FOOTNOTES:
[33] The strike was amongst the South Staffordshire colliers: the law laid down in the article that of free trade.
[34] Upon the then recent and miserable death of an Irish gentleman, who had been an habitual hard-drinker.
[35] To this letter an answer (Daily Telegraph, October 29) was attempted by "Economist," writing from "Lloyds, Oct. 28," stating that "Value in political economy means exchangeable value, not intrinsic value." The rest of his letter is given in Mr. Ruskin's reply to it.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 31, 1864.]
THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND.
To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."
Sir: I am grateful to your correspondent "Economist" for trying his hand on me, and will be a docile pupil; but I hope his hand is not quite untried hitherto, for it would waste your space, and my time, and your readers' patience, if he taught me what I had afterwards to unlearn. But I think none of these will be wasted if he answers my questions clearly; there are, I am sure, many innocent persons who, like myself, will be glad of the information.
1. He tells me, then, in the outset, "The intrinsic value of commodities is a question outside political economy."
Is that an axiom for all political economists? and may I put it down for future reference? I particularly wish to be assured of this.
2. Assuming, for the present, that I may so set it down, and that exchangeable value is the only subject of politico-economical inquiry, I proceed to my informant's following statement:
"The" (question) "of intrinsic value belongs to the domain of philosophy, morals, or statecraft. The intrinsic value of anything depends on its qualities; the exchangeable value depends on how much there is of it, and how much people want it."
(This "want" of it never, of course, in anywise depending on its qualities.)
Μανθανω. Accordingly, in that ancient and rashly-speculative adage, "Venture a sprat to catch a herring," it is only assumed that people will always want herrings rather than sprats, and that there will always be fewer of them. No reference is involved, according to economists, to the relative sizes of a sprat and herring.
Farther: Were a fashionable doctor to write an essay on sprats, and increase their display at West-end tables to that extent that unseasonable sprats became worth a guinea a head, while herrings remained at the old nursery rate of one and a half for three-halfpence, would my "recognition" of the value of sprats in paying a guinea for one enable me to dine off it better than I should off that mysterious eleven-penny worth of herring? Or to take a more elevated instance. There is now on my room wall a water-color drawing, which was once bought for £30, and for which any dealer would to-morrow give me £300. The drawing is intrinsically worth about one-tenth of what it was when bought for £30, the sky having faded out of it, and many colors having changed elsewhere. But men's minds have changed like the colors, and Lord A. or Sir John B. are now ready to give me £300 instead of £30 for it.
Now, I want to know what it matters to "Economist," or to the Economical Society he (as I understand) represents, or to the British nation generally, whether Lord A. has the bit of colored paper and I the £300, or Lord A. the £300 and I the bit of paper. The pounds are there, and the paper is there: what does it nationally matter which of us have which?
Farther: What does it nationally matter whether Lord A. gives me £30 or £300 on the exchange? (Mind, I do not say it does not matter—I only want "Economist" to tell me if it does, and how it does.) In one case my lord has £270 more to spend; in the other I have. What does it signify which of us has?
Farther: To us, the exchangers, of what use is "Economist's" information that the rate of exchange depends on the "demand and supply" of colored paper and pounds? No ghost need come from the grave to tell us that. But if any economical ghost would tell my lord how to get more pounds, or me how to get more drawings, it might be to the purpose.
But yet farther, passing from specialties to generals:
Let the entire property of the nation be enumerated in the several articles of which it consists—a, b, c, d, etc.; we will say only three, for convenience sake. Then all the national property consists of a + b + c.
I ask, first, what a is worth.
"Economist" answers (suppose) 2 b.
I ask, next, what b is worth.
"Economist" answers (suppose) 3 c.
I ask, next, what c is worth.
"Economist" answers—a/b.
Many thanks. That is certainly Cocker's view of it.
I ask, finally, What is it all worth?
"Economist" answers, 1⅔ a, or 3⅓ b, or 10 c.
Thanks again. But now, intrinsic value not being in "Economist's" domain, but—if I chance to be a philosopher—in mine, I may any day discover any given intrinsic value to belong to any one of these articles.
Suppose I find, for instance, the value of c to be intrinsically zero, then the entire national property = 10c = intrinsically 0.
Shall I be justified in this conclusion?
3. In relation to the question of strikes, the difficulty, you told me yourself, Mr. Editor[36] (and doubtless "Economist" will tell me also), depends simply on supply and demand: that is to say, on an under-supply of wages and an over-supply of laborers. Profoundest thanks again; but I, poor blundering, thick-headed collier, feel disposed further to ask, "On what do this underness and overness of supply depend?" Have they any remote connection with marriage, or with improvidence, or with avarice, or with accumulativeness, or any other human weaknesses out of the ken of political economy? And, whatever they arise from, how are they to be dealt with? It appears to me, poor simple collier, that the shortest way of dealing with this "darned" supply of laborers will be by knocking some of them down, or otherwise disabling them for the present. Why is this mode of regulating the supply interdicted to me? and what have Economists to do with the morality of any proceeding whatever? and, in the name of economy generally, what else can I do?[37]
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. Ruskin.
Denmark Hill, Oct. 29. [Monday.]