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171.: ricardo to trower1[Reply to 170.—Answered by 176] - 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.)

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171.

ricardo to trower1
[Reply to 170.—Answered by 176]

London 15th. July 1816

Dear Trower

Mrs. Ricardo has already left London and I am preparing to follow her, so that your next letter must be directed to me at Gatcomb. You must not suppose that I have been closely confined to London since your absence from it,—for I have been to Bath for a week, and to Gatcomb for another week. Hitherto however the weather has been so unsettled that we have had no great reason to envy you country gentlemen. During my fortnight’s holidays I was not only drenched to the skin by the rain, but was often precluded from leaving the house for a whole day together.

At Bath I met Mr. Elwin2 twice at dinner, once at his own house. He is equally warm as when you saw him in the encouragement of Provident Institutions, and from the little I have seen of him I have formed a very favourable opinion both of his head and heart. Mr. Malthus, who was also on a visit near Bath, dined with Mr. Elwin at Mr. Clutterbuck. We passed a very agreeable day, and I have reason to believe these two gentlemen were mutually pleased with each other.

When I tell you that Mr. Malthus accompanied me for a couple of days to Gatcomb, and that we were held prisoners by the weather, you will naturally conclude that we had ample opportunity to discuss our different views on some of the questions in Political Economy; and although we have approached a little in opinion, we have left ourselves sufficient matter for further controversy.

I think it very doubtful whether Mr. Malthus will notice Mr. Weyland’s book, although Mr. Weyland treats him with the greatest possible courtesy. He has, I think, not in the least succeeded in establishing his own doctrines in opposition to those of Malthus on the principle of population, but he has shewn that in the early stages of society when the population presses against food, no remedy would be afforded by lessening the number of the people, because the evil they then experience proceeds from the indolence and vice of the people and not in their inability to procure necessaries. By reducing the population you reduce food in perhaps a larger proportion, and rather aggravate than remove their misery. He is singularly inconsistent in denying the truth of this principle when applied to Ireland and really recommends means by which the population of that country should be reduced,—whereas the remedy required in Ireland is a taste for other objects besides mere food. Any stimulus which should rouse the Irish to activity, which should induce them to dispose of their surplus time in procuring luxuries for themselves, instead of employing it in the most brutal pursuits, would tend more to the civilization and prosperity of their country than any other measures which could be recommended.1

I cannot agree with you in thinking that the war has had much effect in degrading the morals of the people. The outrages of which they are at present guilty may be sufficiently accounted for from the stagnation in trade which has never failed to produce similar consequences. I am disposed to think that the people are both improved in morals and in knowledge, and therefore that they are less outrageous under these unavoidable reverses than they formerly used to be. I am in hopes too that as they increase in knowledge they will more clearly perceive that the destruction of property aggravates and never relieves their difficulties. Surely the disastrous effects which always attend an important change in the employments of capital cannot much longer continue and we shall soon witness a renovation of commercial activity and credit. I have not in the least abated in my confidence of the real stability of the finances of the country, although I do not look with much satisfaction on the defalcation of the revenue at a time when it was already so many millions less than the expenditure. We have ample resources, but we want able ministers and a disinterested House of Commons. In our assembly the landed interest is too prevalent, and under very trying difficulties I should not have much reliance on their virtue.

If your Provident Institution is progressive you have no reason to complain, it will ultimately be productive of much good. Our receipts in Westminster are about £350— pr. week. We have realized £3000 money and find no difficulty in managing the business. In the City of London we shall commence business on Monday next. We have been hitherto prevented from receiving deposits from the want of a proper office which has at length been supplied,—though not I think in the most eligible situation, being in Bishopsgate Church Yard. I am sorry that I cannot give my assistance at the first opening as no other manager has taken the least trouble to acquire the necessary information.1 Pray make my kind regards to Mrs. Trower and believe me

Very truly Yrs.

David Ricardo

I wish Mrs. Trower and you would take a trip to Gatcomb this Autumn.

[1 ]Addressed: ‘Hutches Trower Esqr. / Unsted Wood / Godalming / Surry’.

MS at University College, London.—Letters to Trower, IX.

[2 ]H. Elwin, one of the Managers of the Westminster Savings Bank. (See Hume’s Account of the Provident Institution, mentioned above, p. 34, n. 2.)

[1 ]Weyland, op. cit., pp. 25–30 and 101–103. Cp. above, I, 99, n. 2.

[1 ]J. L. Mallet, who was one of the promoters, gives an account of the meeting at the Royal Exchange Rooms at which the foundation of the City of London Savings Bank was decided: ‘The meeting was well attended, and we stated our plans, by which the money deposited in the bank was to be invested in the public Stocks, and the amount of the deposits returned to the depositors whenever called for with interest at 4 per cent. When the resolutions came to be put, a gentleman whom I did not know, and who proved to be Mr. Ricardo, expressed his entire approbation of the object for which we had met, but conceived that the Directors of the Bank should only engage to return to the depositors the value of the Stock which had been purchased with their money, because if any considerable fall in the Stocks should take place, and a great run came at the same time upon the bank, the institution would either be obliged to fail in its engagements or the Trustees to make good the deficiency. The objection was obvious and insuperable, and notwithstanding the disadvantages attending this scheme, which held out to the depositors a temptation to gamble in the stocks, without having to pay any brokerage, it was necessarily adopted for a time. Applications were immediately made to Government, who undertook to take the money of the Savings Bank at a fixed interest with certain limitations. The Bank was soon afterwards established, and led to the formation of several others in London.’ (Diary entry on Ricardo’s death, 1823, in Political Economy Club, Centenary Volume, 1921, p. 211.)