"Pursuing, then, briefly, the question of the practicability of profitably working joint-stock establishments by the working classes, nothing can be more absurd to the thought of parties like myself, than the idea of conducting any concern, where the workers are all, or in great part, partners or shareholders. Instead of the theory that each has an interest working for good to all, a feeling of jealousy would be created; each would regard his fellow-workman with a master's eye, measuring the quantity and quality of his work, constantly sitting in judgment on his neighbour's value as a workman, with little benefit truly to his own producing power. In fact, suspicious watchfulness would interrupt that continuous industry which the master now takes care to insure, and which, in fact, a master only can secure or estimate. A workman ought to have no other care than the simple discharge of the duties named in his contract; if he fulfils these honestly, he performs his duty to himself and his employer. I believe that the substitution of joint-stock working amongst hands, (supposing it at all practicable) with its jealousies and consultations, and the want of a ruling, decisive power, to meet questions hourly arising, would be a tenfold greater mischief even than the evils of strikes, to the hands themselves. They, wanting knowledge,-a want not to be supplied, except by a very slow process, as it were, the work of a generation,-would be influenced by feeling, led by others below the average even of themselves in real worth, in a contest with practised and successful individual energy."

In the second place, the class of working-men who would benefit by such special facilities are even now undue favourites of our social system. The really distressed and degraded classes of our poorer population-the boors of Dorsetshire and the Irish of St. Giles' could no more take advantage of such an Act, than bottles could start a gin company, or ploughs an agricultural one. The high-paid skilled artizan is at present the luckiest man in the State. He pays far the least taxation; the income-tax just stops short of him; he is infinitely more comfortable than the clerks of the middle classes; he has no appearance" to maintain; the long code of enjoined and unenjoyed expense does not press upon him; he can lead, if he chooses, a long life of remunerative labour and wholesome comfort. It is only a very weak philanthropy which can ask a special sympathy for such persons.

The most important portion of the subject relates to the middle classes. Mr. Field very justly observed, that the present law was unduly favourable to the "speculative man." There is a great deal of capital in the hands of persons who have saved, and cannot employ it; there are a great many people close by their side, who have every wish to employ that capital-who have talents which just fit them for employing it, an education which fits them for nothing else; there is absolutely nothing which forbids those who have, lending to those who have not, except the present law, which says, that if they do so on the natural and suitable terms-" Make what you can of it, and let us have what you can make of it"-the only terms which are really fair and reasonable-the lender shall be liable to lose, not only the amount of the loan, but likewise everything else which he has in the world. This is the really important part of the subject; the speculative man, who is willing to pay to banks and discounters on extravagant interest, is unduly

raised in the social scale; the economical man is discouraged by an unnatural reduction in the interest of his money; the prudent trader is deprived of his legitimate capital; yet it is this part of the subject which our rulers-our Parliament especially-have selected for neglect.

By way of contrast to the strictly practical nature of the last subject, Mr. Jennings* has given us a dissertation on the abstract theory of political economy. The preface commences boldly :

"The object of this treatise may, perhaps, be best explained by pointing to a passage in the history of philosophy, which, frequently as it has been referred to, has always proved a trustworthy exponent of the principles of scientific discovery.

"When the astronomers of the Ptolemaic school undertook to explain the courses of the heavenly bodies, they taught that the real motions of such beautiful and divine objects must necessarily be perfectly regular, and go on in a manner as agreeable to the imagination as the objects themselves are to the senses.' They accordingly ascribed to each of these intricate courses a geometrical form, which they conceived to be the most perfect-a method admirably simple, easily understood, and vitiated only by this defect, that it does not faithfully represent nature. Having settled it in their own minds that a circle is the most perfect of figures, they concluded of course that the movements of the heavenly bodies must all be performed in exact circles and with uniform motions; and when the plainest observation demonstrated the contrary, instead of doubting the principle, they saw no better way of getting out of the difficulty than by having recourse to endless combinations of circular motions to preserve their ideal perfection.'† "The science of astronomy, at this stage of its growth, was in much the same state as political economy now is."

It is somewhat difficult to explain the mode in which he thinks the Copernican political economy is to be founded. Certainly, in as far as we can discern, there is nothing in this book especially new in the way of results. If the new science be what seems-we speak diffidently to be indicated in this volume, it is very like the old one. We scarcely notice a startling conclusion. We do not, indeed. coincide in the whole of it, but we do not think our author will falsify, in more than one case, the dictum of Coleridge, that it is no longer possible to discover even a new error in the moral sciences. A new nomenclature, of course, there is. Mr. Jennings seems to have been a good deal impressed by the relation of political economy, as the "science of property," to the material world in which that property exists. He has thought that it was needful to analyse the nature of that property, as it exists externally, and likewise the nature of the sensations and perceptions by which we know and enjoy it. He takes, accordingly, a distinction between primary and secondary commodities,-the first of which are objects of "common," and the second of "special" sensation; these terms being employed, he tells us, in the language of physiology, the last

"Natural Elements of Political Economy," by Richard Jennings, M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge. Longman.

+ Herschel's Natural Philosophy, p. 97.

to denote the sensations transmitted by the five senses, and the first to denote all other sensations. The description of labour is still more peculiar.

"Having investigated the former of these provinces of sensation, and observed whatever appeared to touch most nearly the subject of political economy, we may now enter on the consideration of the latter, if, indeed, the toilsome sensations experienced during the performance of productive labour are properly expressed by the word pain. These sensations, conveyed like all others to the sensorium by means of the afferent nerves, are, as we have seen, distinguished from the sensations attendant upon consumption by this characteristic, that whereas, when commodities are consumed, fruition being the object of the action, the agency of the afferent trunks of nerve-fibres is then paramount, and the efferent trunks act in a subsidiary capacity, when commodities are produced, the agency of the efferent trunks is paramount, and the afferent trunks subserve to indicate the direction and the degree in which muscular contractility ought to be exerted, and to convey those sensations of toil from which the producer would gladly escape, but which are inseparably attached by nature to protracted labour."

There are a great many other definitions and descriptions which may be safely neglected. If we were to venture to describe the work generally, we should say it was a translation of Economy into the language of Physiology. There is of course no occasion for any such translation. The mere publication of such works is significative of the present state of the moral sciences. These branches of knowledge-and the remark is particularly applicable to political economy from its congeniality to men of business— are at present truly but vaguely conceived. A large number of people comprehend a great portion of them rightly; but each has some error. No one can give an account in quite precise and accurate language of conclusions which are universally adopted; around every principal term is a slight mist of ambiguity; at the edges of each truth a small belt of indefinitiveness and confusion; but still on the whole, the broad truths are broadly conceived, fairly explained, fairly acted on. Every now and then some reasoner, who is rather subtle than comprehensive, is vexed at this state of things, and wishes to set it right by a more elaborate analysis, a more exact definition, a more precise and delicate disquisition. Thus with Mr. Jennings; his immense apparatus of definition and discussion will seem to a man of business to end in nothing: all he will carry away is the somewhat amazing conclusion, that, in the present state of the world, "no taxes are to be imposed for merely fiscal ends," there being so many which ought to be imposed for moral ends,-which is all that we know of Copernican political economy.

Some of these remarks are applicable, though with modifications, to Mr. Macleod's "Theory and Practice of Banking; "* a book which is not accurately described by its title. It would have been

Theory and Practice of Banking, with the Elementary Principles of Currency, Prices, Credit, and Exchange." By Henry Macleod. Longman.

better described as a history of banking, and a theory of "all things." It begins by stating

"Many of the works already existing on these subjects (currency and banking), are excellent in several respects, and contain much valuable information, but it must be admitted that the widest and most fundamental differences of opinion upon almost every point prevail amongst them, and that there is no one which is so comprehensive and systematic, or has investigated the subject with such accuracy, as to be generally accepted as an authority."

He has accordingly designed to go regularly through these topics, and set at rest all their controversies; and has, with that end, gone profoundly into several subjects not exactly or strictly appertaining to his particular design, especially the laws of copyright, the "natural" rate of wages, the theory of value, the substances used as currency, &c. &c. We are not inclined to agree with Mr. Macleod as to the extent of the disagreement which he conceives to exist on the subject of currency. It seems to us, as we have just said of the rest of political economy, that the main topic is truly though vaguely conceived. One or two practical questions certainly remain open; there are many terms of which the definition is partially unsettled,many propositions of which we cannot tell the exact and precise limits; yet, on the whole, most persons who attend to the subject have nearly the same opinion on nearly all of it, and there can be no doubt that this opinion is substantially sound. At any rate, the greater portion of it coincides with that which Mr. Macleod has set forth. Here and there, of course, there are points of novelty. Mr. Ricardo is the writer most contrasted with the literary philosophers who have proposed to put a sharp edge on the terms and dogmas of the science. He was essentially a man of business, and set down his opinions concisely and barely, as if he had been writing a letter of business to a person desirous of knowing his meaning, and took no pains to give the explanations which a cultivated theorist would think necessary. Accordingly, Mr. Macleod begins by criticising his theory of value.

"It has often been said that the value of an article depends upon its cost of production; thus, the late Mr. Ricardo, in speaking of corn, said that the cost of production did not the less vary, and that must regulate the price and again, no principle was more true than that the cost of production was the regulator of value, and that demand only produced temporary effects.' A little observation shows that this measure, however plausible in theory, is so rarely practically true as to be of little service. If it were true, it would mean that a perseverance in producing any article at a great expense, if continued long enough, would in the end succeed in raising its value, whereas it is quite clear that if it were produced in greater quantities than required, its value would infallibly fall, and it may very easily happen, that while the cost of production increases, the value diminishes. The value of an article depends not upon the cost of its production, but upon the necessity which the purchaser has for it, at the time of the purchase, or the degree of benefit it renders him. Thus, in the instances above mentioned, when a crust of bread is given to a famishing man, who had no other resource within his reach, what appreciable proportion did the cost of the crust of bread bear to the value of the service rendered? Abso

lutely none. Just in the same way, in the case of the boatman saving a man from a wreck, what would the value of the hire of the boat for an hour or so be, compared to the service rendered ?"

In terms, unquestionably Mr. Ricardo's theory is exactly applicable to commodities capable of being indefinitely increased by human labour. What he meant may be thus expressed :-all things are valuable in proportion to the desire there is for them, and the difficulty there is in obtaining them: but in the long run, things which are of equal cost, that is, take equal trouble and expense to produce, will be produced in exact proportion to their desirability; and therefore, of such articles there will be most of those which are most wanted, fewest of those which are least wanted; the extra quantity in the supply will compensate for the extra intensity of the demand; and very desirable things of any cost will be equivalent, and only equivalent, to rather desirable things of the same cost. Ricardo had no idea that a person, by continuing to produce at a "great expense," might raise the price of the article; he would have said, no one will produce except with a fair prospect of pecuniary profit; and if he can obtain the ordinary profit, the article he sells will be of the same price as others produced with the same labour, and the same capital. In endeavouring to criticize Ricardo, Mr. Macleod has fallen into a serious scientific error. He says

"The rule, then, which determines price, may be expressed in this way. Price varies directly as the intensity of the service rendered, and inversely as the power of buyer over the seller, which may be thrown into an arithmetical form, thus,

This expression, properly interpreted, will be found to be of universal application, and to comprehend all transactions of whatever nature they be, whether by way of wages, rent, or price, of which we shall give a few examples."

Now this may be true-though oddly expressed-for brief moments; but it is very unscientific to put it forward as an ultimate regulator of value. The power of "buyer over seller" is only a new expression for the supply of the article in the market. If a man can buy what he wants elsewhere, he has much power; if he cannot, he has none. And it is obvious that the supply of articles capable of indefinite augmentation by human labour can never be one of the facts in the last resort regulating their value. Men must have some motive for producing so long as they produce, and some motive for ceasing when they do cease to produce; and this motive it is the duty of the political economist to discover and assign. As has been stated, it is only on special points that there is novelty in Mr. M'Leod's speculations. He is a disciple of Mr. Tooke, and irritably opposed to the Scotch Act of Sir R. Peel. There are many good explanations of detail in the work; the system of cash credits in Scotland is very elaborately explained. The following criticism on accommodation-bills is clear and just :