Letters of David Ricardo to Thomas Robert Malthus, 1810-1823. David Ricardo
am, dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
David Ricardo.
Stock Exchange, 17th Oct., 1811.
IX.
Throgmorton Street, 22nd Oct., 1811.
Dear Sir,
I am exceedingly obliged to you for the trouble which you have taken in looking over the papers which I sent you, and for the remarks which you have made upon them. Notwithstanding your flattering encouragement I think I shall not have sufficient confidence again to address the public;—the object which I had in view is completely attained—the public attention has been awakened, and the discussion is now in the most able hands. I regret, however, that you cannot bring yourself to subscribe to my doctrine respecting the exchange being influenced by no other causes but by the relation which the amount of currency bears to the uses for which it is required in the different nations of the earth. This may proceed from your interpreting my proposition somewhat too rigidly. I wish to prove that if nations truly understood their own interest they would never export money from one country to another but on account of comparative redundancy. I assume indeed that nations in their commercial transactions are so alive to their advantage and profit, particularly in the present improved state of the division of employments and abundance of capital, that in point of fact money never does move but when it is advantageous both to the country which sends and the country that receives that it should do so. The first point to be considered is, what is the interest of countries in the case supposed? The second what is their practice? Now it is obvious that I need not be greatly solicitous about this latter point; it is sufficient for my purpose if I can clearly demonstrate that the interest of the public is as I have stated it[46]. It would be no answer to me to say that men were ignorant of the best and cheapest mode of conducting their business and paying their debts, because that is a question of fact not of science, and might be urged against almost every proposition in Political Economy. It rests with you therefore to prove that a case can exist where it may become the interest of a nation to pay a debt by the transmission of money rather than in any other mode, when money is not the cheapest exportable commodity—when money (taking into account all expenses which may attend the exportation of different commodities as well as money) will not purchase more goods abroad than it will at home. You appear to me to have repeatedly admitted that it is the relative prices of commodities which regulates their exportation. Is it not then as certain that money will go to that country where the major part of goods are cheap, as that goods will go to any other country where the major part are dear? I say the major part, because if the cheapness of one half of the exportable commodities be balanced by the dearness of the other half, in both countries, it is obvious that the commerce of such countries will be confined to the exchange of goods only. When you say that money will go abroad to pay a debt or a subsidy, or to buy corn, although it be not superabundant, but at the same time admit that [it] will speedily return and be exchanged for goods, you ap[pear to me] to concede all for which I contend, namely, that [it will] be the interest of both countries, when money is not superabundant in the one owing the debt, that the expense of exporting the money should be spared, because it will be followed by another useless expense—sending it back again.
If in any country there exists a dearness of importable commodities and no corresponding cheapness of exportable commodities, money in such country is above its natural level and must infallibly be exported in payment of the dear commodities—but what does this state of things indicate but an excess of currency, and it may surely be correctly said that money is exported to restore the level not to destroy it. I ought to apologise for again troubling you with my opinions, but you have drawn me into it. I shall be happy to renew our conversation on these disputed points as soon as you can make it convenient to visit us in London, and I trust it will not be long before Mrs. Malthus and you will favour us with your company. On some future day I shall have great pleasure in again visiting you at Hertford.
I am, dear Sir,
Yours very truly,
David Ricardo.
X.
New Grove, Mile End, 22nd Dec., 1811.
My dear Sir,
I write to you, in the first place, to remind you that Mrs. Ricardo and I fully depend on having the pleasure of Mrs. Malthus' and your company at Mile-end in the next month, when we hope that our endeavours to make your visit comfortable will induce you to make a long stay with us. In the second place, I am desirous of correcting some of the errors in the papers which I left with you and which I have been enabled to discover, as I have many others, by the ingenious arguments with which you have opposed my conclusions. In my endeavours to trace the effects of a subsidy[47] in forcing the exportation of commodities, I stated, if I recollect rightly, that it would occasion, first, a demand for bills; secondly, an exportation of all those commodities the prices of which already differed so much, in the two countries, as to require only the trifling stimulus which the first fall in the exchange would afford; thirdly, a real alteration in the relative state of prices, viz. a rise in the exporting and a fall in the importing country—in a degree too to counterbalance the advantage from the unfavourable exchange; and lastly, a further fall of the exchange and a consequent exportation of an additional quantity of goods and then of money till the subsidy were paid. It appears, then, that if the subsidy were small it would be wholly paid by the exportation of commodities, as the fall in the exchange would be sufficient to encourage their exportation, but not sufficient to encourage the exportation of money. If the exportation of money were in the same proportion as the exportation of commodities, that is to say, supposing the commodities of a country to be equal to 100, and its money equal to two, then if not less than one fiftieth of the exports in payment of the subsidy consisted of money, prices would after such payment be the same as before in both countries, and, although the exchange must have fallen to that limit at which the exportation of money became profitable, it would immediately have a tendency to recover, and would shortly rise to par; but it is precisely because less than this proportion of money will be exported that the exchange will continue permanently unfavourable and will have no tendency to rise, more than it will have to fall.
I believe you admit, that in the case of an augmentation of 2 per cent. to our currency, although it were wholly metallic, the prices of commodities would rise in this country 2 per cent. above their former level, and that such rise being confined to this country alone it would check exportation and encourage importation; the consequence of which would be a demand for bills and a fall in the exchange. This rise of prices and fall of the exchange, proceeding from what you do not object to call a redundant currency, would not be temporary but permanent, unless it were corrected by a reduction of the amount of the currency here, or by some change in the relative amount of the currencies of other countries. That these would be the effects of a direct augmentation of currency, I believe, you, with very few qualifications, admit. Now, as a bad harvest or the vote of a subsidy tend [sic] to produce the very same effects, namely, a relative state of high prices at home, accompanied by an unfavourable exchange, they admit only of the same cure—and, as in the case of an augmentation of currency the exchange would have no tendency to rise, neither would it in the case of a subsidy, the unfavourable exchange being in both instances produced by a redundant currency, or in more popular language by a relative state of prices which renders the exportation of money most profitable[48]. I have uniformly maintained that the money of the world is distributed amongst the different countries according to their commerce and payments, and that, if in any country it should from any cause happen to exceed that proportion, the excess would infallibly be exported to be divided amongst the other countries. I have, however, always supposed that my readers would understand me to mean that this would be strictly the fact only if money could be exported free from all expense. If the expenses of exporting money to France be 3 per cent.,