Page:The Economic Journal Volume 1.djvu/794

 772 THE ECONOMIC JOURNAL on their production,' to those 'early stages of society' in 'labour is almost exclusively employed in production.' in connection with the so-called' iron ' or ' brazen' law of wages which Again. which Ricardo has been supposed to lay down, Mr. Gonner calls attention to the often forgotten passage in the ,chapter on wages, in which the variability of the standard of comfort of a people is very clearly and explicitly recognised. ' It is not to be understood,' says Ricardo,' that the natural price of labour, estimated even in food and necessaries, is absolutely fixed and constant. It varies at different times in the same country, and very materially differs in different countries. It essentially depends on the habits and customs of the people.' This is sufficiently elnphatic; and having once delivered himself to this effect, Ricardo in nearly the whole of his reasoning tacitly which habits and customs do not vary. we may go too far in defence of Ricardo. assumes a stationary state, ill No doubt, here and elsewhere, It is one thing barely to state a truth in an isolated passage, and quite another to make oneself master of it and reeognise its vital importance in all its various bearings. After making full allowance for Ricardo's reticence and habit of suppressing in his actual statements nmch that was present to his own mind, it is difficult to believe that he did not himself sometimes forget what he had elsewhere more or less incidentally set forth. For example. notwithstanding the passage above quoted, it may be doubted if he at all realised the extent to which the standard of comfort of the working classes may itself be affected by economic causes, and hence the possible reaction of wages upon the standard of con, fort. This remark applies [articularly to his theory o! the incidence of taxation upon raw produce and upon wages and profits. His fundamental assumption is that no taxes can fall permanently upon wages since wages admit of no reduction. Mr. Gonner gives an interesting account of theories of rent laid down by Ricardo's predecessors. He of course recognises, as Ricardo }timself recognised, that he was not the originator of the particular theory called after his name; but he shows that the use which Ricardo made of it was unique. ' Unlike any of his predecessors,' says Mr. Gonner, ' Ricardo addressed himself steadfastly to the question o! the relation between Rent and Value. It is through this difference of atitude, involving as it did synthetic treatment, rather than through any originality in detail, that he holds the position he does, as the great exponent of the theory of Rent.' A special appendix is devoted to the Ricardian paradox that rents lnay be diminished by improve- ments in the arts of agriculture, and Ricardo's views are in particular contrasted with Adam Smith's conclusion that landlords will derive ad- vantage from an increase in the productive powers of the soh Mr. Gonner introduces a mathematical proof of Ricardo's proposition; but it is somewhat cumbrous, and Ricardo's assumptions seem unfortunately to be misinterpreted. When Ricardo speaks o! improrenents not dsturb- ing ' the difference between the productive powers o! tile successive