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father ' s profession , he seems to liave acquired in mfIv life the habits which afterwards fitted him to draw up Acts of Parliament and . fulfil the duties of a Tithe Commissioner . At the age of twentytwo however , the state of his health caused the dans 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 , Babble , the late Dr . Peacock , and other distinguished students . [ laving 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 agriculturist , and continued to be an agreeable companion . After a time he became a political economist , formed grand projects of improving the science , and published , controverting lticardo , "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 at Haileybury , 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 appointed , by the Archbishop of Canterbury , for the Act
the Church Commissioner carrying into effect . The remainder of his life was occupied in this or similar offices . He died in 1855 . Too much engaged in practical Jabours 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 hail at Haileybury , delighted to " discuss politics 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 nian of reputation , we have never met with . lie intended to complete at least some of these works , but his intentions " remained unexecuted . " The " introductory lecture at King ' s College , which he prepared with some cai * e ; and an Essay , of fortyei g ht pages , reprinted from the Edinburgh Review , On Primitive Political Economy in England , '" are almost the only worthy and readable portions of the book . The Master of Trinity , and the admiring friend John Cazenove , 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 havq been at a loss to conjecture why Dr . 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 we much fear that the opportunity of stating what he evidently thought might for ever disparage , if not alienee , Mr . Mill , has blinded him to the defects of the work ho has ushered before the public . Unfortunately for himself and Mr . Jones he has forced it forward for judgment , and we cannot x'efuse to condemn it .
The reader has only to look at the table of contents , where he will find Capital the subject of several different lecture * , nnd Population the subj ect of two distinct series of lectures , besides funning the subject of subordinate chapters , to be satisfied that the bill-hook of some' sturdy literary hedgor was much required to lop oil the tangled and quick growing shoots of Mr . Jones ' s " extraordinary wit . " It is only necessary to turn over
the pages of tlie different lectures on capital to find the same thoughts repeated over and over again , almost in the same words , the last repetition leaving as little conviction behind it as the tirat statement . Lotthc reader , however , who may take am interest in Jones and "Whowell , turn to pages 22 ot soq and to 358 et son and lie will find tlio . peculiar expressions and opinions of Mr . Joues on tuo sources and practices of capital repeated ad nauseam ; or if he pleases to look at pngen 47 and 10 Q , ha will find » n both places almost the same words , but certainly
the exact same statement about population . So it is in other places , and unfortunately the doctrines which are so often 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 alt 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 oiwith _*_ i _ — j . * .. »» . ~ . » n * -A 4-An-hav > 4- nTt ^ -tiid- nAnn 1 afi r \ n Srt i 4-
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 produce 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 labour 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 of association impels him to repeat next day the exertions which provided him with food the day before . Accordingly , we find maii 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 , " unhrred labourers or peasant cultivators , who comprise probably two-thirds of the labouring population of tlie "lobe , " who swarm in Asia , have cultivated lains
steadily and continuously its p forages . Tliev , " 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 throughout 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 . " Mi-. Jones , like Mr . Malthus and Mr . Ricardo , has assumed the social phenomena of his own time to be a correct index to social phenomena
in all time . 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 for ever impelling population to increase . He was so far right , as population is but another term for society or life . It 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 , and continues the race . He noticed the occasional misery which springs from a scarcity of the means of subsistence ; but he overlooked tile increase of knowledge , and the continual progress towards excellence , tho couscuucnccd of the always existing
necessity to find tho moans of subsistence for mi always increasing population . So Mr . lticardo saw rent rupidly increasing iu England from the then imperative necessity to extend cultivation to tho utmost , and over the poorest soils : and ho jumped to the conclusion disproved by others as well as Mr . Jones—that all rent is merely the dUlerencc between the return to an equal quantity of capital and labour employed on land possessing diflerenfc degrees of productive power . 'So Mr . Jones saw m our tune tho capitalist building factories , introducing machinery , and organising masses of hired labourers into continuous workers ;
giving them wages for their labour , and disposing of its produce in a distant market , and he asserted that Having and capital and capitalists were universally essential to continuous industry . Ho substituted an incident of our peculiar condition and progress , in which the cnpifalist is superseding tho landowner for a universal principle . It was only necessary for him to have used the term alaveholdor for capitalist to have found in the continuous labour of slaves a justification for slavery .
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 it 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 universal 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 departs 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 his book , and affirms that the earth and the elements are its Ho tiro es rt AtiravAi * lort mfA Ynrwa Txoli-kCfcVil ** in / tn «
sources . Man lives , it is true , in conjunction with the earth and the elements- —lie 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 previously been written on the subject . The earth can be , and is , appropriated , -while
sunshine and rain eoine freely to all ; but before the earth 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 . The landlord's power , and the power of the State , are not 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 preceding writers .
The only portions , of the book of which 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 app lied 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 land is appropriated and profit paid on stock , or of the state of society which was in his time , and now is in existence in Europe , and not of a state of society in which the labourer owns all he produces ; nor of a state iu which be is the bondman of the landlord or the sovereign . The historical illustrations quoted by Mr . Jones have no bearing on the science , U 3 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 cosmographically , " 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
universally true . Now , as to tho style in 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 . 7 te consumption ; 4 th . / te exchange , &e . " Throughout the passage the possessive pronoun is misapplied , us if the production , distribution , consumption , and exchange of wealth wore its qualities—a not illogical conclusion , from the i
supposition that it is the spontaneous > nwn « u » the earth , instead of ( hose oiminuJtanuerf being what man does with it . The ordinary p lira « ooJo « y , " the laws which regulate the consumption , ( mtribution , production and exchange of wwiilUi , express the phenomena correctly . "AH the importance of this error , " to quote a sternum sentence , " may not now be seen , but H ' will meet uHtttfuiiiwhon wo are treating of the division oi weafth ami of the progress ot population , and then tho unfortunate influence of the mistake on largo and imronioiw trains of modern speculation . Will dinning thomsolvQS to us without much ollort . d > 50 ) What does it moan ? Even it wo charitably BiinpoHo that " themselves" is a misprint for " itself" how can influence display itself without
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No . 474 , Amit 23 , 1859-3 TH # XEAPP 525 ¦ ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ¦ ¦ ¦'
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), April 23, 1859, page 525, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2291/page/13/
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