I do not recollect ever having allowed that an extension of foreign commerce will take capital from the land, unless we were an exporting country as far as regards corn, in which case my proposition would be true, namely that the rate of profits can never permanently rise unless capital be withdrawn from the land. I am not sanguine about the principle, if true, being of any use; but that is another consideration;—its utility has nothing to do with its truth, and it is the latter only which I am at present anxious to establish. I cannot agree with you when you say that 'without supposing capital to be taken from the land the throwing of new objects of desire into the market will increase the value of the whole mass of commodities in the country, estimated either in money, or in corn and labour,'—and it is because I think that there will not be a greater value of commodities to be exchanged for the raw produce, or for money, that I conclude no increased profits will anywhere be made. If the mass of commodities be increased we diminish their exchangeable value as compared with those things whose quantity is not augmented. If we double the quantity, or rather double the facility of making stockings, we diminish their value one half, as compared with all other commodities. If we do the same with regard to hats and shoes, we restore the accustomed relations between stockings, hats, and shoes, but not with respect to other things. It is here, I think, that our difference rests, and I hope soon to hear all that you have to advance in favour of your view of the question.

M. Say, in the new edition of his book, p. 99, vol. i, supports, I think, the very [same] doctrine that demand is regulated by production. Demand [is] always an exchange of one commodity for another. The shoemaker when he exchanges his shoes for bread has an effective demand for bread, as well as the baker has an effective demand for shoes,—and, although it is clear that the shoemaker's demand for bread must be limited by his wants, yet whilst he has shoes to offer in exchange he will have an effective demand for other things,—and if his shoes are not in demand it shows that he has not been governed by the just principles of trade, and that he has not used his capital and his labour in the manufacture of the commodity required by the society,—more caution will enable him to correct his error in his future production. Accumulation necessarily increases production and as necessarily increases consumption. Accumulation of produce, if properly selected, may always be accumulation of capital, and it cannot fail to be worth more than it cost, estimated in corn or labour,—and this I think would be true although all our soldiers, sailors, and menial servants were employed in productive labour. It appears to me that the consideration of money value may be the foundation of our difference on this point.

I must leave room for a request which I hope you will not refuse. I dined a little while ago at Mr. Smith's, whom I first met at your house. Mrs. Smith told me that she had a collection of the handwriting of a great number of men who had distinguished themselves by their writings, and she wished that I would give her a letter of yours to add to her collection. Knowing that I had many which would not discredit you, I assented; but after I came home I thought I had no right to do it without your consent—which I hope you will not refuse. I should be sorry to disappoint her, and should really cut a poor figure in making my apologies if I did; yet, as my opinion, that I should not do it without your consent, is confirmed by Mrs. Ricardo, I must falter out my excuses if you are inexorable. With kind regards to Mrs. Malthus,

I am, ever yours truly,
David Ricardo.

Note.—Of Ricardo, Bentham used to say: 'I was the spiritual father of Mill, and Mill was the spiritual father of Ricardo; so that Ricardo was my spiritual grandson. I was often tête à tête with Ricardo. He would borrow a sixpenny book instead of buying it. There was an épanchement between us. We used to walk together in Hyde Park, and he reported to me what passed in the House of Commons. He had several times intended to quote the 'Fragment'; but his courage failed him as he told me. In Ricardo's book on rent there is a want of logic. I wanted him to correct it on these principles; but he was not conscious of it, and Mill was not desirous. He confounded cost with value. Considering our intercourse it was natural he should give me a copy of his book;—the devil a bit!' (Life by Bowring in Works, vol. x. p. 498.) Then follows a letter to Ricardo, in which Bentham compliments him on his political progress: 'I told Burdett you had got down to trienniality, and were wavering between that and annuality, where I could not help flattering myself you would fix,—also, in respect of extent, down to householders, for which, though I should prefer universality on account of its simplicity and unexclusiveness, I myself should be glad to compound.' The suggestion of stinginess made by Bentham in the passage quoted is sufficiently rebutted by Bentham's own biographer, who tells us Ricardo was one of those who guaranteed the funds for Bentham's Chrestomathic School (Bentham, Works, x. p. 484), and by James Mill (Biography, p. 191), when he speaks of Ricardo's unwillingness to accept payment for his article (Sinking Fund) in the Encyclopædia Britannica on the grounds that, first, it was not worth payment, second, payment was no part of his inducement to write it.

The influence of Bentham on Ricardo's general ways of thinking is discussed elsewhere. In economical theory (if we judge Bentham by his 'Manual of Political Economy,' which was written some years before this time, though not published in England till long afterwards) there was no more than a general agreement between the two men.

XXII.[71]

Gatcomb Park, 13 Jan., 1815.

My dear Sir,