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Six Letters from Malthus to Pierre Prévost

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 February 2011

George William Zinke
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Pierre Prévost lived from 1751 to 1839. In 1780 he was invited by Frederick the Great to go to Berlin as a professor of young boys at the Academy of Nobles. He became a member of the Academy of Sciences at Berlin, and his entry dissertation dealt with political economy. In 1784 Prévost returned to Geneva, where he became professor of literature at the university of that city. In 1793 he was a member of the National Assembly at Geneva, but retired after four months. In 1794 he was imprisoned for twenty days by a revolutionary tribunal. Immediately upon his release he became professor of physics and philosophy at the University of Geneva, a chair which he exchanged in 1810 for that of general physics. With Marc-Auguste Pictet, Prévost was the codiscoverer of the moving equilibrium of temperature.

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Articles
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The Journal of Economic History , Volume 2 , Issue 2 , November 1942 , pp. 174 - 189
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Copyright © The Economic History Association 1942

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References

1 Dictionnaire historique et biographique de la Suisse (Neuchatel, 1921), V, 344-b to 345-a. See also Candolle's Notice onGoogle ScholarPrévost, Pierre, Bibliothèque Universelle, Avril, 1839. See alsoGoogle ScholarCherbuliez, A., Discours sur la vie et les travaux de feu Pierre Prevost, Geneve, 1839. I have also consulted biographical material in several files of Prevost's personal notesGoogle Scholar.

2 Addressed: À Monsr. PréVost. Genève. By favour of S. Malthus Esq.

3 Sydenham Malthus.

4 Dr. Alexander John Gaspard Marcet. 1770-1822. Born in Geneva, Dr. Marcet went to England in 1794. He received the M.D. from Edinburgh, and became physician and chemical lecturer at Guy's Hospital, London. In 1819 he was appointed professor of chemistry at Geneva. Dr. Marcet was an important link in the chain by which the intellectual life of England and Geneva was bound together. Much of Pierre Prévost's correspondence passed through his hands, as, for instance, what was probably the first letter of Prévost to Malthus. (IS. May, 1807; cf. Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire, Geneva, Ms. Suppl. 1053, ms. pr. 6, “Copie de Lettres de Pierre Prévost.) Dr. Marcet's wife Jane (Haldimand), 1796-1858, was the author of the popularized textbook on political economy: Conversations on Political Economy (London, 1816)Google Scholar.

5 Alexander Prévost, Genevese Consul to London; Member of the Political Economy Club, 1821-1829. His son Jean-Louis was a member of that Club, 1836-1852, and left an interesting diary. The ms. Notes of Pierre Prévost show that Jean-Louis was in correspondence with him much earlier.

6 The fifth edition. It was printed by Murray and appeared in 1817.

7 These alterations and additions eventuated in an entire new volume, printed separately, but issued in connection with the fifth edition; it is generally referred to as volume three of that edition. Since the supplemental volume to the fifth edition was published early in 1817, it was not finished until about one and one-half years after the date of the announcement. Malthus had made the same announcement to Ricardo under date of October 1, 1815. The history of this delay affords a rare opportunity of observing classical political economy in the making. The volume was called: Additions to the Fourth and Former Editions of an Essay on Population.

8 The reason for this request is given in an unpublished letter of Malthus to Éitienne Dumont, dated London, October 10, 1815. In this letter Malthus made the same request for information as above, and then went on to say:

“I am strongly disposed to think that a country which can maintain its exchanges notwithstanding a much higher bullion price of corn and labour than its neighbours, must carry on its foreign trade to very great advantage, and in every exchange of goods with foreigners must always give a small quantity of labour for a comparatively large quantity of labour, and thus render its labour peculiarly productive.”

A statement to the same effect was made by Malthus in the first edition of his Principles of Political Economy, 1820, 428. Ricardo criticized it in the following words:Google Scholar “It can be of no consequence to America, whether the commodities she obtains in return for her own, cost Europeans much, or little labour; all she is interested in, is that they shall cost her less labour by purchasing them than by manufacturing them herself.” See , Ricardo, Notes on Malthus' Principles of Political Economy (edited by Hollander, and Gregory, , 1928).Google Scholar Ricardo's is of course the correct statement of the doctrine of comparative cost, while Malthus's statement repeats the then prevalent error that “under free trade all commodities would necessarily tend to be produced in the locations where their real cost of production were lowest.” See Viner, Jacob, Studies in the Theory of International Trade (New York and London, 1937), 441.Google Scholar In the second edition of the Principles of Political Economy Malthus incorporated Ricardo's correction. The statement which originally had said that the United States had greatly benefited “by foreign commerce, and particularly by the power of selling raw produce, obtained by little labour, for European commodities which have cost much labour,” now reads: “The rapid increase of the United States of America, taken as a whole, has undoubtedly been aided very greatly by foreign commerce, and by the power of selling raw produce, obtained with little labour, for European commodities of a kind which, if made at home, would have cost much labour.” (Italics supplied.) See 2d ed., bk. 11, ch. 1, sec. VII.

9 The public concerns of Switzerland, as Malthus observed, were going well. To the consternation of Sismondi, resident in Paris during the eventful “Hundred Days” of 1815, the Genevese had favored the cause of the powers allied against Napoleon. (See Pellegrini, Carlo, Sismondi, J. C. L., Epistolario, Firenze, 1935.)Google Scholar This action of the Genevese made it possible for them at the Congress of Vienna to obtain the recognition of the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland, and certain other concessions, such as free customs zones around Geneva. The leaders in these negotiations were Charles Pictet-Rochemont and Francois D'lvernois (Sir Francis D'lvernois), both interesting with respect to the intellectual interplay, particularly on the subject of economics, between England and Geneva.

10 It was indeed a hard lesson for France that the “schoolmasters” Wellington and Bluecher taught: a lesson for which the French have never been thankful, and which, Lord Brougham himself was willing to admit, had set the cause of popular liberty back even in England. Sismondi, writing from Paris, has given a graphic description of how the French resented the Bourbon who was thrust upon them. (See Pellegrini, vol. 11.)

11 Malthus's reference to “a hard lesson” is not an unmixed complacency of the Pal-merstonian type. In a letter to Ricardo, dated July 16, 1815, he wrote: “… I do not quite like the idea of imposing the Bourbons upon France by force, but if it leads to a lasting peace, it will be worth all that it has cost. I think Louis in order to be safe himself must disband nearly the whole army, and this must powerfully contribute to the safety and repose of Europe, though this second successful combination of Sovereigns will I fear be unfavorable to its liberty and improvement.” This letter was made available to me by the courtesy of Mr. Pierro Sraffa.

12 Marcet, Jane. Conversation on Political Economy (London, 1816)Google Scholar.

13 The argument referred to is the typical Ricardian argument against the Corn Laws; namely, that by imposing high wage costs upon employers (it being considered that wages would be just about equal to subsistence, because of the “principle of population”) investment incentives were damaged in England. This was said to carry in its train an export of capital from England, and this in turn was held responsible for lack of employment opportunities in England. For an excellent summary of this position see David Ricardo. The view is easily discerned in most of his writings, but comes out with especial clarity in some of his speeches in Parliament, as recorded in Hansard's Parliamentary Debates. See especially, vol. 41, pp. 1207 ff; vol. 42, pp. 671 ff. (December 16, 1819; May 12, 1820.)

14 Illegible.

15 The Principles of Political Economy (London, 1820)Google Scholar.

16 See Bonar, James, Malthus and His Work (London, 1924), 378Google Scholar.

17 The reference in this letter to the translation into French of Malthus's Political Economy presents one of those curious cases where it is most difficult to draw the line between humor and pathos.

The translation was made by Mr. Constancio of Paris, a doctor of medicine, and a warm adherent to the idea of dividing up large landed estates. The translation is dotted with notes, rising from casual disagreement to vigorous dissent, and such is the quantity of commentary that one is inclined to think of this book as a rare and possibly unique specimen of author's nightmare.

18 “Mr. Ricardo pretends that, in spite of taxes and other obstructions there is always as much industry as capital employed and that all capitals saved are still employed, because capital will not lose the interest. There are, on the contrary, many savings unemployed on account of the difficulty in employing them, or being employed are lost in consequence of bad management. Besides, Mr. Ricardo is contradicted by what happened to us in 1813, when the faults of the government ruined all commerce, and when interest of money fell so low, for want of good opportunities of employing it—and by what is happening to us at this moment in which the capitals sleep at the bottom of the coffers of capitalists. The Bank of France alone has 223 millions in specie in its coffers; a sum more than double the amount of the notes in circulation, and six times greater than prudence warrants to be kept for casual payments.” Jean Baptiste Say, Letters to Thomas Robert Malthus on Political Economy and Stagnation of Commerce (London, 1861; George Harding's Bookshop, Ltd., 1936, reprint p. 45n).

19 John Barton lived from 1790 to 1852. Not much is known about his early years; there is a possibility that he was a member of a commercial firm in Manchester which dissolved in 1826. In his testimony before a House of Lords' Committee on Agricultural Distress, of February 25, 1831, he gave his residence as Stoughton, Sussex, near Chichester. He said that he had been in that parish for about five years. In his testimony he spoke of having land to let. On the occasion of his death (March 10, 1852), the Gentleman's Magazine wrote:

“At Chichester, aged 62, John Barton, esq. one of the original promoters of the Chichester Savings Bank, the Lancasterian School, and the Mechanics' Institution, of which he was treasurer until its union with the Philosophical Society, died. For many years he lectured within its walls in an able and popular manner.” (April, 1852, p. 431.)

I checked Barton's death certificate at Chichester to confirm the dates given in the Gentleman's Magazine, and found them to be accurate. There is still an active trust estate in John Barton's name at Chichester. Barton's chief contributions to economics were: (1) his early discussion of technological unemployment, which had a great influence on Ricardo; (2) his emphasis on the cause of overpopulation as lying, not in the increase of the marriage rate, but in the decrease of the death rate. Besides the volumes cited below Barton published a pamphlet On Restriction of Corn (1842). A copy of this is kept at the Refor m Club, 104 Pall Mall, London, S.W. 1.

20 On the Circumstances Which Influence the Condition of the Labouring Classes of Society (London, 1817, 92 pp.). Made more widely available by Jacob Hollander in Reprints of Economic Tracts (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press, 1934)Google Scholar.

21 An Inquiry Into the Causes of the Progressive Depreciation of Agricultural Labour in Modern Times, With Suggestions for its Remedy (London, 1820, 128 pp.)Google Scholar.

22 A review journal published by Bellot, Dumont, L. Meynier, P. Rossi, and Simonde de Sismondi. Projected in November 1822 and planned as a quarterly, this publication continued only for a few years. By tracing the successor to J. J. Paschoud, the publisher of the Annales, I was able to get a copy of vol. I, no. I. The page s were as yet uncut.

23 “Observations” on the two publications by , Barton just cited. Annales, vol. I, no. I, pp. 82–119. In this article Sismondi took the position that the way to abolish the poor laws was to abolish the need for them, and this, argued Sismondi, should be done by abolishing the “free-contract” wages system and returning from a system of large industry to one of small proprietorships. But as long as this had not been done, and until it had been done, Sismondi was a great champion of the poor laws. Because Barton's trenchant arguments against abolition of public charity impressed Sismondi, he devoted a great deal of attention to them in his review. He thus sponsored and championed an attitude diametrically opposed to that of Malthus, who stood for the abolition of the poor laws as such. Specific mention of Malthus, however, is lackingGoogle Scholar.

24 “Observations,” p. 113: “Until then [up to the time of the free-contract wages system] the farmer himself had worked his fields aided by his sons and his servants; the work of the towns was done by craftsmen rather than by manufacturers; in these shops the worker never dreamt of getting married before having become a master.”

25 “Observations,” p. 115: “The efforts of political economists must henceforth be devoted to seeing to it that: the pernicious separation of wages and profits is destroyed in England; and that such a system is not encouraged on the Continent; that the class of day-wage labourers shall disappear, to be replaced in agriculture as well as in the arts by workers whos e hire shall be at least by the year, and longer if this is possible.”

26 About this point there is still dispute, good authority maintaining that there wer e real wage improvements in the north of England and around London, wit h conditions rather stationary in the west, and admittedly depressed in the south. It is pointed out that distress was more localized than has formerly been thought. See Gilboy, Elizabeth W., “Demand as a Factor in the Industrial Revolution,” in Facts and Factors in Economic History (Cambridge, Mass., 1932), 620–637.Google Scholar But for a different view see the remarks of Hammond, J. L. in “The Industrial Revolution and Discontent,” Economic History Revieiw, II, 215 ff. Here it is pointed out that even where real wage gains can be registered, that is, especially in the new industries of the north, account must be taken of the deep personal crises which were imposed upon great numbers of people who were “freed” from feudal status but who were the victims to be of a system of production in which entrepreneurs no longer had to take account of social cost. Even today visiting the towns of the industrial north of England is hardly an aesthetic experienceGoogle Scholar.

27 The facts available to Malthus are given by Mr. Talbot Griffiths. In the counties of England least affected by pauperism, the increase of population between 1801-1831 was 46 per cent In the counties most affected it was 38.6 per cent. If these figures, whic h allow for migration, are modified for natural increase, the counties most affected by pauperism show a higher rate of population increase by the insignificant excess of only 2.3 per cent. A striking similarity is also observable as regards the marriage rate. Population Problems in the Age of Malthus (Cambridge, 1926), 129–169; more specifically, 165, 168Google Scholar.

28 Malthus was an opponent of such things as public housing projects. He also opposed Barton's proposal to give the poor a cash reserve by way of a subsidy to be placed in a savings bank to their account, and thereby operate to encourage the postponement of the marriage age. Malthus even opposed giving the poor a subsidy in kind, a cow for example.

29 Barton pointed out that wages had increased as well as decreased while the poor-law system, inaugurated in 1601, had remained in constant operation. This suggested to him that the poor laws could not be held invariably to have lowered wages. Depreciation of Labour, 22, 108Google Scholar.

30 The effect of Irish immigration into these southern districts is apparently ignored by Malthus in this statement.

31 Principally the encouragement of savings banks; in this respect Barton's plans were, however, quite advanced: he wanted to provide for a cash subsidy to afford a minimum reserve, plus an additional cash subsidy designed to encourage single men to postpone the age of marriage. The subsidy was designed to supplement the savings a man might reasonably be expected to make with the view of keeping himself off parish relief. Savings plus subsidy were supposed to afford a capital sum that would make this possible. Careful calculations of the necessary subsidies were made by Barton in his Depreciation of Agricultural Labour.

32 Barton had observed the characteristic lag of wages behind prices when the general level of prices rises. Sismondi explained Barton's thesis in the following words:

“Mr. Barton assigne d as leading cause of the depreciation of wages, and therefore of misery, the increase of the precious metals; and his historical researches have in fact established a singular coincidence between the two eras when wages experienced a rapid and steady decline, at the end of the sixteenth and at the end of the eighteenth century, with the two periods when the importation of the precious metals has surpassed greatly the consumption of Europe; this was brought about the first time by the discovery of the American mines, and the second time by the application of scientific methods to the production of these same mines. This curious fact is without doubt worthy of renewed attention; it will perhaps some day teach us how the augmentation of the money-unit and the diminution of its exchangeable value operate gradually but steadily to change the prices of things before changing the prices of men, and render dear the price of subsistence before raising the price of work. It will demonstrate to us that when the price of the precious metals sinks gradually, the workers are victims of a continual deception, and that when they have begun to give their work for less than it is worth, competition prevents them from raising it again to its value.”

See Annales de legislation, “Observations,” 109-110. Barton's thesis is stated in both pamphlets reviewed by , Sistnondi, but particularly in his Depreciation of Agricultural LabourGoogle Scholar.

33 Malthus attributed the rise in corn wages during the first part of the sixteenth century to an increase in the wages fund and to a lag in the increase of the supply of labor. Of the subsequent fall of corn wages in the last part of the sixteenth century Malthus said: “… redundancy of population was acknowledged at the end of the 16th century. And it was this change in the state of the population, and not the discovery of the American mines, which occasioned so marked a fall in the corn-wages of labour.” (Principles of Political Economy, 2d ed., bk. 1, ch. IV, sec. V). Malthus was willing, however, to grant that the discovery of the American mines had aggravated the difficulty: “What effect the depreciation of money might have had in aggravating that increasing poverty of the labouring classes of society, which, with or without such a depreciation, would inevitably have fallen upon them, is not easy to say.”

Population increase was not invoked by Malthus as an explanation of the decrease in corn wages which took place in the second half of the eighteenth century. Up to 1770 he attributed the fall in corn wages to bad harvest; he felt that from 1770 to 1793 corn wages were stable, and that the demand for labor was such that it offset lower real wages, by increased employment per family. Malthus felt that after 1793 corn wages would have increased, had it not been for the poor laws.

34 The first part of this passage exhibits Malthus as a “forced-savings” theorist, a fact which is very clearly evident in Malthus's early article: “Publications on the Depreciation of the Paper Currency,” Edinburgh Review, XVII, 363 ffGoogle Scholar. (November, 1810-February, 1811.) The doctrine of forced saving seems, however, to have been very widely discussed at this time. See Hayek, F. A. von, “A Note on the Development of the Doctrine of ‘Forced Saving,’” Quarterly Journal of Economics, XLVII (1932), 123 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar In the second part of this passage Malthus is stressing the importance of effective demand to economic expansion. He is laying, in his characteristic fashion, special emphasis on anticipated gains in utility as a condition of trade both foreign and domestic. (Anticipated gains in utility are the bases of “convertibility of commodities.”) In substance Malthus said that gold is of significance to economic expansion only in so far as it constitutes effective demand; the wealth of a nation depends upon its capacity, not merely to produce, but to produce things that can arouse a monied desire sufficient to keep the propensity to consume at a level at which entrepreneurs can realize profits.

All of this was treated by Malthus in particular detail in the first chapter of Book II of his Principles of Political Economy, sec. VIII: “of the Distribution occasioned by Commerce, internal and external, considered as the Means of increasing the exchangeable Value of Produce.” See Viner's, Jacob discussion of this treatment of the gains from trade, in Studies in the Theory of International Trade, 528–531Google Scholar.

35 Malthus's own estimate was that corn wages, after having by 1770 dropped one sixth from their 1750 high, remained stable from 1770 to 1811. This estimate is contained in Principles of Political Economy, 2d ed., bk. I, ch. IV, sec. IV. (The estimate as to this stability is supported by a rough check up that I have made, using data other than those employed by Malthus.)

36 Practical-minded Malthus, thinking habitually in terms of the family as the economic unit, thought that the main element in the condition of the working classes was, not the real wage rate, but total family earnings. This is not to say that he approved of what he saw, but he recorded what he saw.

What is brought out by this emphasis on family earnings is that to Malthus the demand for labor was more important as a demand for continuous employment than as a factor in the money-wage rate per unit of employment. This position was evolved in connection with his defense of corn laws. Malthus thought that with the repeal of the corn laws, the price of corn would be lower, and that this would result in higher corn wages. (The Ricardians thought that profits would be increased!) But even though Malthus granted that the repeal of the corn laws might lead to higher corn wages, he believed that the transformation of England into “the industrial workshop of the world” would aggravate the problem of balancing production and consumption, and would therefore bring with it greater instability of employment.

For quotations on family earnings in Malthus, see Principles of Political Economy, especially bk. I, ch. IV, sec. Ill, “Of the Causes which principally influence the Demand for Labour, and the Increase of the Population.”

37 Godwin's book to which Malthus referred was the Enquiry concerning Population (London, 1820). Of it, Bonar writes that, though it was meant to refute Malthus “… the fact remains not only that poor Godwi n made no bread and butter by it, but that he converted no one whose opinion in such a matter was of any weight.” Malthus and His Work, 368Google Scholar.

38 Although Malthus writes in this letter that the book hardly deserves to be reviewed, the fact is that he had already reviewed it in the Edinburgh Review, LXX, Article VI, 06 1821Google Scholar. See Copinger, W. A., On the Authorship of the First Hundred Numbers of the Edinburgh Review (Privately printed at the Priory Press, Manchester, 1895), index p. 54Google Scholar. See also, Letters of Ricardo to Malthus, no. LXXX, p. 206, the letter dated 10 11, 1821Google Scholar.

39 Small wonder that Malthus was favorably impressed by the article on Godwin's book contained in the North American Review, No. XXXVII, New Series, No. XII, 10, 1822, pp. 289–319. The reviewer wrote:Google Scholar “After the lapse of more than twenty years … the world has been called upon to reconsider and revise the judgment it originally passed on the truth of Mr. Malthus' work. The consequence has been an entire and deliberate affirmance of that judgment; and henceforth, we presume, the subject of population will be considered at rest.” (Pp. 318-319.)

40 “A Summary Vie w of Population,” Napier's, MacveySupplement to the Encyclo-paedia Britannica, 124Google Scholar.

41 A second edition of the Principles of Political Economy did not appear until 1836, that is, it was issued posthumously, Malthus having died in 1834. In this second edition the work on the measure of value is entirely revised. In 1823, however, there had appeared a separate pamphlet, The Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated.

42 Apparently this pressure for time caused Malthus to postpone another edition of his Principles, and to content himself with a pamphlet on the Measure of Value. On February 12, 1822, Malthus wrote to Macvey Napier: “… I had engaged to bring out a new edition of my last work on Political Economy early this spring; and I had besides particular reasons, latterly, for wishing it to appear with as little delay as possible.” On May 10, 1823, he calls attention to his Measure of Value Stated and Illustrated, and says: “It is not in the form in which I had intended it to appear; but I think it contains a doctrine which leads to important consequences.”

See Malthus, “Letters to Macvey Napier,” in Economic Journal, VII (1897), 265–271CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The originals of these letters are at Johns Hopkins University; they were made available for publication by Jacob H. Hollander.

43 Prévost twice translated Malthus. In 1809 he translated the second edition of the Essay on Population. In 1830 he translated the fifth edition. Ironically enough, I found this latter translation in the Library of the University of Geneva with the pages still uncut.

44 The presence of the Prévosts in England during the summer of 1824 is attested by the records of the Political Economy Club. The minutes of June 7, 1824, record the presence as visitors of “Professor Prevost of Geneva” as well as of Bentham's great coworker Etienne Dumont. The topics discussed on that day were: (1) “Would the proprietors of estates in the West Indies sustain any pecuniary loss by enfranchisement of their Negro slaves?” (Question posed by G. Grote.) (2) “Is it true in point of fact, that when no rent is paid the whole produce is divided between wages and profits?” (3) “What is the meaning of the term Wages?” (Latter questions posed by Colonel Torrens.)