I am pleased to learn that you are busy writing with a view to immediate
publication[72]. The public pay a most flattering attention to anything
from your pen, and you are not fulfilling your duty to society if you do
not avail yourself of this disposition to endeavour[73] to remove the
cloud of ignorance and prejudice, which everywhere exists on the
subjects which have particularly engaged your time and reflection. I
hope your notes on Adam Smith are in great forwardness, and that they
will soon follow the smaller publications which you are now preparing. I
expect that they will not only be very useful in giving correct notions
to the public, but also in calling the attention of those who are well
informed in the science of political economy to many points which have
hitherto escaped their consideration.
I cannot help thinking that Lord Lauderdale was mistaken (and I believe
you hold the same opinion as him), in supposing the farmer to lie under
any particular disadvantage from not having the monopoly of the home
market, whilst so many other trades were enjoying that benefit. You will
agree that the monopoly of the home market is eventually of no great
advantage to the trade on which it is conferred. It is true that it
raises the price of the commodity by shutting out foreign competition,
but this is equally injurious to all consumers, and presses no more on
the farmer than on other trades. If monopolies tend to raise the price
of labour, the inconvenience must be suffered by all who employ labour,
and will therefore not be particularly injurious to the farmer or
landlord. If all the monopolies of the home market were immediately
abolished, there would be at least as much disposition to import
corn:--if so they do not interfere with the natural course of the corn
trade. Lord Lauderdale, with his opinion of the effect of monopolies,
is, I think, quite consistent in recommending a duty on the importation
of corn.
I thought you maintained that the high or low profits on commerce were
totally independent of the amount of capital which might be employed on
the land, consequently that high profits might continue as long as
commerce was prosperous, whether that was for twenty or for a hundred
years. I now understand you to say, that the profits of commerce may
take the lead, and may regulate the profits of agriculture for a period
of some duration, possibly for twenty years.
I have always allowed that under certain circumstances profits on
agriculture might be diverted from their regular course for short
periods, so that we only appear to differ with respect to the duration
of such profits; instead of twenty years I should limit it to about four
or five.
If with the same labour we could obtain double the quantity of tin from
the mines in Cornwall, after prices had found the[ir l]evel, would the
value of the whole mass of commodities be increased in England? Should
we obtain the same quantity of deals from Norway in exchange for a given
quantity of tin as we now do? Although the mass of commodities both in
the markets of Norway and in those of England would increase by the
greater abundance of tin, or of some other commodity, if the labour
employed in procuring tin were diverted to other objects, yet the
estimated value of all their commodities in corn, money, or any article
but tin, would, it appears to me, continue unaltered. It is sufficient
that deals can be purchased cheaper in Norway than elsewhere to
determine a portion of foreign trade to that quarter, although it should
yield no more profits than those of other trades.
On the supposition which you have made of a great foreign demand for our
raw produce, there can be no question that more capital would be
employed on the land, and I think profits would fall. Such a demand
cannot exist in the present situation of the world. Raw produce is
always imported into the relatively rich country, and never exported
from it, but on occasions of dearth or famine. I have no doubt that, if
the free importation of corn is allowed into this country, inasmuch as
it will direct foreign capital to foreign land, it will tend to lower
foreign profits, and if all the earth were cultivated _with equal skill_
up to the same standard, the rate of profits would be everywhere the
same, though the superior industry and ingenuity of particular countries
might secure to them a greater abundance of other commodities....
Your club meets, I think, on the 28th.... Pray take a bed at our
house....
Truly yours,
DAVID RICARDO.