‘Dear Sir,—Underneath is a question, which I have just been calling in Sackville Street to beg the favour of your answer to, for my own information. It is in contemplation to make the purport of it the subject of a reference to the Board of Agriculture from the Treasury. The occasion seemed to be of a nature particularly favourable to the enabling the public to avail itself of the services of the Board, and may perhaps have the effect of placing the utility of that Institution in a new and additional point of view; while the dignity of its members, and the manner in which it is composed, will give such a title to public confidence, in respect of the grand point of superiority to all personal considerations, as would in vain be looked for in any other quarter capable of being applied to for such a purpose. In this light I have just been mentioning the matter to Mr. Nepean, who entered so thoroughly into it as to say he would himself propose it to the Treasury to make such reference.
‘On enquiring I had the mortification of learning that the Board had adjourned to some day in November: but would there be no such thing as the calling an extra meeting, if not to the Board at large, of a Committee for the purpose of receiving a reference from such a quarter, and making a Report? If not, possibly the opinion of the Secretary might be accepted of as the only obtainable succedaneum to the opinion of the Board; for where else could any other equally competent opinion be obtained? But howsoever the matter may stand with regard to the Board and Mr. Secretary, I hope Mr. Young will not refuse an old correspondent the favour of an answer for his own guidance, and that as speedy as possible; for it is for this answer that I wait to enable me to fill up a blank with figures, the propriety of which is what is proposed as above to be made the subject of reference to the Board. If you are unable to guess my reason for interfering in the business, so much the better, but if you have your conjectures, all I can do is to beg (which I do with the utmost sincerity) that you would forbear letting them find their way, directly or indirectly, to any person to whose lot it may fall to concur in making the Report. It was at Mr. Nepean’s express recommendation that I called in Sackville Street for the purpose of conversing with you in person: but, if your absence be not fatal to the business, I shall be much better pleased with the opportunity of transacting it in this manner without any other communication than what will show itself in black and white. I am not sure but the Report from the Board might be waited for without much inconvenience till their regular time of reassembling: but till Mr. Young’s answer is obtained, or is known to be unobtainable, everything is at a stand. And a business in which the public has an interest of no inconsiderable magnitude, and for the conclusion of which all parties are impatient, sleeps, and, in short, if it does not come at farthest before this week is at an end, the hopes entertained of an answer from a quarter thus respectable must be deserted. But these matters are so perfectly A.B.C. to Mr. Young that I am sanguine enough to hope, if not for a definitive solution, at least for an answer with an approximation, and announcing a definitive solution in a few days, by return of post.
‘I am, dear Sir, with all respect,
‘Your faithful humble servant,
‘Jeremy Bentham.
‘Now for my question—A sum having been allotted in March, 1793, for the maintenance of a certain number of persons, of the lowest rank of life, in provisions, clothing, bedding, washing, firing, and lighting, how much, if anything, per cent. ought to be the additional allowance made at present in consideration of the intervening rise of prices? The calculation to be grounded not on the prices of a particularly bad year (such as the present), but on the probable average of a future term—say of twelve years.
‘P.S.—Relative to the "Annals"—I have got a titbit for your “Dragon” (the name Dr. Hawksworth used to give his magazine), some facts which to me are as new as they are interesting, relative to the effect of the rise of prices on the wages of the self-maintaining labourers in agriculture, and the mode of provision for the burthensome. The author, a very intelligent and respectable clergyman, Mr. North, Rector of Ashdon in Essex. They are contained in two or three letters:[[198]] the moral of them appears to lean to two practical results, both of them I believe as alien to your notions as to mine, viz. rating wages and restricting the size of farms. At the same time what they indicate is certainly a disease, the mischief of which, however, would, I am inclined to think, be much exceeded by that of the least mischievous of the above two remedies. But if capable of an answer, they are, at the same time, highly deserving of one; and this not only on account of the facts themselves, but on account of the good sense as well as candour with which they are delivered.
‘J. B.’
From J. Symonds, Esq., to the Speaker of the House
of Commons, &c.