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160.: ricardo to malthus2[Reply to 158] - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 7 Letters 1816-1818 [1816]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 7 Letters 1816-1818.

Part of: The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, 11 vols (Sraffa ed.)

About Liberty Fund:

Liberty Fund, Inc. is a private, educational foundation established to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals.


160.

ricardo to malthus2
[Reply to 158]

My dear Sir

I beg to remind you that the first saturday in the nextmonth is to-morrow sen-night, on which day, or a few days before it, I hope to have the pleasure of seeing you in Brook Street. We have a bed always at your service, and I wish you would make the rule invariable, to take up your lodging with us whenever you visit London.

I hope you have quite determined to extend your new edition to another volume, and that you are now making great progress in it. I wish much to see a regular and connected statement of your opinions on what I deem the most difficult, and perhaps the most important topic of Political Economy, namely the progress of a country in wealth and the laws by which the increasing produce is distributed.

Have you seen Torrens’ Letter to Lord Liverpool?1 —He appears to me to have adopted all my views respecting profits and rent; and in some conversation which I had with him a few days ago, he unequivocally avowed that he was now of my opinion, that the price of labour, arising from a difficulty in procuring food, did not affect the prices of commodities. He confessed that his former view on that subject was erroneous.

I should be glad to see all the arguments in favor of my view of the question clearly and ably stated. I should not wonder if Torrens undertook it.

The sale of my last pamphlet2 has far exceeded its merits. Murray is printing a second edition. I had no idea that the subject was of much interest to the public, but it seems that they are curious about the amount of the Bank treasure. In the house of Commons the defence1 of the contracts with the Bank was very little satisfactory—they endeavored to fix the attention of the house on what the public had got and saved by the operations of the Bank—they seemed to think that all the rest belonged of right to the Bank.

Will ministers be able to carry the income tax?2

Very truly Yours

David Ricardo

[2 ]Addressed: ‘Revd. T R Malthus / East India College / Hertford’; on the back a list of books (‘Hamilton on National debts. Price current. Philanthropist. Stewarts lives. Arthur Young letter’) and some calculations and rough notes on profits and wages are scribbled in Malthus’s handwriting.

MS at Albury.—Letters to Malthus, XLIV.

[1 ]A Letter to the Rt. Hon. the Earl of Liverpool on the State of the Agriculture of the United Kingdom, and on the Means of Relieving the Present Distress of the Farmer, and of securing him against the Recurrence of similar Embarrassment, by R. Torrens, London, Hatchard, 1816.

[2 ]Economical and Secure Currency.

[1 ]Against Grenfell’s attack, on 13 February.

[2 ]The proposal to continue the Income Tax, which had originally been adopted as a war measure, was finally rejected by the House of Commons on 18 March.