Econlib

The Library

Other Sites

Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 427.: tooke to ricardo2 - The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 8 Letters 1819-June 1821

Return to Title Page for The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 8 Letters 1819-June 1821

427.: tooke to ricardo2 - David Ricardo, The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. 8 Letters 1819-June 1821 [1819]

Edition used:

The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, ed. Piero Sraffa with the Collaboration of M.H. Dobb (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2005). Vol. 8 Letters 1819-1821.

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.


427.

tooke to ricardo2

My dear Sir

I return the accompanying papers with thanks.

Mr. Attwoods evidence in point of absurdity exceeds my utmost expectations.—

The information given by Mr. Hodgson is in many respects valuable.—

The falling off which he proves in the slaughter of Cattle and Sheep seems to be confined to a comparison of the two last years with 1817 and 1818, for there is no diminution worth mentioning on a comparison of 1819 and 20 with any of the years preceding 1817.—And I think that the extra slaughter in 1817 and 1818, supposing a general increase to be deducible from the increase in the places named,1 may be referred to the follg causes.

  • 1 The very high price of Wheat in those years.—
  • 2 The very high price of Tallow which was in 1818 nearly double of what it now is
  • 3 The extraordinary drought and consequent deficiency and high price of provender which prevailed till late in the Autumn of 1818, and added to the other inducements to bring Cattle even half fatted to market.
  • 4 There was an extensive rot among the Sheep in 1817 and 18, which rendered it desireable to kill a larger proportion than usual to prevent their being destroyed by the disorder.—
  • 5 Our ports were open for the importation of Corn, and the consequent increased demand for manufactures naturally admitted of an extended consumption of the more expensive article of Meat.

The nearly opposite state to all those circumstances, may account for the diminution in the two last years, but whether such diminution bears out Mr. Hodgson’s inference2 Iam not quite clear.

Believe me always

Most truly Yrs

Thos Tooke

Dd Ricardo Esqr.

[2 ]MS in R.P.

[3 ]The dating is doubtful: it is assumed that the papers returned by Tooke were the minutes of his own evidence to the Agricultural Committee on 13 April 1821, which he had asked for in his letter of 19 April; and that with them Ricardo had sent the evidence given by Thomas Attwood on 10 and 11 April and by David Hodgson on 12 and 13 April.

[1 ]Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Birmingham; see Hodgson’s evidence, in ‘Report from Committee on the Agriculture of the U.K.’, 1821, p. 266.

[2 ]‘Is your inference this; that owing to the scarcity of live stock (of which you consider the high price under a diminished consumption to be evidence) a considerable part of the land, formerly appropriated to pasture, must have been brought into tillage?—Yes.’ (Hodgson’s evidence, ib., p. 267.)