Item 2 - Copy of a letter from Thomas Robert Malthus to William Whewell

1 folded sheet

East India College - TRM thanks WW and Richard Jones 'for a valuable work on the distribution of wealth, which I have lately received [Richard Jones, 'An Essay on the Distribution of Wealth and on the Sources of Taxation', 1831]. I have read it with great interest; and as the author has evidently brought much thought and talent to his subject, I am particularly gratified to find that he agrees with me on almost every point on which I differed from Mr Ricardo. I am not sure however whether he has not gone beyond the truth in his unwillingness to admit the tendency of continued accumulation, and of the progress of population and cultivation to lower the rates of profits and corn wages on the land; and if he has finished the subject of rent in the present volume, I cannot help thinking that he has omitted to consider its origin and progress in one of the most interesting and important divisions of it, namely, when the knowledge and habits of an old and improved country are employed upon a fresh and fertile soil, as in the United States, and the numerous colonial establishments which seem about to fill the newer parts of our world. In these cases we must not think of commencing with profits of ten per cent, and corn wages at all like what are found to prevail in old countries. In the United States the corn wages are decidedly above double what they are in this country, while the rate of profits is at the same time very much higher. Now it appears to me that the fall of these high wages and profits, is an absolutely necessary condition of the full cultivation and peopling of the United States; and that if in this country the agricultural labourers were to receive the value of 20 quarters of wheat in the year instead of about 9, it would be quite impossible to retain in cultivation a great part of the land that is now cultivated. - The profits and wages of new colonies, by their gradual fall, allow a considerable increase of rents, without improvement in the mode of conducting the business of agriculture; but in old States, as I have specifically stated, where neither profits nor corn wages are high, the limit to the further increase of rent from the fall of profits and wages is very narrow, and the enlarging incomes of the landlords are almost wholly derived from improvements in agriculture. Even however where an increasing rent is accompanied with a diminution of profits and wages, it is a great error to suppose that it is a mere transfer to the landlord; it always involves an increase of capital and produce, and in fact, on the supposition of a period without improvements in agriculture - a case which surely ought to enter into our consideration, it is a necessary condition of a farther increase of cultivation and agricultural wealth. If the progress of cultivation and population has no tendency to diminish corn wages, I do not see what cause should ever retard the rate at which population is known to increase in the new colonies. I like much in Jones's account of the different kinds of rent which prevail in different countries and at different periods; yet I certainly think that the progress of rent in new colonies not interrupted by premature monopoly and very bad government, together with the farmers rents in the more improved states of Europe, are the most important parts of the subject, and the most practically interesting to us, particularly in this age of emigration. - Mr Jones's view of the effects of auxiliary capital upon the land in diminishing the proportion of agricultural population, and increasing the proportion of the non-agricultural, is very good; and also what he says of the effects of cheaper manufactures in contributing to maintain the same corn wages, though not so new and perhaps pushed a little too far. - It is quite true as Mr Jones observes that I have been unfortunate in my followers. I trust he is aware that the general and practical conclusions which I have myself drawn from my principles both on population and rent, have by no means the gloomy aspect given to them by many of my readers. - I shall be anxious to see the remaining volumes of Mr Jones's work, and I beg you will return him my best thanks. By the bye I have lately read a Review of Lyell's geology in the British Critic, which I hear is by you, with very great gratification and instruction, and another nearly as interesting'.