carried on by civilized nations, is, broadly, of this kind. Formerly,
the persons who had quarrelled settled their differences by the
strength of their own arms, at the head of their retainers, with
comparatively inexpensive weapons such as they could conveniently
wield; weapons which they had paid for out of their own pockets, and
with which they struck only the people they meant to strike: while,
nowadays, persons who quarrel fight at a distance, with mechanical
apparatus, for the manufacture of which they have taxed the public,
and which will kill anybody who happens to be in the way; gathering
at the same time, to put into the way of them, as large a quantity of
senseless and innocent mob as can be beguiled, or compelled, to the
slaughter. So that, in the words of your contributor, "Modern armies
are not now small fractions of the population whence they are drawn;
they represent--in fact are--whole nations in arms." I have only to
correct this somewhat vague and rhetorical statement by pointing out
that the persons in arms, led out for mutual destruction, are by no
means "the whole nation" on either side, but only the individuals of it
who are able-bodied, honest, and brave, selected to be shot, from among
its invalids, rogues, and cowards.
The deficiencies in your contributor's evidence as to the totality of
loss do not, however, invalidate his conclusion that, out of given
numbers engaged, the mitrailleuse kills fewer than the musket.[31]
It is, nevertheless, a very startling conclusion, and one not to be
accepted without closer examination of the statistics on which it is
based. I will, therefore, tabulate them in a simpler form, which the
eye can catch easily, omitting only one or two instances which add
nothing to the force of the evidence.
In the six under-named battles of bygone times, there fell, according
to your contributor's estimate, out of the total combatants--
At Austerlitz ⅐
Jena ⅙
Waterloo ⅕
Marengo ¼
Salamanca ⅓
Eylau 1/2½
while in the under-named five recent battles the proportion of loss was--
At Königgratz 1/15
Gravelotte 1/12
Solferino 1/11
Worth 1/11
Sedan 1/10
Now, there is a very important difference in the character of the
battles named in these two lists. Every one of the first six was
decisive, and both sides knew that it must be so when the engagement
began, and did their best to win. But Königgratz was only decisive
by sudden and appalling demonstration of the power of a new weapon.
Solferino was only half fought, and not followed up because the French
Emperor had exhausted his _corps d'élite_ at Magenta, and could not
(or, at least, so it is reported) depend on his troops of the line.
Worth was an experiment; Sedan a discouraged ruin; Gravelotte was, I
believe, well contested, but I do not know on what extent of the line,
and we have no real evidence as to the power of modern mechanics for
death, until the proportions are calculated, not from the numbers
engaged, but from those under fire for equal times. Now, in all the
upper list of battles, probably every man of both armies was under
fire, and some of the regiments under fire for half the day; while
in the lower list of battles, only fragments of the line were hotly
engaged, and the dispute on any point reaching its intensity would be
ended in half an hour.
That the close of contest is so rapid may indeed be one of the
conditions of improvement in our military system alleged by your
correspondent; and the statistics he has brought forward do indeed
clearly prove one of two things--either that modern weapons do not
kill, or that modern soldiers do not fight as effectually as in
old times. I do not know if this is thought a desirable change in
military circles; but I, as a poor civilian, beg to express my strong
objection to being taxed six times over what I used to be, either for
the equipment of soldiers who rarely fight, or the manufacture of
weapons which rarely kill. It may be perfectly true that our last
cruise on the Baltic was "less sanguinary" than that which concluded
in Copenhagen. But we shook hands with the Danes after fighting
them, and the differences between us were ended: while our expensive
contemplation of the defences of Cronstadt leaves us still in daily
dread of an inspection by the Russian of those of Calcutta.
It is true that the ingenuity of our inventors is far from being
exhausted, and that in a few years more we may be able to destroy a
regiment round a corner and bombard a fleet over the horizon; but I
believe the effective result of these crowning scientific successes
will only be to confirm the at present partial impression on the minds
of military and naval officers, that their duty is rather to take
care of their weapons than to use them. "England will expect" of her
generals and admirals to maintain a dignified moral position as far as
possible out of the enemy's sight: and in a perfectly scientific era
of seamanship we shall see two adverse fleets affected by a constant
law of mutual repulsion at distances of two or three hundred miles;
while in either squadron, an occasional collision between the leading
ships, or inexplicable foundering of the last improved ones, will make
these prudential manœuvres on the whole as destructive of the force,
and about ten times more costly to the pocket, of the nation, than the
ancient, and, perhaps, more honorable tactics of poorly-armed pugnacity.
There is, however, one point touched upon in P. S. C.'s letter, to
me the most interesting of all, with respect to which the data for
accurate comparison of our former and present systems are especially
desirable, though it never seems to have occurred to your correspondent
to collect them--the estimates, namely, of the relative destruction of
civil property.
Of wilful destruction, I most thankfully acknowledge the cessation
in Christian warfare; and in the great change between the day of
the sack of Magdeburg and that of the march into Paris, recognize
a true sign of the approach of the reign of national peace. But of
inevitable destruction--of loss inflicted on the peasant by the merely
imperative requirements and operations of contending armies--it
will materially hasten the advent of such peace, if we ascertain the
increasing pressure during our nominally mollified and merciful war.
The agricultural losses sustained by France in one year are estimated
by your correspondent at one hundred and seventy millions of pounds.
Let him add to this sum the agricultural loss necessitated in the
same year throughout Germany, through the withdrawal of capital from
productive industry, for the maintenance of her armies; and of labor
from it by their composition; and, for third item, add the total
cost of weapons, horses, and ammunition on both sides; and let him
then inform us whether the cost, thus summed, of a year's actual war
between two European States, is supposed by military authorities to
be fairly representative of that which the settlement of political
dispute between any two such Powers, with modern instruments of battle,
will on an average, in future, involve. If so, I will only venture
further to suggest that the nations minded thus to try their quarrel
should at least raise the stakes for their match before they make
the ring, instead of drawing bills for them upon futurity. For that
the money-lenders whose pockets are filled, while everybody else's
are emptied, by recent military finance, should occultly exercise
irresistible influence, not only on the development of our--according
to your contributor--daily more harmless armaments, but also on the
deliberation of Cabinets, and passions of the populace, is inevitable
under present circumstances; and the exercise of such influence,
however advantageous to contractors and projectors, can scarcely be
held consistent either with the honor of a Senate or the safety of a
State.
I am, Sir,
Your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
P.S.--I wish I could get a broad approximate estimate of the
expenditure in money, and loss of men by France and Prussia in the
respective years of Jena and Sedan, and by France and Austria in the
respective years of Arcola and Solferino.
FOOTNOTES:
[29] "Remarks on Modern Warfare." By a Military Officer. The article
was signed "P. S. C."
[30] See the tables given in this letter (pp. 30 and 31).
[31] "The proportion of killed and wounded," wrote P. S. C., "was far
greater with the old-fashioned weapons than it is at the present day."
LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
THE DEPRECIATION OF GOLD. 1863.
THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 1864.
(Three letters: October 26 and 29, and November 2.)
MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON. 1873.
(Two letters: November 8 and 15.)
STRIKES _v._ ARBITRATION. 1865.
WORK AND WAGES. 1865.
(Five letters: April 20, 22, and 29, and May 4 and 20.)
THE STANDARD OF WAGES. 1867.
HOW THE RICH SPEND THEIR MONEY. 1873.
(Three letters: January 23, 28, and 30.)
COMMERCIAL MORALITY. 1875.
THE DEFINITION OF WEALTH. 1875.
THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY. 1877.
ON COÖPERATION. (Two letters.) 1879-80.
LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.
[From "The Times," October 8, 1863.]
_THE DEPRECIATION OF GOLD._
_To the Editor of "The Times."_
SIR: Being out of the way of my letters, I did not, till now, see your
excellent article of the 23d September on the depreciation of gold.[32]
Will you allow me, thus late, a very few words in confirmation of your
statement of the insufficiency of the evidence hitherto offered on that
subject?
The market value of "a pound" depends less on the supply of gold than
on the extravagance or economy of the persons holding documentary
currency (that is to say, claim to goods). Suppose, for instance, that
I hold stock to the value of £500 a year;--if I live on a hundred a
year, and lay by four hundred, I (for the time) keep down the prices of
all goods to the distributed amount of £400 a year, or, in other words,
neutralize the effect on the market of 400 pounds in gold imported
annually from Australia. If, instead of laying by this sum in paper, I
choose to throw it into bullion (whether gold-plate or coin does not
matter), I not only keep down the price of goods, but raise the price
of gold as a commodity, and neutralize 800 pounds' worth of imported
gold. But if I annually spend my entire 500 (unproductively) I annually
raise the price of goods by that amount, and neutralize a correspondent
diminution in the supply of gold. If I spend my 500 productively,
that is to say, so as to produce as much as, or more than I consume, I
either leave the market as I find it, or by the excess of production
increase the value of gold.
Similarly, whatever I lay by will, as it is ultimately spent by my
successors, productively or unproductively, in that degree (_cœteris
paribus_) increase or lower the value of gold. These agencies of daily
economy have so much more power over the market than the supply from
the mine that no statistics of which we are yet in possession are (at
least in their existing form) sufficient to prove the dependence of
any given phenomena of the market on the rate of metallic supply. The
destruction of property in the American war and our European amusements
in the manufacture of monster guns and steel "backings" lower the
value of money far more surely and fatally than an increased supply
of bullion, for the latter may very possibly excite parallel force of
productive industry.
But the lowered value of money is often (and this is a very curious
case of economical back current) indicated, not so much by a rise in
the price of goods, as by a fall in that of labor. The household lives
as comfortably as it did on a hundred a year, but the master has to
work half as hard again to get it. This increase of toil is to an
active nation often a kind of play; men go into it as into a violent
game; fathers of families die quicker, and the gates of orphan asylums
are choked with applicants; distress and crime spread and fester
through a thousand silent channels; but there is no commercial or
elementary convulsion; no chasm opens into the abyss through the London
clay; no gilded victim is asked of the Guards; the Stock-Exchange falls
into no hysterics; and the old lady of Threadneedle Street does not so
much as ask for "My fan, Peter."
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
CHAMOUNIX, _Oct._ 2.
FOOTNOTES:
[32] See one of the leading articles in _The Times_ of Sept. 23, 1863,
upon the then panic as to the depreciation of gold, excited by the
considerable fresh discoveries of the precious metal in California and
Australia.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 28, 1864.]
_THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: In your valuable article of to-day on the strike of the colliers,
while you lay down the true and just law[33] respecting all such
combinations, you take your stand, in the outset, on a maxim of
political economy, which, however trite, stands yet--if I am not
deceived--in need of much examination and qualification. "Labor," you
say, like every other vendible commodity, "depends for its value on
the relation of supply to demand." But, Sir, might it not be asked by
any simple and practical person, who had heard this assertion for the
first time--as I hope all practical persons will some day hear it for
the last time--"Yes; but what does demand depend upon, and what does
supply depend upon?" If, for instance, all death-beds came to resemble
that so forcibly depicted in your next following article, and, in
consequence, the demand for gin were unlimitedly increased towards the
close of human life,[34] would this demand necessitate, or indicate,
a relative increase in the "value" of gin as a necessary article of
national wealth, and liquid foundation of national prosperity? Or might
we not advisably make some steady and generally understood distinction
between the terms "value" and "price," and determine at once whether
there be, or be not, such a thing as intrinsic "value" or goodness in
some things, and as intrinsic un-value or badness in other things; and
as value extrinsic, or according to use, in all things? and whether a
demand for intrinsically good things, and a corresponding knowledge
of their use, be not conditions likely, on the whole, to tend towards
national wealth? and whether a demand for intrinsically bad things,
and relative experience in their use, be not conditions likely to lead
to quite the reverse of national wealth, in exact proportion to the
facility of the supply of the said bad things? I should be entirely
grateful to you, Sir, or to any of your correspondents, if you or they
would answer these short questions clearly for me.
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.[35]
DENMARK HILL, _Oct._ 26.
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 = 10_c_ = 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.]
FOOTNOTES:
[36] See _ante_, p. 39.
[37] "Economist" does not seem to have continued his argument. A
reply to this letter was however attempted by "John Plummer," writing
from Kettering, and dealing with the over-supply of laborers and
under-supply of wages, and Mr. Ruskin's possible views on the matter.
The next letter ended the correspondence.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," November 8, 1864.]
_THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: Having, unfortunately, occupation enough in my own business for
all hours of the day, I cannot undertake to reply to the general
correspondence which might, in large supply to my limited demand,
propose itself in your columns. If my first respondent, "Economist," or
any other person learned in his science, will give me direct answers
to the direct questions asked in my Monday's letter, I may, with your
permission, follow the points at issue farther; if not, I will trouble
you no more. Your correspondent of to-day, Mr. Plummer, may ascertain
whether I confuse the terms "value" and "price" by reference to the
bottom of the second column in page 787 of "Fraser's Magazine" for
June, 1862. Of my opinions respecting the treatment of the working
classes he knows nothing, and can guess nothing.[38]
I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Nov._ 2.
FOOTNOTES:
[38] In the "Essays on Political Economy," since reprinted as "Munera
Pulveris." See p. 10, § 12 of that book, where the passage is printed
in italics: "The reader must, by anticipation, be warned against
confusing value with cost, or with price. Value is the life-giving
power of anything; cost, the quantity of labor required to produce it;
price, the quantity of labor which its possessor will take in exchange
for it."
[From "The Scotsman," November 10, 1873.]
_MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON._
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_Nov. 8th_, 1873.
_To the Editor of "The Scotsman."_
SIR: In your impression of the 6th inst. I find a report of a lecture
delivered by Professor Hodgson in the University of Edinburgh on the
subject of "Supply and Demand," in which the Professor speaks of my
"denunciations" of the principles he had expounded. Permit me, in
a matter respecting which accuracy is of more importance to others
than to myself, to correct the Professor's expression. I have never
"denounced" the principles expounded by the Professor. I have simply
stated that no such principles exist; that no "law of supply and
demand," as expounded by Professor Hodgson and modern economists, ever
did or can exist.
Professor Hodgson, as reported in your columns, states that "demand
regulates supply." He does not appear to entertain the incomparably
more important economical question, "What regulates demand?" But
without pressing upon him that first question of all, I am content
absolutely to contradict and to challenge him before the University of
Edinburgh to maintain his statement that "demand regulates supply," and
together with it (if he has ventured to advance it) the correlative
proposition, "supply regulates demand."
A. Demand does not regulate supply.
For instance--there is at this moment a larger demand for champagne
wine in England and Scotland than there was ten years ago; and a much
more limited supply of champagne wine.
B. Supply does not regulate demand.