Lord William Wyndham Grenville’s manuscript notes on the first edition of David Ricardo’s Principles

Abstract

This article focuses on unpublished manuscript notes by Lord William Wyndham Grenville on the first edition of David Ricardo’s On the Principles of Political Economy. Its aim is twofold. First, it is to strengthen our knowledge of Grenville’s economic thought which was praised by figures of his time but remains today almost totally unrecognised. The second purpose is to assess the part that Grenville may have taken in the development of Post-Ricardian political economy. Our conclusion is that Grenville most likely played a key role in the development of Political economy at the University of Oxford in the late 1820 s and early 1830 s.

Keywords:

• William Wyndham Grenville
• David Ricardo
• Oxford political economy
• theory of value and distribution

JEL CODES:

• B12
• B31

Acknowledgements

We are much indebted to Professor John Pullen for furnishing us with the transcript of Lord Grenville’s notes on Malthus’s first edition of his Principles of Political Economy. We are also grateful to Professor Ghislain Deleplace for his useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper. Finally, we thank two anonymous referees of this journal whose useful advices have significantly improved the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 See for example—in addition to Ricardo—John Wheatley (1807, 346–347) and Thomas Tooke (1829, 1).

2 The only economic publications by Grenville were his Speech in the House of Lords on the Marquis of Lansdowne’s Motion to enquire into the State of the Country (1820) and his Essay on the Supposed Advantages of a Sinking Fund (1828). Grenville’s papers—known as “The Dropmore Papers”—were acquired by the British Library in 1970 (First series, Add MS 58855-59494), 1984 (Series II, Add MS 69038-69411), 1995 (Series III, Add MS 71587-71596) and 2001 (Series IV, Add MS 84008-84019). Smith (1981, 75) noted that “few historians had used the papers when they were in the possession of the Fortescue family [Lord Grenville’s heirs], but they were generally known only through the ten-volume Historical Manuscripts Commission Report (1892–1927), almost entirely the work of one man, Walter Fitzpatrick”. Unfortunately, this edition totally omitted economic material. Since the time the British Library acquired Lord Grenville’s papers, several items dealing with political economy have been published, entirely or partly. Among these are pieces of Grenville correspondence with Ricardo (Heertje 1991), Grenfell (Deleplace, Depoortère, and Rieucau 2013) and Tooke (Smith 2007, 124–125) as well as letters by Ricardo to Grenfell (Heertje 1991; Deleplace, Depoortère, and Rieucau 2013). However, most of the economic manuscripts in the Dropmore Papers remain unpublished. This is the case of pieces of correspondence with Wheatley, Grenfell, Horner, Tooke, of Grenville’s notes on the works of Smith, Malthus, Godwin and Marcet, of the second part of his Essay on the Supposed Advantages of a Sinking Fund, and of the draft—covering about a thousand folio—of an Essay on the Study of Political Economy.

3 An extended version of this paper appears in the “Research report or occasional paper” of the Department of economics of the University of Newcastle (Australia). We are very grateful to Professor John Pullen for sending us this paper as well as photocopies of Lord Grenville's manuscript notes on Malthus’ Principles and the transcript of these notes.

4 On Lord Grenville’s biography, see: Brougham (1839, 1: 254–259) Stephen and Lee (1885–1900, 23: 133–138) Jupp (1985).

5 Four years later, Malthus published a more extensive defense of the East India College. See Malthus (1817).

6 In 1901, Kashnor opened a second-hand bookshop close to the British Museum, the famous “Museum Book Store”. He specialized in British social, political and economic history, and was among the first booksellers to purchase entire libraries from aristocratic or landed families such as the Grenvilles. He then formed large collections on specific themes that he sold as a whole to collectors or libraries.

7 From here and until the end of the article, marginalia are indicated by the letter M followed by the page of Ricardo’s Principle on which the note occurs, and quotations from the interleaved sheets are indicated by the letters IS followed by Grenville’s reference to the Principle. The transcript of Grenville’s notes was made ne varietur. The following symbols have been used: word: crossed word; |word|: added word; word [?]: uncertainty about the transcript of a word.

8 See Sraffa in Ricardo (1951–1973, 9: 109n2).

9 The third edition of the Principles was printed at the end of January 1821. However, the editor, John Murray, kept it and did not advertise it before 18 May 1821. As for Ricardo, he started to send copies of this edition to his acquaintances at the end of April (Sraffa in Ricardo 1951–1973, 1: liv).

10 See Grenville (1821–1823, 66r). There, Grenville explains that “Say’s inconsistencies [in the use of the word ‘value’] have been placed by Ricardo in striking opposition to each other” and gives the reference: “Ricardo Pol. Econ. p. 330.” (65v). The passage to which Grenville refers (Ricardo 1951–1973, 1: 282–283) was added to the third edition of the Principles (see Sraffa in Ricardo 1951–1973, 1: 278n). It is likely that Lord Grenville received a copy of the third edition of the Principles from Ricardo himself or from Murray (at Ricardo’s demand). By 1821, Ricardo and Grenville had become quite close and were used to sending each other their new publications. See Ricardo in Heertje, 1991, 523 and 525.

11 A copy of this edition circulated in London at the end of 1818 (see Ricardo 1951–1973, 7: 370).

12 Grenville’s additions to Ricardo’s text are indicated in the following quotations between vertical bars. The first passage reads: “it is according to the division of the whole produce of the land of any particular farm, between the three classes of landlord, capitalist, and labourer, that we are to judge of |the relation which| rent, profit and wages |bear to each other|” (M, 44). As for the second passage: “if then in this medium, which had not varied in value, the wages of the labourer should be found to have fallen, it will not the less be a real fall |in relation to rent & profits (but not in the actual reward of the labourer)|, because they might furnish him with a greater quantity of cheap commodities, than his former wages” (M, 46).

13 Ricardo answered in his Notes on Malthus : “I should think it a great error to say that wages had fallen, when it was agreed that the labourer ‘had an increased proportion of the value of the whole produce obtained by a given quantity of capital.[’] Value is I think measured by proportions” (Ricardo 1951–1973, 2:138).

14 On Storch’s political economy, see Schefold (1997); Zweynert (2004) and Schumann (2018).

15 See Storch (1810, 472–475; 1815, 1:57n).

16 The same point was made by Grenville in his marginal comments on Chapter 2 “on Rent”. Ricardo (1951–1973, 1: 75) had written: “if air, water, the elasticity of steam, and the pressure of the atmosphere, were of various qualities; if they could be appropriated, […] they […] would afford a rent”. Grenville noted: “water does” (M, 63).

17 Line 16 is the beginning of the paragraph reading: “There are some commodities, the value of which is determined by scarcity alone…” (Ricardo 1951–1973, 1: 12).

18 On the first French edition of Ricardo’s Principles and on Say’s “critical notes”, see Hollander (2005, 30–50); Depoortère (2017).

19 Grenville first wrote: “labour in the sense in which that word is here, (this very improperly,) used”.

20 This contribution to the theory of gravitation was also praised by Marx in his Theories on Surplus Value (1974–1976, 2: 238–239).

21 On the “classical” theory of gravitation, see Garegnani (1983).

22 It is of course not intended to mean that all of these authors shared the same analysis. However, they all rejected both the labour theory of value and the theory of natural price—as distinct from the cost of production—in favour of an analysis in terms of supply and demand.

23 On the contribution of Torrens to Ricardo’s theory of natural wage, see Rosell (2018).

24 On this question, see Depoortère (2013, 34–36).

25 On the distinctions between “natural” and “accidental” causes as well as on “permanent” and “temporary” effects in Ricardo, see: Garegnani (1983, 313), Rosselli (1985, 243), Marcuzzo and Rosselli (1994, 1258), Depoortère (2008, 145–146).

26 Grenville first wrote: “A man may offer his labour at a lower rate than before, because a higher price of food has increased the necessity of his finding work in order to live or because a lower rate, has enabled him to subsist at a lower cos[t].”

27 This issue was discussed in the Grenville-Ricardo correspondence in early 1820. See Heertje (1991, 524) and Ricardo (1951–1973, 8: 151).

28 Grenville added in the margin: “instance in 1767” (M, 98).

29 For different interpretations of Ricardo’s tendencies as non-predictive propositions, see Tucker (1960, 162), Hollander (1979, 599–629) and Depoortère (2013, 37–39).

30 As for the dating of this Essay, the manuscript of the second chapter entitled “Definitions |object & character| of Political Economy and National Wealth” starts with an interesting note reading: “Much of |the following| essay was written before the publication of M^r. Malthus’s |tract| on definitions in this science, and of M^r. Senior’s notes on the same subject in the Appendix to D^r. Whately’s |excellent work on the elements of| Logic” (Grenville 1826–1828, f. 35v). Whately’s Elements of Logic were published in 1826 and Malthus’ Definitions in Political Economy in 1827.