------------ EH.NET BOOK REVIEW -------------- 
Published by EH.NET (March 2004) 
 
J. M. Pullen and Trevor Hughes Parry, editors, _T.R. Malthus: The  
Unpublished Papers in the Collection of Kanto Gakuen University_.  
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Volume I, 1997. xxiv + 140 pp.  
$70/=A345 (cloth), ISBN: 0-521-58138-9; Volume II, 2004. xviii + 341  
pp. $100/=A360 (cloth), 0-521-58871-5. 
 
Reviewed for EH.NET by Samuel Hollander, Department of Economics,  
Ben-Gurion University. 
 
 
Patricia James, Malthus's biographer, who lived with her subject for  
fifteen years, found him "as interesting and lovable as his friends  
described him." After only ten years of work on his economics I came  
away with the same impression of intellectual honesty and courage,  
and personal appeal belying all the old saws relating to his  
hardheartedness. This portrait is readily confirmed in the two-volume  
set of hitherto unpublished Malthus papers under review. The first  
volume contains 75 letters (presumed to have been lost) to and from  
Malthus, some of which have been cited by his biographers,  
contemporary and modern; the second comprises hitherto unknown  
materials by Malthus: four sermons, his diary of a tour of the Lake  
District in 1795, a document on the calculation of profits on bullion  
trade transactions, a draft essay on foreign trade of 1811, lecture  
notes on British and early European history and a series of brief  
items on miscellaneous economic topics. There are materials relating  
to Malthus's wife Harriet, an appendix listing documents in the  
collection but not reproduced, and another containing "letters" to  
David Ricardo the authorship and dating of which is unclear. The  
second volume closes with a description of the Kanto Gakuen Catalogue. 
 
All in all, while the materials in these volumes may not engender a  
fully-fledged revision of opinion regarding Malthus, their subject  
certainly emerges in sharper focus and, in some cases, from an  
unfamiliar perspective. The University and the editors are to be  
applauded for their achievement in saving the collection for  
posterity and providing so splendid an accompaniment. And if some of  
the correspondence will be found familiar, this is in no small part  
due to the earlier published researches by Professor Pullen himself.  
In any event, full appreciation of these volumes requires detailed  
knowledge of the background issues, and the editorial apparatus and  
commentary succeed brilliantly in providing access to the historical  
(including linguistic) context and relevant literature, making the  
work a joy to read. 
 
The first volume includes seventeen letters relating to Malthus's  
schooldays (1779-84) of which nine are to and four from his father  
Daniel; and twenty-five relating to his Cambridge University years  
(1784-93) of which thirteen are by Malthus and twelve by Daniel. Here  
father and son emerge as a delightful partnership, their relationship  
one of mutual consideration, affection and much good humor, both  
parties at once serious and fun-loving. The exchanges reveal only a  
few instances of tension, one reflecting Daniel's nervousness  
regarding his financial difficulties and concern that Malthus may  
have been living at college too extravagantly, a concern the latter  
convinced him finally was unjustified; and another his wish that  
Robert apply himself to practical applications as a balance to his  
formal "speculative" studies, a difference that turned on a  
misunderstanding. On the whole, Daniel gave his son much sound  
advice; and Malthus fully merited his father's confidence. 
 
It remains unclear why Robert was sent to a Nonconformist school --  
though a non-conformist, Daniel was not a Nonconformist -- and, when  
it closed down, to study with Gilbert Wakefield, a progressive  
teacher (subsequently found guilty of treason and jailed). Presumably  
Daniel found the curriculum more "progressive" than at Church of  
England schools. As for Malthus himself, the correspondence relating  
to his University years seems to point (at least to begin with) to  
other leanings than the Church: "If you will give me leave to proceed  
in my own plan of reading for the next two years (I speak with  
submission to your judgement) I promise you at the expiration of that  
time to be a decent natural philosopher, & not only to know a few  
principles, but to be able to apply those principles in a variety of  
useful problems" (11 February 1786; 42). The exchanges with his  
father turn on matters as diverse as the accuracy of thermometers,  
ice-skating and the theater but not theology. One letter (15 April  
1784), however, does provide an early indication of his intention to  
seek ordination: "... before I went into orders, I should have liked  
to take a degree either at Oxford or Cambridge" (23); nonetheless, in  
response to his father's observation (19 December 1785) regarding the  
desirability of _applied_ science -- "I desir'd to see you a  
surveyor, a mechanick, a navigator, a financier, a natural  
philosopher, an astronomer, & [not] a meer speculative algebraist"  
(36) -- Robert simply pointed out that "a knowledge of [such] kind  
would be difficult to obtain before I took my degree ..." (41),  
making no reference to alternative plans in the Church. And there is  
a letter from Daniel commenting on Robert's expression of his "love  
of letters": "I have no doubt that you will be able to procure any  
distinction from them you please -- I am far from repressing your  
ambition ..." (June 16, 1787; 51). That even at this time Malthus did  
not intend the Church as _primary_ profession, is perhaps suggested  
by his response to advice received from the master of Jesus College  
regarding his prospects: "He seem'd at first rather to advise against  
orders upon the idea that the defect in my speech would be an  
obstacle to my rising in the Church, & he thought it a pity that a  
young man of some abilities should enter into a profession without,  
at least, some hope of being at the top of it. When however I  
afterwards told him that the utmost of [my] wishes was a retired  
living in the country, he said he did not imagine that my speech  
would be much objection in that case ..." (19 April 1786; 47). 
 
The correspondence reveals that Daniel was supportive of his son's  
decision to seek ordination, for despite his own financial  
difficulties he offered to make up any shortfall from the stipendiary  
curacy at Okewood Chapel which he helped Robert secure in the first  
place (20 March 1789; 55); at the same time, his own "unorthodoxy" is  
apparent in a letter -- one of six in a section on "later family  
correspondence" (1796-9) -- in which he encourages Robert's efforts  
to publish the (now non-extant) pamphlet "The Crisis," even though  
success might harm his longer-term prospects in the Church (14 April  
1796; 63). 
 
The sermons published in Volume II reveal the seriousness of  
Malthus's early commitment to his clerical duties. That of 7 June  
1789 may be the first Malthus delivered as ordained deacon licensed  
to the curacy of Okewood Chapel; the second was read shortly  
thereafter. Equally important, as the editors point out, it can  
scarcely be said -- as some have said -- that Malthus's commitment  
waned with the passage of time, since the third sermon was given at  
the East India College as late as 1832. Study of these sermons will  
doubtless fuel the on-going debate regarding the decision to remove  
the two theological chapters of the 1798 _Essay_ from later editions,  
since their interpretation is by no means plain sailing. 
 
I return to Volume I and a section containing fifteen letters  
involving "Themes from the _Essay on Population_," all but one to  
Malthus. One written by Edward Daniel Clarke, fellow of Jesus College  
and traveling companion of Malthus, describes some characteristic  
objections to the two theological chapters, and here we find  
reference to a meeting between Malthus and William Godwin regarding  
the efficacy of "prudence" (20 August 1798; 73-7). A second, of 1806,  
by the physician Thomas Beddoes makes the important point that  
longevity and healthiness are not to be identified as Malthus  
sometimes implied in the _Essay_ (78-9). One by Samuel Whitbread  
dated 5 April 1807 explains convincingly why the empowerment of  
parishes to build cottages, as envisaged in his Poor Law bill, should  
not raise Malthus's concern since it would provide shelter for the  
_existing_ population rather than encourage population growth (80-5).  
The section also involves seven letters dated 1822 by the  
mathematician Bewick Bridge regarding various demographic  
calculations. A letter dated 1821 by Pierre Pr=E9vost, French  
translator of the _Essay_, contains an unflattering remark regarding  
J.B. Say's "sarcasms" (92). The sole letter by Malthus is to  
Wilmot-Horton regarding emigration (c. 15 February 1830), and will be  
of interest for those who see Malthus as increasingly optimistic  
regarding the operation of prudential control. While he points to the  
likelihood that the effect of contraction of labor supply in  
improving wages would be short-lived, we also find important  
qualifications: "It is a very just and philosophical observation ...  
that when a population passes rapidly from a very depressed to a much  
better state, it is to be apprehended that the power of custom will  
'not give way immediately to the influence of an emproved condition  
and that the moral change will not be accomplished so quickly as the  
physical one.' This would not however weigh with me against a plan of  
emigration in certain circumstances of a country; but surely the  
contemplation of the probability of it cannot be called  
unphilosophical if the conclusions of philosophy are to rest as they  
ought to do upon large experience" (103-4). 
 
A series of nine items of miscellaneous correspondence bring the  
first volume to a close. One to Francis Horner dated 5 February 1810  
is of high significance since it opines that even should the Bank of  
England not be responsible for the low sterling exchange rate, "the  
remedy ... can be no other than a diminution of the issues of Bank  
paper" (110), which is, of course, Ricardo's view. (In his "Pamphlets  
on the Bullion Question" of 1811, Malthus accepted that the empirical  
evidence _did_ inculpate the Bank.) There is further confirmation of  
his conservative monetary policy, consistent with later published  
work, in the concern expressed with the discretionary scope allowed  
the Bank under inconvertability, and -- while recognizing the  
deflationary dangers of note contraction -- insistence on (gradual)  
contraction (111). 
 
Other letters in the miscellaneous category include one on the Corn  
Laws from Frances Jeffrey of 12 May 1814 when Malthus was still known  
as a free trader (118); and one by Karl Heinrich Rau (15 June 1821)  
which intimates that he shared Malthus's position against Say, though  
strangely proceeding: "I have felt it necessary to contest the  
possibility of a general Glut of Commodities" (127). He also seems to  
have read Malthus as favoring government "interference" but is not  
more specific; conceivably he intended Malthus's case for public  
works. Two letters by Malthus (one dating to 1825 or later, the other  
to 1828 or later) relate to the Measure of Value. Here he spells out  
what he took to be the major difference with Ricardo -- the "grand  
distinction" -- that relative values reflect not only relative labor  
input but changes in the profit rate assuming differential organic  
corpositions (to use Marx's terminology) (130). This scarcely seems a  
convincing reading of Ricardo, but at least there is confirmation  
that the measure is designed to mark "variations in the relative  
values of commodities with reference to the conditions of their  
supply ..." (134). Here too we encounter Malthus's adherence to the  
"proportionality theorem," though with the qualification that "[a]  
rise of proportional wages is not the primary _cause_ of low profits  
... but the _consequence_" (136). By this Malthus seeks to emphasize  
the secular fall in the profit rate due to "increased abundance of  
capital and consequent increase of the supply of commodities compared  
with the producers & consumers"; it need not be read as a _general_  
rejection of the Ricardian causal sequence which in fact is spelled  
out with eminent clarity in his _Measure of Value_ (1823) and in the  
_Quarterly Review_ (1824). 
 
Two items in the second volume will be of particular interest to  
historians of economic thought. First, the analysis of bullion trade  
transactions which illuminates the Ricardo-Malthus exchanges of 1813  
on the profitability of gold movements between London and Amsterdam;  
here the editors surpass themselves in their splendid commentary  
designed to make sense of, and bring order to, the notes. And the  
essay on foreign trade, a draft paper of 1811 elaborating aspects of  
Malthus's position in the formal and informal "bullionist"  
controversy with Ricardo. 
 
 
Samuel Hollander is Professor of Economics at Ben-Gurion University  
of the Negev, Israel. He is author of _The Economics of Thomas Robert  
Malthus_ (1997) and _Jean-Baptiste Say and the Classical Canon in  
Economics_ (Routledge 2005), and is completing his studies on the  
economics of Karl Marx. 
 
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