Item 10 - Letter from Thomas Robert Malthus

E. I. Coll. - Thanks WW for sending him a copy of his paper on the application of mathematics to political economy ['Mathematical Exposition of Some Doctrines of Political Economy', 1829]: 'I have looked over it with great interest; but I am ashamed to say that, never having been very familiar with the present algebraic notation, and for a great many years having been quite unaccustomed to it, I cannot follow you as I could wish, without more attention and application than I can give to the subject in the midst of our College examinations'. Nevertheless TRM thinks WW's conclusions are fairly just, and believes in certain cases mathematical calculations could be applied with advantage to Political Economy - 'particularly with a view to determine the different degrees in which certain objects are affected, under different hypotheses. The grand difficulty however, with a view to practicability, is the getting data to work upon, sufficiently near the truth; and such as can be stated distinctly in mathematical language. In many cases where one should wish to come to definite conclusions I should fear this was quite impracticable. I have long thought that these are many of the results in political economy which have some resemblance to the problems de maximes et minimes, such as the most favourable division of landed property, neither too great nor too small; and the most advantageous proportions, (with a view to the permanent increase of wealth) in which the whole produce of capital should be divided between the capitalists and labourers. But I do not see how such propositions could be put into proper language for a fluxional solution, varying as the result must do with the fertility of soils and the productiveness of capitals'. TRM thinks that the points WW discusses in his paper are more manageable - 'though perhaps all your axioms may not be sufficiently general. Does your third include cases of the saving of labour, where new land may be cultivated without an increase in the value of the produce? And does your fourth include the case of an increased demand with the same supply? I think it might have been difficult to proceed without the supposition of a limiting soil on which the cost of production is determined. And yet this, and all the conclusions in the latter part of Mr P. Thompson's essay belong entirely to the New theory of Rent ['An Exposition of Fallacies on Rent, Tithes,etc...Being in the Form of a Review of the Third Edition of Mr Mill's Elements of Political Economy', 1826], and not to what he calls the True Theory which he at first proposes to substitute for it, namely the kind of monopoly from which the price of Tokay arises. This had indeed been the usual view of the subject; and the particular object of my original pamphlet on R[ent] to which Mr Ricardo refers, was to shew the doctrine [of] ordinary rent, and the rent arising from a common street monopoly, such as a Tokay vineyard. I quite agree with Mr P. Thompson that the productions of soil are not necessary to the exactness of rent, as I repeatedly expressed in print long before he wrote. But as productions of soil do actually take place in all countries, all the practical questions relating to places and tithes must be essentially modified by them. Mr Thompson states most correctly, as I have often stated to Mr Ricardo that taxes on raw produce, or tithes, throw lands of a certain quality out of cultivation, or prevent their being cultivated, and in this way fall on rent, on the other hand if the supply were unaffected by the tax it would, as you partly observe fall on the consumer. But these questions do not apply at all to a Tokay vineyard: The actual value of corn is necessary to its actual supply in the exacting quantity (newly), but the same quantity of Tokay would continue to be supplied at a much lower value. The permanent rise in the value of corn is strictly limited by the circumstance of its being the necessary food of the demanders. The rise in the value of Tokay has no limit but the wealth and caprice of a few consumers. I cannot but think therefore that it was an unfortunate comparison and the essay would have been totally inapplicable to real state of things if he had adhered to it. Can we suppose that the capital employed on good land is 2[,] 3 or 4 times that which is employed on the same quantity of any poor land? Sometimes the revenue is the fact. By the bye, you have inadvertently said that Mr Ricardo maintains that a tax on wages must fall on the labourers. He says it must full on profits. But the error does not affect your illustration of the use of mathematics in Pol. Economy which is a very good one'.