Yours very truly,
David Ricardo.
XLII.
London, 10th Jan., 1816.
My dear Sir,
I arrived in town yesterday and found your letter at the Stock Exchange. It is very uncertain whether I shall leave London to-morrow evening or Monday evening. I am desirous of getting home on many accounts, but I may not be able to accomplish the business for which I came so soon as I expected, and, if I do not get it done by to-morrow it will in all probability detain me till Monday. Thus then it is still uncertain whether we are to meet, and I do not exactly know how to make you acquainted with my movements. I will, however, let Mr. Murray know if I leave town to-morrow, and, if you are in the neighbourhood of Russell Square, by sending to No. 8, Montague Street (Mr. Basevi's), you will be sure to know. In the City, at the Stock Exchange, any of my brothers will inform you about me. If I should not be gone, will you do me the favour of dining with me on Friday at Mr. Basevi's? His dinner hour is six o'clock, and he begs me to say that he shall be much flattered by your favouring him with your company. I was in hopes of finding you in London and of having the benefit of your opinion of my book[124] in its present state, before I sent it to be printed. That advantage I must now forego, because I am desirous of getting it out before the meeting of Parliament, and have before experienced the inconvenience of too much hurry.
I cannot think it inconsistent to suppose that the money price of labour may rise when it is necessary to cultivate poorer land, whilst the real price may at the same time fall. Two opposite causes are influencing the price of labour, one the enhanced price of some of the things on which wages are expended, the other the fewer enjoyments which the labourer will have the power to command. You think these may balance each other, or rather that the latter will prevail; I on the contrary think the former the most powerful in its effects. I must write a book to convince you.
I am glad you are not going to cut your next edition short.
Very truly yours,
David Ricardo.
Note.—The MS. referred to in this letter was probably the pamphlet on 'Economical and Secure Currency,' which internal evidence would show to have been printed not earlier than Feb., 1816. Ricardo, as appears from Letter XL, had already submitted the MS. to James Mill. In the fragment of a letter to Mill (quoted in Bain's 'Life of Mill,' p. 153, and dated Jan., 1816) he writes: 'Fill eight pages in the Appendix, will that be too much?' Professor Bain thinks this must refer to the 'Principles of Political Economy and Taxation' (1817). But that work has no Appendix; and there seems no reason why it should not refer to the 'Economical and Secure Currency' (1816), which has one. The 'Resolutions proposed concerning the Bank of England by Mr. Grenfell,' and those proposed by Mr. Mellish, together, cover seven pages of that Appendix in the original edition; and Ricardo in the fragment quoted had probably been saying, that these Resolutions, if he printed them, would fill nearly eight pages, etc.