There is no impropriety in your saying with Adam Smith[277] that 'labour will measure not only that part of the whole value of the commodity which resolves itself into labour, but also that which resolves itself into profit,' because it is the fact. But is not this true also of any variable measure you could fix on? Is it not true of iron, copper, lead, cloth, corn, etc., etc.? The question is about an invariable measure of value, and your proof of invariability is that it will measure profits as well as labour, which every variable measure will also do.
I have acknowledged that my measure is inaccurate, you say, I have so; but not because it would not do everything which you assert your's will do, but because I am not secure of its invariability. Shrimps are worth £10 in my money;—it becomes necessary, we will suppose, in order to improve the shrimps to keep them one year when profits are 10 per cent.; shrimps at the end of that time will be worth £11. They have gained a value of £1. Now where is the difference whether you value them in labour and say that at the first period they are worth ten days' labour and subsequently eleven, or say that at the first period they are worth £10, subsequently £11?
I am not sure that your language is accurate when you say that 'labour is the real advance in kind, and profits may be correctly estimated upon the advances whatever they may be.' A farmer's capital consists of raw produce, and his real advances in kind are raw produce. His advances are worth and can command a certain quantity of labour undoubtedly, and his profits are nothing unless the produce he obtains will command more if he estimates both advances and profits in labour, but so it is in any other commodity in which he may value his advances and returns. Does it signify whether it be labour or any other thing, provided there be no reason to suspect that it has altered in value? I know that you will say that provided his produce is sure to command a certain quantity of labour he is sure of being able to reproduce, not so if he estimates in any other thing, because that thing and labour may have undergone a great relative alteration. But may not the real alteration be in the value of labour, and, if he act on the presumption of its remaining at its then rate, may he not be wofully mistaken, and be a loser instead of a gainer? Your argument always supposes labour to be of an uniform value, and if we yielded that point to you there would be no question between us. A manufacturer who uniformly used no other measure of value than that which you recommend would be as infallibly liable to great disappointments as he is now exposed to in the vulgar variable medium in which he is accustomed to estimate value.
And now, my dear Malthus, I have done. Like other disputants, after much discussion we each retain our own opinions. These discussions, however, never influence our friendship; I should not like you more than I do if you agreed in opinion with me.
Pray give Mrs. Ricardo's and my kind regards to Mrs. Malthus.
Yours truly,
David Ricardo.
Note.—Ricardo died at Gatcomb on 11th Sept., 1823, of an abscess in the head, which caused great suffering. He was buried in the vault of a church at Huish, near Chippenham, Wilts; and his friend Joseph Hume was among the mourners. As he was only fifty-one years of age, his death was a great shock to his friends and caused something like dismay among his disciples. 'I never loved anybody out of my own family so much. Our interchange of opinions was so unreserved, and the object after which we were both enquiring was so entirely the truth and nothing else, that I cannot but think we sooner or later must have agreed.' So said Malthus, in Empson's hearing[278].
James Mill[279], albeit unused to the melting mood, was overwhelmed with grief, and in a letter to MacCulloch, 19th Sept., 1823, writes of the closing scenes with much tenderness of feeling.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Cf. Letter LXXX, p. 200, cf. 236, etc.