Part 6 (2/2)

NOTE.--Of Ricardo, Bentham used to say: 'I was the spiritual father of Mill, and Mill was the spiritual father of Ricardo; so that Ricardo was my spiritual grandson. I was often _tete a tete_ with Ricardo. He would borrow a sixpenny book instead of buying it. There was an _epanchement_ between us. We used to walk together in Hyde Park, and he reported to me what pa.s.sed in the House of Commons. He had several times intended to quote the 'Fragment'; but his courage failed him as he told me. In Ricardo's book on rent there is a want of logic. I wanted him to correct it on these principles; but he was not conscious of it, and Mill was not desirous. He confounded _cost_ with _value_. Considering our intercourse it was natural he should give me a copy of his book;--the devil a bit!' (Life by Bowring in Works, vol. x. p. 498.) Then follows a letter to Ricardo, in which Bentham compliments him on his political progress: 'I told Burdett you had got down to _trienniality_, and were wavering between that and annuality, where I could not help flattering myself you would fix,--also, in respect of extent, down to _householders_, for which, though I should prefer universality on account of its simplicity and unexclusiveness, I myself should be glad to compound.' The suggestion of stinginess made by Bentham in the pa.s.sage quoted is sufficiently reb.u.t.ted by Bentham's own biographer, who tells us Ricardo was one of those who guaranteed the funds for Bentham's Chrestomathic School (Bentham, Works, x. p. 484), and by James Mill (Biography, p. 191), when he speaks of Ricardo's unwillingness to accept payment for his article (Sinking Fund) in the Encyclopaedia Britannica on the grounds that, first, it was not worth payment, second, payment was no part of his inducement to write it.

The influence of Bentham on Ricardo's general ways of thinking is discussed elsewhere. In economical theory (if we judge Bentham by his 'Manual of Political Economy,' which was written some years before this time, though not published in England till long afterwards) there was no more than a general agreement between the two men.

XXII.[71]

GATCOMB PARK, _13 Jan., 1815_.

MY DEAR SIR,

I am pleased to learn that you are busy writing with a view to immediate publication[72]. The public pay a most flattering attention to anything from your pen, and you are not fulfilling your duty to society if you do not avail yourself of this disposition to endeavour[73] to remove the cloud of ignorance and prejudice, which everywhere exists on the subjects which have particularly engaged your time and reflection. I hope your notes on Adam Smith are in great forwardness, and that they will soon follow the smaller publications which you are now preparing. I expect that they will not only be very useful in giving correct notions to the public, but also in calling the attention of those who are well informed in the science of political economy to many points which have hitherto escaped their consideration.

I cannot help thinking that Lord Lauderdale was mistaken (and I believe you hold the same opinion as him), in supposing the farmer to lie under any particular disadvantage from not having the monopoly of the home market, whilst so many other trades were enjoying that benefit. You will agree that the monopoly of the home market is eventually of no great advantage to the trade on which it is conferred. It is true that it raises the price of the commodity by shutting out foreign compet.i.tion, but this is equally injurious to all consumers, and presses no more on the farmer than on other trades. If monopolies tend to raise the price of labour, the inconvenience must be suffered by all who employ labour, and will therefore not be particularly injurious to the farmer or landlord. If all the monopolies of the home market were immediately abolished, there would be at least as much disposition to import corn:--if so they do not interfere with the natural course of the corn trade. Lord Lauderdale, with his opinion of the effect of monopolies, is, I think, quite consistent in recommending a duty on the importation of corn.

I thought you maintained that the high or low profits on commerce were totally independent of the amount of capital which might be employed on the land, consequently that high profits might continue as long as commerce was prosperous, whether that was for twenty or for a hundred years. I now understand you to say, that the profits of commerce may take the lead, and may regulate the profits of agriculture for a period of some duration, possibly for twenty years.

I have always allowed that under certain circ.u.mstances profits on agriculture might be diverted from their regular course for short periods, so that we only appear to differ with respect to the duration of such profits; instead of twenty years I should limit it to about four or five.

If with the same labour we could obtain double the quant.i.ty of tin from the mines in Cornwall, after prices had found the[ir l]evel, would the value of the whole ma.s.s of commodities be increased in England? Should we obtain the same quant.i.ty of deals from Norway in exchange for a given quant.i.ty of tin as we now do? Although the ma.s.s of commodities both in the markets of Norway and in those of England would increase by the greater abundance of tin, or of some other commodity, if the labour employed in procuring tin were diverted to other objects, yet the estimated value of all their commodities in corn, money, or any article but tin, would, it appears to me, continue unaltered. It is sufficient that deals can be purchased cheaper in Norway than elsewhere to determine a portion of foreign trade to that quarter, although it should yield no more profits than those of other trades.

On the supposition which you have made of a great foreign demand for our raw produce, there can be no question that more capital would be employed on the land, and I think profits would fall. Such a demand cannot exist in the present situation of the world. Raw produce is always imported into the relatively rich country, and never exported from it, but on occasions of dearth or famine. I have no doubt that, if the free importation of corn is allowed into this country, inasmuch as it will direct foreign capital to foreign land, it will tend to lower foreign profits, and if all the earth were cultivated _with equal skill_ up to the same standard, the rate of profits would be everywhere the same, though the superior industry and ingenuity of particular countries might secure to them a greater abundance of other commodities....

Your club meets, I think, on the 28th.... Pray take a bed at our house....

Truly yours, DAVID RICARDO.

XXIII.

[Headed by Malthus in pencil, _Feb. 1815_. Post Office mark, _Feb. 6_.]

MY DEAR SIR,

I have now read with great attention your essay on the rise and progress of Rent[74], with a view of selecting every pa.s.sage which might afford us subject for future discussion. It is no praise to say that all the leading principles in it meet with my perfect a.s.sent, and that I consider it as containing many original views which are not only important as connected with rent, but with many other difficult points, such as taxation, etc., etc.

I cannot, however, help regretting that you did not consider separately the relations of rent with the profits of stock and the wages of labour.

By treating of the joint effect of the two latter on rent you have, I think, not made the subject so clear as it might have been made.

There are some parts in the essay with which I cannot agree. One of these is the effects of improvements, whether in the practice of agriculture or in the implements of husbandry, on rent. They appear to me in their immediate effects to be beneficial to the farmer only and not to the landlord. All the augmented produce obtained, or the saving in obtaining the same quant.i.ty of produce is, I think, wholly to the advantage of the farmer, and that the landlord only benefits remotely from it, as it may encourage acc.u.mulation and the cultivation of poorer lands. I think too that rents are in no case a creation of wealth; they are always a part of the wealth already created, and are enjoyed necessarily, but not on that account less beneficially to the public interest, at the expense of the profits of stock[75].

Viewing rents in this light, it follows that I must withdraw the concession which I was inclined to make when you first started the question 'whether, in importing corn at a cheaper price than we could grow it, the whole difference of price was saved, or whether some abatement should not be made from the advantage for the loss of rent?'

as I now decide[d]ly think that the whole difference of price would be gained without any deduction whatever. The arguments then of those who contend for a free trade in corn remain in their original full force, as rents are always withdrawn from the profits of stock. I will try, if I have a little leisure, to put my thoughts on this subject on paper, and shall attempt to show that the effects of a tax and of rent are very different as far as regards importation. It may be economical to grow corn if its price is raised merely by taxation, as by importing it a part of the tax would be wholly lost to the country [import]ing it. No such consideration should influence us [with regar]d to rent being lost.

I differ, as you know, as to the effects of taxation on the growth of produce. You appear to me not quite consistent in admitting, as you unequivocally do, that the last portion of land cultivated yields nothing more than the profits of stock, no rent, and yet to maintain that taxes on necessaries or on raw produce fall on the landlord and not on the consumer.

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