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Literary Remainsliterary Remains} Comiat...
fetter ' s profession , he seems to have . acquired in SrTlife the habits which afterwards fitted him to draw up Acts of Parliament and fulfil the duties rtf a Tithe Commissioner . At the age of twentytwo however , the state of his , health catised the clans for his career to be changed ; and he , rather late for a student , went to Cambridge to prepare for the Church . Here he took no honours , and aimed at none , but he associated with Herschell , Babba ^ e , the late Dr . Peacock , and other distinguished students . Having good spirits , " an extraordinary share of wit , " and a fluency of speech , he acquired reputation as a talker and became a favourite in many circles . Subsequently he took holy orders , was a good working curate , a sagacious a < mculturistand continued to be an agreeable
, companion . After a time he became a political economist , formed grand projects of improving the science , and published , controverting Ricardo , "A Treatise on Rent . " It led to his being appointed Professor of Political Economy at King ' s College , where he began his probation in 1833 . In 1835 , he was also appointed , in succession to Mr . Malthus , Professor atHaileybury , and held the situation to nearly the close of his life . His business habits , and his connection with agriculture and the Church , recommended him to the authorities to assist in the work of tithe -commutation . ; and he was apppinted , by the Archbishop of Canterbury , the Church Commissioner for carrying the Act into effect . The remainder of his life was occupied in this -or-similar offices . He died in 18 oo . Too
much engaged in practical labours ever to refine , or polish , or even to complete his speculative works—with- a . mind better adapted to the pursuits of a lawyer than those of a philosopher , he failed to gain , beyond the circle of his friends and his colleges , any reputation as a political economist . Them he continued to charm , by " his remarkable conversational powers . " Lords Brougham , Campbell , Jeffrey , and " others of like note , " gathered in the hall at Haileybury , delighted to " discuss polities and philosophy with Jones . '' His social reputation seems to have dazzled his friends , and blinded them to the defects of his writings . A book
more abundant in repetitions , more shallow in doctrine , and more slip-shod in style than the unfinished remains of Mr . Jones , to proceed from a man of reputation , we have never met with . He intended to complete at least some of these works , but his intentions " z-emained unexecuted . " The " introductory lecture at King ' s College , Avhich he prepared with some care ; and an Essay , of fortyeight pages , reprinted from the Edinburgh Review , y On Primitive Political Economy in England , '" are almost . the only worthy and readable portions of the book . The Master ofTrinity , andthc admiring friend John Cazcnove , Esq ., on whom the Master puts any credit which the editor of this volume may deserve ,
have , much to answer for , both to the public and Richard Jones ' s other living friends , for not allowing these remains to continue in the tomb to which he had consigned them . But for a little passage in the prefatory notice we should have been at a loss to conjecture why J ) v . Whewell , who has some literary . reputation , should have prefixed his name to the book . He reminds us , however , that he has had a literary feud' with Mr . John Stuart Mill , and wo much fear that the opportunity of stating what he evidently thought might for ever disparage , if not silence , Mr . Mill , has blinded him to the defects of the work ho has ushered before the public . Unfortunately for himself and Mr . Jones ho has forced it forward for judgment , and we cannot refuse to condemn it ,
The reader'has only to look at the table of contents , where ho will find Capital the subject of several different locturya , nitd Population thb subject of two distinct series of lectures , hosidos forming the subject of subordinate eliupters , to bo satisfied that tho bill-hook of some sturdy literary hedger was much required to lop oil' the tangled and quick growing shoots of Mr . Jones ' s u oxtraox'dinary wit . " It is only nocoasary to turn over T M il * " \« t SVsift Jt 4 4 < 1 t rv < llHiMi / Mii li ^ / ti . i itinfi n » niii'vlJ'ikl 4-1 \ iilt / 1
He was , however , led into more palpable incongruities than Malthus and Ricardo , for he admits that continuous labour preceded capital ; sees it engaged at a very early stage of society in different works , as \ t has to catch fish or ensnare game , or inheres in man or woman , in child or parent , in teacher or learner ; and yet he affirms- . that " division of labour , a uniyersal principle of social life , is only one result of capital . "
Mr . Jones , like Mr . Malthus , was professionally a defender of our political organisation , and had , therefore , to find a justification of rent and tithes . To do this , he depai'ts from the first principle and foundation of the science of wealth . He says , Smith inadvertently described labour as ; the source of wealth , which is the very principle of liis book , and affirms that the earth and the elements are its sources . Man lives , it is true , in conjunction with the earth and the elements—he can do nothing without them— -and all he does is in obedience to
the laws which govern them ; but the science of wealth is the science , not of them , but of a portion of what man does . It is emphatically the science of industry as contradistinguished from geography , meteorology ^ chemistry , & c . ; and to speak of the earth or the ocean , or rain and wind , as a source of wealth is to misunderstand , or to misinterpret , all that has i ^ reviously been written on the subject . The eai'th can be , and is , appropriated , while sunshine and rain come freely to all ; but before the pnrth can be tilled it must be cleared , and only
that portion of the produce Which labour seizes , or helps to bring forth , is , or can be called wealth . Tlie landlord ' s power , and the power of the State , are nqfc wealth , though they appropriate . It suited Mr . Jones , in the interest of two classes , to take a different view ; and , to make it appear that the opulent land and tithe owner does not subsist on the industry of the people , he ascribes wealth to the earth , and places the science on a different foundation from all precedingwriters . of which
the exact same statement about population . So it is in other places , and unfortunately the doctrines which ai-e so of ten repeated are in themselves of very little worth . Mr . Jones adopts much of the commonplace notions about capital , but carries them very far , and calls it the " moving power from which all the changes in the configuration of society proceed . " He is also peculiar , we think , in asserting that capital" something saved from revenue , and
em-, ployed for the purpose of producing wealth or with a view to profit" " alone- makes the continuity of labour possible . " As , according to Mr . Jones , the continuity of labour is one source of its . efficiency , the direct consequence of Mr . Jones ' s argument is , that capital is righteously entitled , and will be to the end of time , to that lion ' s share of the prodiice of industry it now receives . This involves so certainly the continual poverty and continual degradation of all who cannot and do not save , that we
must delay our readers to show its incorrectness . Admitting that continuous labom- is essential , the source of it is not the accumulation of capital , but continuous wants . Man must eat to-morrow as well as to-day ,, and habit or the law ot association impels him to repeat next day the exertions which provided him with food the day before . , 'Accordingly , we find man in the lowest stage of existence pursuing his game , be it fish or flesh , day after day , just as the power-loom weaver goes to his work , and with increasing art and skill . Accordingly , too , as Mr . Jones repeatedly informs us , " uhhired labourers or peasant cultivators , who comprise probably two-thirds of the labouring population of the globe" who swarm in Asia , have
, steadily andcontinuoiisly cultivated its plains for ages . They , as he says , produce their own wages . There is- a sovereign , ' or landowner , to appropriate to his use all the produce which can be extracted from them ; and they continue to cultivate the- soil without any increase of capital , and continue to rear a succession of cultivators , as Mr . Jones very elaborately shows through many pages ; and shows , therefore , that continuous industry throughoiit the greater part of the world by no means depends on capital , and on capitalists , with power to maintain producers , till " a purchaser appears for their products . " Mr . Jones , like Mr . Malthus and Mr . Ricardo , has assumed the social phenomena of his own time to be a correct index to social phenomena
The only portions of the book we can speak with approbation , are numerous references to history and to different nations , made in order to show that the science of political economy , as cultivated in England , applies , like the doctrines of Malthus and Ricardo , ^ to only one phasis of society , and is not true if applied to society as a whole . But the worth of this portion is very much abated by Mr . Jones failing to notice that Adam Smith-expressly treated of a state of society in which the laud is appropriated and profit paid on stock , or of the state of society which was in his time , and now is in existence
inm all tune . The mind of the former , overwhelmed by the horrors of the first French revolution , which originated in the incompatibility of the then Government of France with the natural and necessary increase of population , could do nothing less than trace the whole misery of society at all times to the principle which was tor ever impelling population to increase , lie was so far right , as population is but another term for spcicty or life . It is
Europe , and not of a state of society in which the labourer owns all he produces , nor of a state in which he is the bondman of the landlord or the sovereign . The historical illustrations quoted by Mr . Jones have no bearing on the science , as it was avowedly limited by Smith to political society in Europe . The Master of Trinity is aware " that the science had been made to refer almost entirely to a type of society , which , speaking eo . smogi-aphically , is exceptional ; " but he does not seem to be aware that the limitation was expressly stated , nor that , so limited , Smith ' s great principle , denied by Jones , that all wealth , is the produce of labour , is
the active power which , determines everything concerning the ill or well being of man . But he was more deeply impressed with the temporary evils which arose- ^—government destroyed and Europe involved in calamitous wars—than with the general beneficial and permanent effects of the principle which spreads man over the earth y continues tho race . He noticed the occasional misery which springs from a scarcity oftlie means of subsistence ; but he overlooked tho increase of knowledge , and the continual progress towards
oxumversnlly true . Now , as to the stylo iu which these forgotten platitudes are expressed . Mr . Jones writes , and the Master of Trinity prints , very solemnly— - " Our investigations , then , into national wealth will be divided into inquiries into the laws which regulate 1 st . Its production ; 2 nd . Its distribution ; 3 rd . Its consumption ; 4 th . Its exchange , & c \ " Throughout the passage tho possessive pronoun is misapplied , us if the production , distribution , consumption , and exchange of wealth wore tt & ( inolifini o liri ) -. ill / iii-ir-nl pmU'lllKlOIl . il'OIll tilC
cclloncc , tho consequences of the uh y nya existing necessity to find the means of subsistence for an always increasing population . So Mr . llicarclo saw rent rapidly increasing in England from the then imperative , necessity to extend cultivation to the xitmosfc , jttnd over tho poorest soils : and ho jumped to the conclusion disproved by others as well as Mr . Jones—that all rent is merely the difference between the return to an equal quantity of capital and labour employed , on land possessing diflcvrent UcftToes of productive power . So Mr . Jones saw in our time tho capituliwt building factories , introducing machinery , and organising masses of hired lnbourora into continuous workers :
supposition'tfhnt it is tho spontaneous produce of the oavth , instead of these ciriHimstimootf being what man does with it . The ordinary phraseology , " the laws which rogulnfc tho consumption , tjistribution , production and exchange of woaltn express tho phenomena correctly . "AHtuo importance of this error , " to quota ft * poi » unon sentence , " may not now bo soon , but it ' will meet us ag . un when " wo are treating oi' tho division of wealth and of tho progress ol population , and than the unfortunate influence of tho mistake on largo and inironiuus trains of modern speculation will display ^ tlmniscloos \ o us without much oflort . Cp 50 ) . What does it menu ? Even it we charitably suppose that " themselves " Is a misprint for " itself ; '' how can influonoo display itself without
giving thoin wages for thoir laboui * , and disposing of its i ) roduco iu u distant market , mid he nssertod tl . itib saving and capital nndcapitalists were universally essential to continuous industry , llo substituted an incident oi' our peculiar condition and progress , in which ( ho cnpitaliMt in superseding tho landowner for a universal principle . It was only necessary i ' ov him to have used tho term sluvohokloi' lor capitalist to liavo found in tho continuous labour of slaves a justification for slavery .
V O -iT «« v UlLIUIUlblVVklllUa UU Vitpiklll JbW Ullkl tlie saino thoughts repeated over ami over again , almost in tho same words , tho Instropotition leaving as little conviction behind it as tho first statement . Lot tho reader , however , who limy take an interest in Jones and "Whewull , turn to pages 22 at soq and to 358 o ( soy and ho will find the peculiar expressions and opinions of Mr . Jonos on the sourcos and practices of capital ropoatod ad nauseam ; or if ho pleases to look at pages 47 and 150 , ho will find in both plftoos almost tho same words , but certainly
Howeverled Into Statement About It Tsto....
TSTo . 474 . Aprii , 23 , 1859 . ] THE LEADER 525
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 23, 1859, page 13, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23041859/page/13/
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