Your excuse for not going on with the discussion which you commenced is
ingenious, and I ought to be satisfied with it, as it is accompanied
with a pretty compliment to me--indeed as pretty an one as could well be
paid to a person who is so uniformly your adversary. I however agree
with you;--we know each other's sentiments so well that we are not
likely to do each other much good by private discussion. If I could
manage my pen as well as you do yours, I think we might do some good to
the public by a public discussion.
I am sorry that I shall be obliged to miss two of the Political Economy
meetings[255], as I shall not be in London till towards the latter end
of the month of January.
On the 7th of December I am to dine at Hereford, by invitation, with
Hume, at a public dinner, which is to be given to him for the purpose of
presenting him a silver tankard and a hogshead of cider, in token of the
respect and gratitude of the inhabitants of Hereford for his public
services. Hume comes from town on the occasion, and is to be met at Ross
at 11 o'clock in the forenoon, and escorted with due honour into
Hereford. I hope everything will be conducted in an orderly and
peaceable manner. I have a great aversion to a row.
I have not yet seen Torrens' book[256], nor shall I see it in all
probability till I get to London. Torrens has some concern in the
Champion, in which there is a paper weekly on Political Economy[257]. I
think these essays are well done, but you probably would not agree with
me in that opinion.
Ever yours,
D. RICARDO.
NOTE.--This wide gap of more than a year between the eighty-first
and the eighty-second letter of this collection may be filled up by
a letter to Say (Oeuvres Diverses, p. 423), dated from London, 5th
March, 1822, and being a somewhat tardy answer to Say's letter of
July, 1821, quoted above, p. 182. He says in effect: We are nearer
agreement than I thought, and your distinction of natural and costly
utility illustrated by the iron and the gold is objectionable only
in point of expression. But it follows that commodities have a value
equal to the quantity of labour spent on them, and that therefore if
a pound of gold for example could be produced with less labour it
would fall in value. You for your part therefore are bound to
maintain it would be a less portion of our [social] wealth. Whereas
for my part I do not estimate wealth by value, but by utility from
whatever source derived. Your 'Catechisme' (of which Francis Place
has just given me the 2nd edition) says that a man's wealth is in
proportion to the value and not to the quantity of the things he
possesses, but, as you add that that same value is estimated by the
quantity of other things these same things will buy, wealth turns
out to be in proportion to quantity of goods after all. If wealth is
value, then to lessen all costs, so as to produce all things with
less labour, would be to make the wealth of the world no greater.
After some remarks on the 'two loaves,' he concludes by saying that
the Political Economy Club had made Say an honorary member. 'We hope
in time to raise ourselves from a Club to the dignity of an Academy,
and become a learned body with ever-increasing numbers.'
Say replies (1st May, 1822) that he gratefully accepts the honorary
membership. As to the points discussed, some of their differences
are merely verbal. His most important contention is that in
production we exchange productive services for products, and the
more products we obtain for them the more _value_ they have, and the
richer we are. 'Moreover, I do not think that we should aim at
giving abstract definitions especially of wealth,--definitions, that
is to say, in which we should abstract from the possessor and the
thing possessed. This was the method of medieval disputants, and
this was the very reason they could never come to an understanding.
Too general a definition, which enters into none of the
peculiarities of each several object, teaches us nothing.'
He concludes his letter by lamenting that his countrymen paid so
little attention to economical questions. A full half of his
audience in the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers consisted of
foreigners--English, Russians, Poles, Germans, Spaniards,
Portuguese, and Greeks. The Crown Prince of Denmark got private
lessons from him.