shall take it very kind of them if they will come for a few days to me. The Marquis of Lansdown has promised me a visit, and it would be particularly agreeable if they would all come at the same time. Should Mr. Whishaw be as near to me as Bowood he is already under an engagement to come. I met the Marquis and Marchioness of Lansdown at Gloucester; they entered the town on their way home from a tour, just as I was about leaving it; and owing to the breaking up of the courts were detained some time for want of horses. I suppose that you will be confined at Hertford till the Xmas vacation. I very much wish that Mrs. Malthus and you would pa.s.s a part of that vacation with us.... Mr. Mill arrived here yesterday evening to pay me his long promised visit. He brings me no news, excepting that he dined at Mr.

Bentham's with Mr. Brougham, Mr. Rush[198] the American Amba.s.sador, and Sir Samuel Romilly. The old gentleman is becoming gay. A party of four must to him be a formidably large one[199]....

Ever truly yours, D. RICARDO.

NOTE.--Between this letter and the next come probably the two quoted by McCulloch (Ricardo, Works, p. XXVI), to whom (if not to Mill) they were no doubt addressed: 7th April, 1819, 'You will have seen that I have taken my seat in the House of Commons. I fear that I shall be of little use there. I have twice attempted to speak; but I proceeded in the most embarra.s.sed manner; and I have no hope of conquering the alarm with which I am a.s.sailed the moment I hear the sound of my own voice.' 22nd June, 1819, 'I thank you for your endeavours to inspire me with confidence on the occasion of my addressing the House. Their indulgent reception of me has, in some degree, made the task of speaking more easy to me; but there are yet so many formidable obstacles to my success, and some, I fear, of a nature nearly insurmountable, that I apprehend it will be wisdom and sound discretion in me to content myself with giving silent votes.'

Happily he did not keep this resolution. It was at this time that George Grote was introduced to Ricardo, breakfasting with him at Brook Street (March 23 and 28, 1819), and walking with him and Mill in St. James's Park and Kensington Gardens afterwards. Grote used to submit his papers to Ricardo's judgment, and vied with Mill in admiration of him (Personal Life of George Grote, p. 36). A letter from Ricardo to Grote, dated March 1823, is given in Grote's Life (p. 42); Ricardo thanks Grote for having expressed approbation of his political conduct. One of Ricardo's last public appearances, outside Parliament, was at a Reform dinner, where he proposed the chief resolution of the evening in a speech which Grote helped him to prepare (Bain's Life of J. Mill, p. 208).

LXIX[200].

GATCOMB PARK, _21 Sept., 1819_.

MY DEAR MALTHUS,

I must not longer delay answering your kind letter. I have had you often in my mind, and was on the point of writing to you a short time ago, when I received a letter from Mill enclosing one from Mr. Napier, the editor or manager of the Encyclopedia Britannica, requesting him to apply to me to write an article on the Sinking Fund[201] for his publication. The task appeared too formidable to me to think of undertaking; and I immediately wrote to Mill to that effect; but that only brought me another letter from him which hardly left me a choice, and at last I have consented to try what I can do, but with no hope of succeeding. I am very hard at work, because I wish to give Mr.

Napier[202] the opportunity of applying to some other person, without delaying his publication, as soon as I have convinced Mill and him that I am not sufficiently conversant with matters of this kind. This business has lately engrossed all my time, and will probably continue to do so for at least a week to come.

So you moved from Henley to Maidenhead! You were determined not to lose sight of the Thames. I shall expect to see your name entered as a candidate for the annual wherry.

I am glad that you are proceeding merrily with your work. I now have hopes it will be finished. You have been very indolent, and are not half so industrious nor so anxious as I am when I have anything on hand.

I have not been able to give a proper degree of attention to the subject of your letter. The supposition you make of half an ounce of silver being picked up on the sea sh.o.r.e by a day's labour is, you will confess, an extravagant one. Under such circ.u.mstances silver could not, as you say, rise or fall, neither could labour, but corn could or rather might.

Profits I think would still depend on the proportions of produce allotted to the capitalist and the labourer. The whole produce would be less, which would cause its price to rise, but of the quant.i.ty produced the labourer would get a larger proportion than before. This larger proportion would nevertheless be a less quant.i.ty than before, and would be of the same money value. In the case you suppose the rise of money wages does not appear to be necessary in the progress of cultivation to its extreme limits; but the reason is that you have excluded the use of capital entirely in the production of your medium of value. You know I agree with you that money is a more variable commodity than is generally imagined, and therefore I think that many of the variations in the price of commodities may be fairly attributed to an alteration in the value of money. It is difficult to conceive that in a great and civilized country any commodity of importance could be produced with equal advantage without the employment of capital. By what you tell me in your letter[203] you have respected my authority much too highly, and I do not consent that you should attribute to that respect the little activity you have displayed in getting your work finished. I wish that Mrs. Malthus and you would come to us here at Christmas. I shall then be quite in the humo[u]r to discuss all the difficult questions on which we appear to differ. My family is now in a settled state, and I think I can promise you more comfortable entertainment than I have yet been able to give you here. You must no longer plume yourself on being the princ.i.p.al object of Cobbett's[204] abuse. I have come in for my share of it, and just in the way that I antic.i.p.ated. Even when he agrees with you he can find shades of difference which calls [_sic_] forth his virulence.

I had the pleasure of pa.s.sing a few days lately in Mr. Whishaw's company at Mr. Smith's at Easton Grey. He was in very good spirits and very agreeable. We had some political discussion, particularly on Reform, and he was more liberal in his concessions than I have usually found him. I had Miss Hobhouse heartily on my side; and Mrs. Chandler, an enthusiast for the Whigs, declared that mine were the true Whig principles. Mr.

Belsham was of the party, but he did not take a decided part. Mr.

Macdonnel, who came with Mr. Whishaw was, I thought, all but an ally.

Are you not weary?...

Believe me, Ever yours truly, DAVID RICARDO.

NOTE 1.--The Sinking Fund was a frequent topic of Ricardo's speeches in the House of Commons. It was a delusion to the people, who fancied it was paying off their National Debt, and a snare to the Government, who were constantly tempted to divert it from its proper purpose. So he declared in his first session (e.g. May 13, June 9, and June 18, 1819), and so he persisted, in his last. The following apologue on the subject from his speech of 28th Feb.

1823, is in the manner of Cobden, and shows how economists will rather read a difficult truth 'writ small' than 'writ large:'--'I have (he says) an income of 1000 a year, and I find it necessary to borrow 10,000, for which I agree to give up to my creditor 500 per annum. My steward says to me: "If you will live on 400 a year and give up another 100 out of your income of 500, that will enable you in a certain number of years to get completely rid of your debt." I listen to this good advice, live on 400 a year, and give up annually 600 to my steward in order to pay my creditor.

The fist year my steward pays the creditor 100; then the debt would be 9,900, and therefore the income [or interest] due to the creditor would be only 495. But I continue to pay to my steward 600 per annum; and in the next year the steward pays over 105, and so from year to year the debt is diminished, 600 being still received by the steward. At the end of a certain number of years the result is this--that out of a yearly reserve of 600, half the debt is paid off; only 250 is due to the creditor, and 350 remains in the hands of the steward, his master continuing to live on 400 per annum. At this period some object occurring to the steward which he thinks might be of benefit to me or to himself, he borrows 7000, and devotes the whole 350 in his hands to pay the interest on that sum. What then becomes of my sinking fund?

Originally I was in debt only 10,000; now I find myself indebted altogether 12,000; so that instead of possessing a sinking fund, as I had hoped, I am positively so much more in debt.' Ricardo's moral was that we should honestly give up pretending to have a sinking fund. One of his own friends remarking that this was to believe, with the French lady, that the best way to overcome temptation was to yield to it, Ricardo retorts (speech of 6th March, 1823): 'If I knew I was going to be robbed of my purse, I should spend its contents myself first.'

NOTE 2.--It is worth while to quote some parts of the pa.s.sages of Cobbett, to which this letter refers. They were too violent to be taken seriously. If Dr. Johnson really loved a good hater, he lost much enjoyment by ending his days before Cobbett wrote. In the letter which appears in the Political Register for 4th Sept. 1819, Cobbett delivers himself as follows: 'I see that they [the borough-mongers] have adopted a scheme of one Ricardo (I wonder what countryman he is), who is I believe a converted Jew. At any rate he has been a 'Change Alley-man for the last fifteen or twenty years. If the Old Lord Chatham were now alive, he would speak with respect of the muckworm, as he called the 'Change Alley people.

Faith, they are now become _everything_. Baring a.s.sists at the Congress of Sovereigns, and Ricardo regulates things at home. The muckworm is no longer a creeping thing; it rears its head aloft, and makes the haughty borough-lords sneak about in holes and corners.'... He goes on to say that the doctrines preached in the 'Courier' and elsewhere about the inutility of ready money and the convenience of paper show that cash payments are not really thought practicable by these people. 'This Ricardo says that the country is happy in the discovery of a paper money, that it is an improvement in political science. Now if this were true it would be better to have a paper money in _all_ countries. And what standard of _value_ would there then be? It is manifest that there could be none, and that commerce could not be carried on. Besides, what would be the peril in case of war?' Even as it is, the French expect us to be in their power in a very few years from this very cause, &c. In another letter to Hunt in the following number of the Register he goes on (p. 112): 'I wonder that Ricardo, hot from the 'Change, who talks of the _lower orders_ in such goodly terms, and was shocked at the idea of their increasing, ... had not thought of the fine and copious _drain_ that is continually going on from England to America. This was a little thing of suns.h.i.+ne amidst the gloom.'

There are other references to Ricardo in the Register not much more complimentary.

Ricardo and Malthus, however, wear their rue with a difference.

Cobbett reaches his spring-tide level of vituperation in the letter written from Long Island on 6th Feb., and printed in the Political Register for May 8, 1819 (vol. 34, no. 33): 'To Parson Malthus, on the Rights of the Poor and on the cruelty recommended by him to be exercised towards the Poor.'

'Parson, I have during my life detested many men, but never any one so much as you. Your book ... could have sprung from no mind not capable of dictating acts of greater cruelty than any recorded in the history of the ma.s.sacre of St. Bartholomew. Priests have in all ages been remarkable for cool and deliberate and unrelenting cruelty; but it seems to have been reserved for the Church of England to produce one who has a just claim to the atrocious preeminence. No a.s.semblage of words can give an appropriate designation of you; and therefore, as being the single word which best suits the character of such a man, I call you Parson, which amongst other meanings includes that of Borough-monger Tool' (pp.

1019, 1020). He goes on to say he has drawn up a list of 743 obnoxious parsons, who have dared to exclude his Register and 'Paper against Gold' from their parish reading-rooms. 'I must hate these execrable Parsons; but the whole ma.s.s put together is not to me an object of such perfect execration as you, a man (if we give you the name) not to be expostulated with but to be punished'

(1021).

The best commentary on this scurrility may be found in a speech of Ricardo himself (July 1, 1823, on the 'Pet.i.tion of Christian Ministers for free discussion'), where he says that ribald language should always be allowed full publicity, for it 'offends the common-sense of mankind' and can hope to make no serious converts.

LXX.

GATCOMB PARK, _9 Nov., 1819_.

MY DEAR MALTHUS,

... I shall go to London alone, on the 22nd, and of course I shall continue there until Parliament adjourns for the holidays:--perhaps you may have occasion to visit town during that time, if so, I shall have a bed at your service, and such fare as can be furnished by my factotum in Brook Street.

I am glad that Mr. Whishaw has expressed satisfaction with his very short visit here. I was very much pleased with his company--no one could be more agreeable, nor more disposed to be satisfied with everything about him. We had many conversations on the subject of Parliamentary Reform, and I was glad to find that our sentiments accorded much more than I had previously imagined. I should be quite contented with such a reform as Mr. Whishaw was willing to grant us. I am certainly not more inclined than I was before to Radicalism[205], after witnessing the proceedings of Hunt, Watson, and Co., if by Radicalism is meant Universal Suffrage. I fear, however, that I should not think the moderate reform, which you are willing to accede to, a sufficient security for good government. Your scheme of reform, if I recollect right, is as much too moderate as the universal suffrage plan is too violent: something between these would give me satisfaction. Do you think that any great number of the people can really be deluded with the idea that any change in the representation would completely relieve them from their distresses? There may be a few wicked persons who would be glad of a revolution, with no other view but to appropriate to themselves the property of others, but this object must be confined to a very limited number, and I cannot think so meanly of the understandings of those who are well disposed, as to suppose that they sincerely believe a reform in Parliament would give them work, or relieve the country from the payment of the load of taxes with which we are now burthened; neither do I observe in the speeches which are addressed to the mob any such extravagant expectations held out to them. If there were I am sure they know better than to believe the speakers who make such delusive promises. I expect that we shall have a very stormy session of Parliament.

With respect to my calculations, I have only this to say in defence of them, that I never brought them forward for any practical use, but merely to elucidate a principle. It is no answer to my theory to say that 'it is scarcely possible that all my calculations should not be necessarily and fundamentally erroneous,' for that I do not deny; but still it is true that the proportion of produce in agriculture or manufactures, retained by the capitalist who sets the labourers to work, will depend on the quant.i.ty of labour necessary to provide for the maintenance and support of the labourers.

You ask me 'whether, when land is thrown out of cultivation from the importation of foreign corn, I consider the new rate of profits as determined by the state of the land, or the stationary prices of manufactured and mercantile products compared with the fall of wages.'

You have correctly antic.i.p.ated my answer. 'Capital will,' I think, 'be withdrawn from the land till the last capital yields the profit obtained (by the fall of wages) in manufactures, on the supposition of the price of such manufactures remaining stationary.[']

I am glad to hear that your book will be so soon in the press, but I regret that the most important part of the conclusions from the principles which you endeavour to elucidate, will not be included in it, I mean taxation. In a letter which I have lately received from Turner[206], he is full of regret that the important subject of taxation receives so little attention from Political Economists;--at this time he thinks it peculiarly important, and I cannot but agree with him. As soon as you have launched your present work, I hope you will immediately prepare to give us your thoughts on a subject in which [we] are all practically interested.

I have received a letter also very lately from M'Culloch, he has been writing an article on Exchanges for the Ency. Brit., which is very well done, I think; although I cannot agree with one or two of his definitions.

I finished in my hasty way the article I had undertaken to do on the Sinking Fund, and then became so disgusted with it, that I was glad to get rid of it. I have given so many injunctions not to regard my supposed feelings in deciding whether it shall or shall not be published, that I much doubt whether it will ever see the light....

Ever yours, D. RICARDO.

NOTE.--The gap between the above letter (of 9th Nov. 1819) and the following (of 4th May, 1820) may be filled up by a letter of Ricardo to J. B. Say, dated from London, 11th January, 1820 (Oeuvres Diverses, p. 414). After thanking him for a present (which appears from Say's reply to have been a French translation of his 'Pol. Econ. and Taxation') and a letter, he goes on to say: 'I remember hearing you tell me when I saw you in Paris that in each successive edition of our respective works our opinions would approximate to each other more and more, and I am convinced that the truth of the remark will be demonstrated.' Our differences (he goes on) are becoming rather verbal than substantial. Your chapter on Value has in my opinion gained considerably. You misrepresent me, however, on that subject when you say I consider the _value_ of labour to determine the value of commodities; I hold, on the contrary, that it is not the value, but 'the _comparative quant.i.ty of labour_ necessary to production which regulates the relative value of the commodities produced.' Also in regard to Rent, Profits, and Taxation, you do not observe that my reasoning proceeds on the a.s.sumption that there is in every country 'a land which yields no rent, _or_ there is a capital employed on the land with a view to profit merely, and paying no rent for it.' [See 'Pol. Ec. and Tax.' (McC.'s ed.), ch. xii. p. 107.] The latter you pa.s.s over without answer. I forward you the 2nd edition of my book, which 'has nothing new in it, as I have not had the courage to recast it.' He concludes by saying: 'Political Economy is gaining ground. Sounder principles are now brought forward. Your treatise is rightly in the first rank of authorities. The debates in parliament last session were satisfactory to the friends of the science. The true principles of currency are at last recognised. I think that on that point we shall not again go astray. Jeremy Bentham and Mill are well; I saw them a short time ago.'

Say answers (2nd March, 1820) that their controversy would certainly end in agreement, if it were not cut short by death, as a recent fit of apoplexy had made him think probable. He then briefly defends himself against Ricardo's criticisms. How can you (he says) determine the quant.i.ty and quality of the labour except by the price paid to obtain it? As to the two parts of your proposition on Rent, I see no reason for disagreeing with the second when I differ from the first, and I think (with you) that taxation in the second case will be s.h.i.+fted to the consumers.

LXXI[207].

LONDON, _4 May, 1820_.

MY DEAR MALTHUS,

... I have read your book[208] with great attention. I need not say that there are many parts of it in which I quite agree with you. I am particularly pleased with your observations on the state of the poor; it cannot be too often stated to them that the most effectual remedy for the inadequacy of their wages is in their own hands. I wish you could succeed in ridding us of all the obstacles to the better system, which might be established.

After the frequent debates between us you will not be surprised at my saying that I am not convinced by your arguments on those subjects on which we have long differed. Our differences may in some respects, I think, be ascribed to your considering my book as more practical than I intended it to be. My object was to elucidate principles, and to do this I imagined strong cases that I might show the operation of those principles[209]. I never thought, for example, that practically any improvements took place on the land which would at once double its produce; but, to show what the effect of improvements would be, undisturbed by any other operating cause, I supposed an improvement to that extent to be adopted; and I think I have reasoned correctly from such premises. I am sure I do not undervalue the importance of improvements in agriculture to landlords, though it is possible that I may not have stated it so strongly as I ought to have done. You appear to me to overvalue them; the landlords would get no more rent while the same capital was employed as before on the land, and no new land was taken into cultivation; but, as with a lower price of corn new land could be cultivated and additional capital employed on the old land, the advantage to landlords would be manifest. Because the landlord's corn rent would increase without these conditions, you appear to think he would be benefited; but his additional quant.i.ty of corn would exchange for no more money nor for any additional quant.i.ty of other goods. If labour were cheaper, he would be benefited in as far as he would save on the employment of his gardeners and perhaps some other menial servants, but this advantage would be common to all who had the same money revenue, from whatever source it might be derived. The compliment you pay me in one of your notes[210] is most flattering. I am pleased at knowing that you entertain a favourable opinion of me; but I fear that the world will think, as I think, that your kind partiality has blinded you in this instance.

I differ as much as I ever have done with you in your chapter on the effects of the acc.u.mulation of capital[211]. Till a country has arrived to [_sic_] the end of its resources from the diminished powers of the land to afford a further increase, [I hold] it to be impossible that there should [be at the] same time a redundancy of capital and of [commodities (?)]. [I] agree that profits may be for a time very l[ow]