pure water is larger than in other namable localities, but where the
inhabitants drink less water and more whiskey than in other namable
localities.
I do not therefore denounce the so-called law of supply and demand,
but I absolutely deny the existence of such law; and I do in the very
strongest terms denounce the assertion of the existence of such a law
before the University of Edinburgh as disgraceful both to its assertor
and to the University, unless immediate steps be taken to define, in
scientific terms, the limitations under which such statement is to be
understood.
I am, etc.,
JOHN RUSKIN.[39]
FOOTNOTES:
[39] To this letter Professor Hodgson replied by one printed in the
_Scotsman_ of November 14.
[From "The Scotsman," November 18, 1873]
_MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON._
OXFORD, _November_ 15, 1873.
_To the Editor of "The Scotsman."_
SIR: For Professor Hodgson's "undue encroachments on your space and his
own time," I leave you to answer to your readers, and the Professor to
console his class. To his criticisms on my language and temper I bow,
their defence being irrelevant to the matter in hand. Of his harmless
confusion of the word "correlative" with the word "consequent" I take
no notice; and his promise of a sifting examination of my economic
teaching I anticipate with grateful awe.[40]
But there is one sentence in his letter of real significance, and to
that alone I reply. The Professor ventured (he says) to suggest that
possibly I with others "believe that economists confused existing
demand with wise and beneficial demand, and existing supply with wise
and beneficial supply."
I do believe this. I have written all my books on political economy in
such belief. And the entire gist of them is the assertion that a real
law of relation holds between the non-existent wise demand and the
non-existent beneficial supply, but that no real law of relation holds
between the existent foolish demand and the existent mischievous supply.
That is to say (to follow Professor Hodgson with greater accuracy into
his lunar illustrations), if you ask for the moon, it does not follow
that you will get it; nor is your satisfaction more secure if you ask
for sixpence from a Poor-Law guardian; but if you limit your demand to
an honest penny, and endeavor to turn it by honest work, the divine law
of supply will, in the plurality of cases, answer that rational and
therefore divine demand.
Now, Professor Hodgson's statement, as reported in your columns, was
that "demand regulates supply." If his assertion, in his lecture, was
the qualified one, or that "wise demand regulates beneficial supply,"
your reporter is much to be blamed, the Professor's class profoundly
to be congratulated, and this correspondence is at an end; while I
look forward with deepest interest to the necessary elucidations by
the Professor of the nature of wisdom and benefit; neither of these
ideas having been yet familiar ones in common economical treatises.
But I wrote under the impression that the Professor dealt hitherto,
as it has been the boast of economists to deal, with things existent,
and not theoretical (and assuredly the practical men of this country
expect their children to be instructed by him in the laws which
govern existing things); and it is therefore only in the name of
your practical readers that I challenged him, and to-day repeat my
challenge, in terms from which I trust he will not again attempt
to escape by circumambient criticism of my works,[41] to define,
in scientific terms, the limits under which his general statement
that "supply regulates demand" is to be understood. That is to say,
whether he, as Professor of Political Economy, is about to explain
the relations (A) of rational and satiable demand with beneficial and
benevolently-directly supply; or (B) of irrational and insatiable
demand with mischievous and malevolently-directed supply; or (C) of a
demand of which he cannot explain the character with a supply of which
he cannot predict the consequence?
I am, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[40] "I hereby promise Mr. Ruskin that ere very many months are over he
shall have in print a sifting examination of his economic teaching." I
do not find, however, that Professor Hodgson fulfilled his promise.
[41] Professor Hodgson's letter had quoted, with criticism, several
passages from "Fors Clavigera," "Munera Pulveris," and "Time and Tide."
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," April 18, 1865.]
_STRIKES v. ARBITRATION._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I read your _Gazette_ so attentively that I am always falling into
arrears, and have only to-day arrived at your last week's articles on
strikes, arbitration, etc., which afford me the greatest satisfaction,
but nevertheless embarrass me somewhat. Will you permit me to ask for a
word or two of further elucidation?
I am an entirely selfish person, and having the means of indulging
myself (in moderation), should, I believe, have led a comfortable life,
had it not been for occasional fits and twinges of conscience, to which
I inherit some family predisposition, and from which I suffer great
uneasiness in cloudy weather. Articles like yours of Wednesday,[42] on
the proper attention to one's own interests, are very comforting and
helpful to me; but, as I said, there are yet some points in them I do
not understand.
Of course it is right to arrange all one's business with reference
to one's own interest; but what will the practical difference
be ultimately between such arrangement and the old and simple
conscientious one? In those bygone days, I remember, one endeavored,
with such rough estimate as could be quickly made, to give one's Roland
for one's Oliver; if a man did you a service, you tried in return
to do as much for him; if he broke your head, you broke his, shook
hands, and were both the better for it. Contrariwise, on this modern
principle of self-interest, I understand very well that if a man does
me a service, I am always to do the least I can in return for it; but
I don't see how I am always to get more out of him than he gets out of
me. I dislike any references to abstract justice as much as you do, but
I cannot see my way to keeping this injustice always in my own favor;
and if I cannot, it seems to me the matter may as well be settled at
first, as it must come to be settled at last, in that disagreeably just
way.
Thus, for instance, in producing a piece of iron for the market, one
man digs it, another smelts it, another puddles it, and I sell it. We
get so much between us four; and I suppose your conscientious people
would say that the division of the pay should have some reference to
the hardness of the work, and the time spent in it. It is true that by
encouraging the diggers and puddlers to spend all they get in drink,
and by turning them off as soon as I hear they are laying by money,
it may yet be possible to get them for some time to take less than I
suppose they should have; but I cannot hide from myself that the men
are beginning to understand the game a little themselves; and if they
should, with the help of those confounded--(I beg pardon! I forgot that
one does not print such expressions in Pall Mall)--education-mongers,
learn to be men, and to look after their own business as I do mine,
what am I to do? Even at present I don't feel easy in telling them that
I ought to have more money than they because I know better how to spend
it, for even this involves a distant reference to notions of propriety
and principle which I would gladly avoid. Will you kindly tell me what
is best to be done (or said)?
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
_Easter Monday_, 1865.
FOOTNOTES:
[42] The articles alluded to were, one upon "Strikes and Arbitration
Courts," in the _Gazette_ of Wednesday, the 12th, and the one on "The
_Times_ on Trade Arbitration," in the _Gazette_ of Thursday, the 13th.
The former dealt with the proposal to decide questions raised by
strikes by reference to courts of arbitration. Amongst the sentences
contained in it, and alluded to by Mr. Ruskin, were the following:
"Phrases about the 'principles of right and justice' are always
suspicious and generally fallacious." "The rate of wages is determined
exclusively by self-interest." "There is no such thing as a 'fair' rate
of wages or a 'just' rate of wages."
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," April 21, 1865.]
_WORK AND WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I am not usually unready for controversy, but I dislike it in
spring, as I do the east wind (_pace_ Mr. Kingsley), and I both regret
having given occasion to the only dull leader which has yet[43]
appeared in the _Pall Mall Gazette_, and the necessity I am involved in
of dissecting the same, instead of a violet, on which I was about this
morning to begin operations.
But I see, Sir, that you mean fairly, and that you have careful
thinkers and writers on your staff. And I will accept your battle, if
you will fight with short swords, which is clearly your interest, for
such another article would sink the _Gazette_; and mine, for I have no
time to answer speculations on what you writers suppose my opinions may
be, "if we understand" them.
You shall understand them utterly, as I already understand yours. I
will not call yours "fallacies" _à priori_; you shall not call mine so.
I will not tell you of your "unconscious" meanings; you shall not tell
me of mine.[44] But I will ask you the plainest questions, and make
to you the plainest answers my English will admit of, on one point at
a time only, expecting you also to ask or answer as briefly, without
divergence or deprecation. And twenty lines will always contain all I
would say, at any intervals of time you choose.
For example: I said I must "dissect" your leader, meaning that I
should have to take a piece of it, as I would of my flower, and deal
with that first; then with its sequences.
I take this sentence then: "He (Mr. R.) seems to think that apart from
the question of the powers of the parties, there is some such thing
as a just rate of wages. He seems to be under the impression that the
wages ought to be proportioned, not to the supply and demand of labor
and capital, but 'to the hardship of the work and the time spent in
it.'"
Yes, Sir, I am decisively under that impression--as decisively as ever
Greek coin was under _its_ impression. You will beat me out of all
shape, if you can beat me out of this. Will you join issue on it, and
are these following statements clear enough for you, either to accept
or deny, in as positive terms?--
I. A man should in justice be paid for two hours' work twice as much as
for one hour's work, and for _n_ hour's work _n_ times as much, if the
effort be similar and continuous.
II. A man should in justice be paid for difficult or dangerous work
proportionately more than for easy and safe work, supposing the other
conditions of the work similar.
III. (And now look out, for this proposition involves the ultimate
principle of all just wages.) If a man does a given quantity of work
for me, I am bound in justice to do, or procure to be done, a precisely
equal quantity of work for him; and just trade in labor is the exchange
of equivalent quantities of labor of different kinds.
If you pause at this word "equivalent," you shall have definition
of it in my next letter. I am sure you will in fairness insert this
challenge, whether you accept it or decline.
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.[45]
DENMARK HILL, _Thursday, April_ 20.
FOOTNOTES:
[43] The _Gazette_ was at this time of little more than eight weeks'
standing. The dull leader was that in the _Gazette_ of April 19,
entitled "Masters and Men," and dealt entirely with Mr. Ruskin's letter
on strikes. The "_pace_ Mr. Kingsley" alludes, of course, to his "Ode
to the North-East Wind."
[44] The leader had begun by speaking of Mr. Ruskin's previous letter
as "embodying fallacies, pernicious in the highest degree," and
concluded by remarking how "easily and unconsciously he glided into the
true result of his principles."
[45] In reply, the _Gazette_ denied "each of the three propositions to
be true," on grounds shown in the quotations given in the following
letter.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," April 26, 1865.]
_WORK AND WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I accept your terms, and reply in the fewest words I can.
I. You "see no injustice in hiring a fly for 2_s._ 6_d._ for the first
hour and 1_s._ 6_d._ for each succeeding one." Nor I either; so far
from it, that I never give a cabman less than a shilling; which I doubt
not is your practice also, and a very proper one. The cabmen make
no objection, and you could not have given a neater instance of the
proportion of payment to labor which you deny. You pay in the first
hour for the various trouble involved in taking the man off his stand,
and for a proportion of the time during which he has waited for the
chance of your custom. That paid, you hire him by the formula which I
state, and you deny.
II. "Danger and difficulty have attractions for some men." They have,
and if, under the influence of those attractions, they choose to make
you a present of their labor, for love (in your own terms,[46] "as you
give a penny to a beggar"), you may accept the gift as the beggar does,
without question of justice. But if they do not choose to give it you,
they have a right to higher payment. My guide may perhaps, for love,
play at climbing Mont Blanc with me; if he will not, he has a right to
be paid more than for climbing the Breven.
III. "Mr. Ruskin can define justice, or any other word, as he chooses."
It is a gracious permission; but suppose justice be something more
than a word! When you derived it _jussum_[47] (falsely, for it is not
derived from _jussum_, but from the root of _jungo_), you forgot, or
ignored, that the Saxons had also a word for it, by which the English
workman still pleads for it; that the Greeks had a word for it, by
which Plato and St. Paul reasoned of it; and that the Powers of Heaven
have, presumably, an idea of it with which it may be well for "our
interests" that your definition, as well as mine, should ultimately
correspond, since their "definitions" are commonly not by a word but a
blow.
But accepting for the nonce your own conception of it as "the
fulfilment of a compulsory agreement" ("the wages" you say "which you
_force_ the men to take, and they can _force_ you to pay"), allow me
to ask your definition of force, or compulsion. As thus: (_Case_ 1.) I
agree with my friend that we will pay a visit to Mr. A. at two in the
morning. My friend agrees with me that he will hold a pistol to Mr.
A.'s head. Under those circumstances, I agree with Mr. A. that I shall
remove his plate without expression of objection on his part. Is this
agreement, in your sense, "_jussum_"? (_Case_ 2.) Mr. B. goes half
through the ice into the canal on a frosty morning. I, on the shore,
agree with Mr. B. that I shall have a hundred pounds for throwing him a
rope. Is this agreement validly "_jussum_"?
The first of these cases expresses in small compass the general nature
of arrangements under compulsory circumstances over which one of the
parties has entire control. The second, that of arrangements made under
circumstances accidentally compulsory, when the capital is in one
party's hands exclusively. For you will observe Mr. B. has no right
whatever to the use of my rope: and that capital (though it would
probably have been only the final result of my operations with respect
to Mr. A.) makes me completely master of the situation with reference
to Mr. B.
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN[48]
DENMARK HILL, _Saturday_, _April_ 22, 1865.
FOOTNOTES:
[46] These "terms" were simply that the _Gazette_ should have the right
of determining how much of the proposed controversy was worth its space.
[47] In the article of April 12.
[48] For the _Gazette's_ reply to this, see the notes to the following
letter.
[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," May 2, 1865.]
_WORK AND WAGES._
_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_
SIR: I have not hastened my reply to your last letter, thinking that
your space at present would be otherwise occupied; having also my own
thoughts busied in various directions, such as you may fancy; yet
busied chiefly in a sad wonder, which perhaps you would not fancy. I
mourn for Mr. Lincoln,[49] as man should mourn the fate of man, when it
is sudden and supreme. I hate regicide as I do populicide--deeply, if
frenzied; more deeply, if deliberate. But my wonder is in remembering
the tone of the English people and press respecting this man during
his life; and in comparing it with their sayings of him in his death.
They caricatured and reviled him when his cause was poised in deadly
balance--when their praise would have been grateful to him, and their
help priceless. They now declare his cause to have been just, when
it needs no aid; and his purposes to have been noble, when all human
thoughts of them have become vanity, and will never so much as mix
their murmurs in his ears with the sentence of the Tribunal which has
summoned him to receive a juster praise and tenderer blame than ours.
I have twice (I see) used the word "just" inadvertently, forgetting
that it has no meaning, or may mean (you tell me) quite what we choose;
and that so far as it has a meaning, "the important question is not
whether the action is just." Indeed when I read this curious sentence
in your reply on Tuesday last, "Justice, as we use it, implies merely
the conformity of an action to any rules whatever, good or bad," I
had nearly closed the discussion by telling you that there remained no
ground on which we could meet, for the English workmen, in whose name I
wrote to you, asked, not for conformity with bad rules, but enactment
of good ones. But I will not pounce upon these careless sentences,
which you are forced to write in all haste, and at all disadvantage,
while I have the definitions and results determined through years of
quiet labor, lying ready at my hand. You never meant what you wrote
(when I said I would not tell you of unconscious meanings, I did not
promise not to tell you of unconscious wants of meanings); but it is
for you to tell _me_ what you mean by a bad rule, and what by a good
one. Of the law of the Eternal Lawgiver, it is dictated that "the
commandment is holy, and just, and good." Not merely that it is a law;
but that it is such and such a law. Are these terms senseless to you?
or do you understand by them only that the observance of that law
is generally conducive to our interests? And if so, what _are_ our
interests? Have we ever an interest in _being_ something, as well as in
getting something; may not even all getting be at last summed in being?
is it not the uttermost of interests to be just rather than unjust? Let
us leave catching at phrases, and try to look in each other's faces and
hearts; so define our thoughts; then reason from them. [See below.][50]
Yet, lest you say I evade you in generalities, here is present answer
point by point.
I. "The fare has nothing to do with the labor in preparing the fly for
being hired."--Nor, of course, the price of any article with the labor
expended in preparing it for being sold? This will be a useful note
to the next edition of "Ricardo." [The price depends on the relative
forces of the buyer and the seller. The price asked by the seller no
doubt depends on the labor expended. The price given by the buyer
depends on the degree in which he desires to possess the thing sold,
which has nothing to do with the labor laid out on it.]
The answer to your instances[51] is that all just price involves an
allowance for average necessary, not for unnecessary, labor. The just
price of coals at Newcastle does not involve an allowance for their
carriage to Newcastle. But the just price of a cab at a stand involves
an allowance to the cabman for having stood there. [Why? who is to
determine what is necessary?]
II. "This admits the principle of Bargaining." No, Sir; it only admits
the principle of Begging. If you like to ask your guide to give you
his legs for nothing, or your workman his arms for nothing, or your
shopkeeper his goods for nothing, and they consent, for love, or for
play--you are doubtless both dignified and fortunate; but there is no
question of trade in the matters; only of Alms. [We mean by Alms money
or goods given merely from motives of benevolence, and without return.
In the case supposed the guide goes one mile to please himself, and ten
more for hire, which satisfies him. How does he give Alms? He goes for
less money than he otherwise would require, because _he_ likes the job,
not because his employer likes it. The Alms are thus given by himself
to himself.]
III. It is true that "every one can affix to words any sense he
chooses." But if I pay for a yard of broadcloth, and the shopman cuts
me three-quarters, I shall not put up with my loss more patiently on
being informed that Bishop Butler meant by justice something quite
different from what Bentham meant by it, or that to give for every yard
three-quarters, is the rule of that establishment. [If the word "yard"
were as ambiguous as the word "justice," Mr. Ruskin ought to be much
obliged to the shopman for defining his sense of it, especially if he
gave you full notice before he cut the cloth.]
Further, it is easy to ascertain the uses of words by the best
scholars--[Nothing is more difficult. To ascertain what Locke meant by
an "idea," or Sir W. Hamilton by the word "inconceivable," is no easy
task.]--and well to adopt them, because they are sure to be founded
on the feelings of gentlemen.--[Different gentlemen feel and think in
very different ways. Though we differ from Mr. Ruskin, we hope he will
not deny this.] Thus, when Horace couples his _tenacem propositi_ with
_justum_, he means to assert that the tenacity is only noble which is
justified by uprightness, and shows itself by insuffer-ance of the
_jussa_ "_prava jubentium_" And although Portia does indeed accept your
definition of justice from the lips of Shylock, changing the divine,
"who sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not" into the somewhat less
divine "who sweareth to his neighbor's hurt and changeth not;" and
though she carries out his and your conception of such justice to the
uttermost, the result is not, even in Shylock's view of it, "for the
interest of both parties."
IV. To your two final questions "exhausting" (by no means, my dear
Sir, I assure you) "the points at issue,"[52] I reply in both cases,
"No." And to your plaintive "why should they do so?" while, observe, I
do not admit it to be a monstrous requirement of men that they should
sometimes sacrifice their own interests, I would for the present merely
answer that I have never found my own interests seriously compromised
by my practice, which is, when I cannot get the fair price of a thing,
not to sell it, and when I cannot give the fair price of a thing, not
to buy it. The other day, a dealer in want of money offered me a series
of Hartz minerals for two-thirds of their value. I knew their value,
but did not care to spend the entire sum which would have covered it. I
therefore chose forty specimens out of the seventy, and gave the dealer
what he asked for the whole.
In the example you give, it is _not_ the interest of the guide to take
his fifty francs rather than nothing; because all future travellers,
though they could afford the hundred, would then say, "You went for
fifty; we will give you no more." [Does a man say to a broker, "You
sold stock yesterday at 90; I will pay no more to-day"?] And for me,
if I am not able to pay my hundred francs, I either forego Mont Blanc,
or climb alone; and keep my fifty francs to pay at another time, for a
less service, some man who also would have got nothing otherwise, and
who will be honestly paid by what I give him, for what I ask of him.
I am, Sir, your obliged servant,
JOHN RUSKIN.
SATURDAY, _29th April_, 1865.
FOOTNOTES: