Chapter V: Epilogue: 201 (2)

[14] Lord Townsend's letter was upon "The Circassian Exodus," and pointed out that a committee appointed in 1862 with the object of aiding the tribes of the Caucasus against Russia had failed in obtaining subscriptions, whilst that of 1864, for relieving the sufferers when resistance had become impossible, was more successful. "The few bestowed their sympathy upon the struggle for life; the many reserved theirs for the agonies of death.... To which side, I would ask, do reason and justice incline?" After commenting on the "tardy consolation for an evil which we have neglected to avert," and after remarking that "in the national point of view the case of Poland is an exact counterpart to that of Circassia," the letter thus concluded: "Against such a state of things it is surely time for all who feel as I do to protest."

[15] The debate (July 4, 1864) was upon the Danish question and the policy of the Government, and took place just after the end of a temporary armistice and the resumption of hostilities by the bombardment of Alsen, in the Dano-Prussian war. Alsen was taken two days after the publication of this letter. The "two English gentlemen" were Mr. D'Israeli and Mr. Gladstone (at this time Chancellor of the Exchequer), the latter of whom had quoted the lines from the sixth Æneid (ll. 489-491):

"At Danaum proceres Agamemnoniæque phalanges
Ut vidêre virum fulgentiaque arma per umbras
Ingenti trepidare metu."

[16] In 1850, when, being at Naples, Mr. Gladstone interested himself deeply in the cause and miserable condition of the political prisoners, and subsequently addressed two letters on the subject to Lord Aberdeen (see "Letters to Lord Aberdeen on the prisoners of the Neapolitan Government:" Murray, 1851).

[17] The _Morning Post_ of July 6 contained amongst its leaders one on Denmark and Germany, and another on London street-organs, the nuisance of which had been recently brought before the House of Commons by Mr. M. T. Bass (M.P. for Derby).

[18] Mr. Alexander William Kinglake, M.P. for Bridgewater. He spoke at the above-mentioned debate, and had also taken strong interest and part in the cession of Savoy to France by Sardinia in 1860.

[From "The Daily Telegraph," December 20, 1865.]

_THE JAMAICA INSURRECTION._[19]

_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_

SIR: Will you allow me, in this informal manner, to express what I should have wished to express by signature of the memorial you publish to-day from Huddersfield[20] respecting the Jamaica insurrection, and to thank you for your excellent article of the 15th December on the same subject. I am compelled to make this request, because I see my friend Mr. Thomas Hughes has been abetting the Radical movement against Governor Eyre; and as I employed what little influence I have with the London workmen to aid the return of Mr. Hughes for Lambeth, I may perhaps be thought to concur with him in every line of action he may see fit subsequently to adopt. Permit me, then, once for all, through your widely-read columns, to say that I did what I could towards the return both of Mr. J. S. Mill and of Mr. Hughes,[21] not because I held with them in all their opinions, or even in the main principle of their opinions, but because I knew they had a principle of opinions; that they were honest, thoughtful, and benevolent men; and far worthier to be in Parliament (even though it might be in opposition to many causes I had at heart) than any other candidates I knew. They are my opponents in many things, though I thought better of them both than that they would countenance this fatuous outcry against Governor Eyre. But in most directions of thought and action they are for Liberty, and I am for Lordship; they are Mob's men and I am a King's man. Yes, sir, I am one of those almost forgotten creatures who shrivel under your daily scorn; I am a "Conservative," and hope forever to be a Conservative in the deepest sense--a Re-former, not a De-former. Not that I like slavery, or object to the emancipation of any kind or number of blacks in due place and time. But I understand something more by "slavery" than either Mr. J. S. Mill or Mr. Hughes; and believe that white emancipation not only ought to precede, but must by law of all fate precede, black emancipation. I much dislike the slavery, to man, of an African laborer, with a spade on his shoulder; but I more dislike the slavery, to the devil, of a Calabrian robber with a gun on his shoulder. I dislike the American serf-economy, which separates, occasionally, man and wife; but I more dislike the English serf-economy, which prevents men from being able to have wives at all. I dislike the slavery which obliges women (if it does) to carry their children over frozen rivers; but I more dislike the slavery which makes them throw their children into wells. I would willingly hinder the selling of girls on the Gold Coast; but primarily, if I might, would hinder the selling of them in Mayfair. And, finally, while I regret the need that may exist among savages in a distant island for their governor to do his work sharply and suddenly on them, I far more regret the need among men of race and capacity for the work of governors when they have no governor to give it them. Of all dishonorable and impious captivities of this age, the darkest was that of England to Russia, by which she was compelled to refuse to give Greece a King when Greece besought one from her, and to permit that there should be set on the Acropolis throne no Governor Eyre, nor anything like him, but such a shadow of King as the black fates cast upon a nation for a curse, saying, "Woe to thee, O land, when thy king is a child!"[22]

Let the men who would now deserve well of England reserve their impeachments, or turn them from those among us who have saved colonies to those who have destroyed nations.

I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.[23]

DENMARK HILL, _Dec._ 19.

FOOTNOTES:

[19] The outcry against Governor Eyre for the course he took in suppressing the negro insurrection at Morant Bay, Jamaica, in 1865, is still within the memory of the general public. Mr. Ruskin attended and spoke at the meetings of the Eyre Defence Fund, to which Mr. Carlyle (see note at the end of this letter) gave his warm support. Amongst those who most strongly deprecated the course taken by Governor Eyre were, as this letter implies, Mr. John Stuart Mill (Chairman of the Jamaica Committee) and Mr. Thomas Hughes.

[20] Signed by 273 persons resident in and near Huddersfield. (_Daily Telegraph_, December 19, 1865.)

[21] Mr. Mill had been recently returned for Westminster, and Mr. Hughes for Lambeth.

[22] The present king of Greece was only eighteen years of age when, after the protocol of England, Russia, and France on the preceding day, he accepted, June 6, 1863, the crown of Greece.

[23] It is of interest to remark that Mr. Carlyle, in a letter to Mr. Hamilton Hume, Hon. Sec. of the "Eyre Defence Fund" (published in the _Daily Telegraph_ of September 12, 1866), expressed himself as follows: "The clamor raised against Governor Eyre appears to me to be disgraceful to the good sense of England; ... penalty and clamor are not the things this Governor merits from any of us, but honor and thanks, and wise imitation.... The whole weight of my conviction and good wishes is with you." Mr. Carlyle was, with Sir Roderick Murchison, one of the two vice-presidents of the Defence Committee. (See "The History of the Jamaica Case," by G. W. Finlason: London, 1869, p. 369.)

[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 7, 1870.]

_THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR._

_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_

SIR: My friends ask me why I speak no word about this war, supposing--like vain friends as they are--that I might have some poor influence of intercession for filigree-work, French clocks, and other tender articles of vertu, felt at this moment to be in grave danger.

But, in the first place, I know that the just Fates will reward no intercession, either for human life or chinaware, until their will has been accomplished upon all of us. In the second, I know also that the German armies will spare what they can, and think they ought, without taking advice of me. In the third, I have said long ago--no one listening--the best I had to say on these matters.

But, after your notice to-day of the escape of M. Edouard Frère,[24] whose gentle power I was, I believe, the first to recognize publicly in England, it is possible that some of your readers may care to look back at what I wrote of modern war four years ago, and to know the aspect it takes to me, now that it has come to pass.

If you will reprint these few following sentences for me from the "Crown of Wild Olive,"[25] I shall be able to-morrow to put what I would add to them briefly enough to claim little space in your columns:

If you have to take away masses of men from all industrial employment--to feed them by the labor of others--to move them, and provide them with destructive machines, varied daily in national rivalship of inventive cost; if you have to ravage the country which you attack--to destroy, for a score of future years, its roads, its woods, its cities, and its harbors; and if, finally, having brought masses of men, counted by hundreds of thousands, face to face, you tear those masses to pieces with jagged shot, and leave fragments of living creatures, countlessly beyond all help of surgery, to starve and parch, through days of torture, down into clots of clay--what book of accounts shall record the cost of your work--what book of judgment sentence the guilt of it?

That, I say, is _modern_ war--scientific war--chemical and mechanical war--worse even than the savage's poisoned arrow. And yet you will tell me, perhaps, that any other war than this is impossible now. It may be so; the progress of science cannot, perhaps, be otherwise registered than by new facilities of destruction; and the brotherly love of our enlarging Christianity be only proved by multiplication of murder.

But the wonder has always been great to me that heroism has never been supposed consistent with the practice of supplying people with food, or clothes, but only with that of quartering one's self upon them for food, and stripping them of their clothes. Spoiling of armor is an heroic deed in all ages; but the selling of clothes, old or new, has never taken any color of magnanimity. Yet one does not see why feeding the hungry and clothing the naked should ever become base businesses even when engaged in on a large scale. If one could contrive to attach the notion of conquest to _them_ anyhow? so that, supposing there were anywhere an obstinate race, who refused to be comforted, one might take some pride in giving them compulsory comfort, and, as it were, "occupying a country" with one's gifts, instead of one's armies? If one could only consider it as much a victory to get a barren field sown as to get an eared field stripped; and contend who should build villages, instead of who should "carry" them? Are not all forms of heroism conceivable in doing these serviceable deeds? You doubt who is strongest? It might be ascertained by push of spade as well as push of sword. Who is wisest? There are witty things to be thought of in planning other business than campaigns. Who is bravest? There are always the elements to fight with, stronger than men; and nearly as merciless.

And, then, observe farther, this true power, the power of saving, depends neither on multitude of men, nor on extent of territory. We are continually assuming that nations become strong according to their numbers. They indeed become so, if those numbers can be made of one mind. But how are you sure you can stay them in one mind, and keep them from having north and south minds? Grant them unanimous, how know you they will be unanimous in right? If they are unanimous in wrong, the more they are, essentially the weaker they are. Or, suppose that they can neither be of one mind, nor of two minds, but can only be of _no_ mind? Suppose they are a mere helpless mob, tottering into precipitant catastrophe, like a wagon-load of stones when the wheel comes off? Dangerous enough for their neighbors certainly, but not "powerful."

Neither does strength depend on extent of territory, any more than upon number of population. Take up your masses, put the cluster of the British Isles beside the mass of South America, and then consider whether any race of men need consider how much ground they stand upon. The strength is in the men, and in their unity and virtue, not in their standing-room. A little group of wise hearts is better than a wilderness full of fools; and only that nation gains true territory which gains itself.

I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.

DENMARK HILL, S.E., _Oct._ 6.

FOOTNOTES:

[24] M. Edouard Frère and Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur were allowed to leave Paris and pass the lines of the Prussian army after the blockade of the French capital had been begun. For Mr. Ruskin's early recognition of M. Frère's power, see the "Academy Notes," No. II. (1856), p. 47, where some "cottage studies" are spoken of as "quite unequalled in sincerity and truth of conception, though somewhat dimly painted;"--No. III. (1857), p. 58, where his pictures are said to "unite the depth of Wordsworth, the grace of Reynolds, and the holiness of Angelico;"--and No. IV. (1858), p. 33, where this last expression of praise is emphasized and at some length explained.

[25] See for the first two paragraphs of extracts following pp. 170, 171 of the original, and §§ 102-3 of the 1873 edition of the "Crown of Wild Olive;" for the third paragraph, pp. 116-118, and § 74; and for the last two paragraphs, pp. 186, 187, and §§ 113, 114, respectively, of those two editions.

[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 8, 1870.]

_THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR._

_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_

SIR: As I am always blamed if I approach my subject on any but its picturesque side, it is well for me that in to-day's _Times_ I find it announced that at Strasburg the Picture Gallery--with the pictures in it?--the Library--with the books in it?--and the Theatre, with certainly two hundred persons in it, have been burnt to the ground under an auxiliary cannonade, the flames at night being "a tempting target." It is true that in your columns I find the consolatory news that the Parisians are repairing those losses by casting a bronze Strasburg;[26] but if, as a poor art professor, I may venture an opinion, I would fain suggest to them that if their own picture gallery, with the pictures and bits of marble in it--Venus of Melos and the like--and their own Library--Royal, Impériale, Nationale, or whatever they now call it--should presently become tempting targets also by the light of their own flames, the casting of a bronze Paris, in even the most imposing of attitudes, will scarcely redeem their loss, were it but to the admiring eyes of Paris herself.

There is yet another letter in the _Times_[27] of more importance than the one from Strasburg. It is headed, "The Difficulties of Neutrality," dated Bonn, and anticipates part of what I was going to say; for the rest, the lessons of the war, as I read them, are briefly these.

As to its cause, neither the French nation nor their Emperor brought on war by any present will of their own. Neither of them were capable of a will at all--far less of executing it. The nation has since declared, by submission, with acclaim, to a change of Government which for the time renders all political treaty with it practically impossible, that during the last twenty years it has been deceived or subdued into obedience to a man for whom it had no respect, and who had no hereditary claim to the throne. What "will" or responsibility of action can be expected from a nation which confesses this of itself? On the other hand, the Emperor, be his motives never so selfish, could only have hoped to save his dynasty by compliance with the passions of a populace which he knew would overthrow it in the first hour of their mortification. It is in these vain passions and the falsehoods on which they have fed that we must look for the deep roots of all this misery. Since the days of the First Empire, no cottage in France has been without its Napoleonic picture and legend, fostering one and the same faith in the heart of every peasant boy, that there is no glory but in battle; and since the founding of the Second Empire no street of any city has risen into its foolish magnificence without collateral proclamation that there was no pleasure but in vice.

Then, secondly, for the actual question of the war: it is a simple and testing struggle between pure Republicanism on the one side, expressed in the most exquisite, finished, and exemplary anarchy, yet achieved under--earth--and one of the truest Monarchies and schools of honor and obedience yet organized under heaven. And the secret of its strength, we have to note, is essentially pacific; for all the wars of the Great Friedrich would have passed away resultless--as great wars usually do--had it not been for this pregnant fact at the end of them: "All his artillery horses are parted into plough-teams, and given to those who otherwise can get none" (Carlyle, vol. vi., first edition, p. 350)--that 21st book on the repair of Prussia being of extant literature the most important piece for us to read and digest in these days of "raising the poor without gifts"--never asking who first let them fall--and of turning workmen out of dockyards, without any consciousness that, of all the stores in the yard, the men were exactly the most precious. You expressed, Sir, in your article on the loss of the Captain,[28] a feeling common, I suppose, for once, to all of us, that the principal loss was not the iron of the ship, but the five hundred men in her. Perhaps, had she been of gold instead of iron plate, public mourning might have inclined itself to the side of the metal. But how if the whole British public should be itself at this instant afloat in a captain-less Captain, built of somewhat dirty yet substantial gold, and in extremest peril of turning bottom upwards? Which will be the end, indeed, unless the said public quickly perceive that their hope must be, not in docks nor ships, but in men. They, and they only, are our guarantee for territory. Prussia herself seems as simple as the rest of us in her talk of "guarantees." Alsace and Lorraine, if dishonestly come by, may be honestly retaken; but if for "guarantee," why these only? Why not Burgundy and Anjou--Auvergne and the Limousin? Let France lose what she may, if she can but find a Charles and Roland among her children, she will recover her empire, though she had been beaten back to the Brêche; and if she find them not, Germany has all the guarantee she needs in her own name, and in her own right hand.

Let her look to it, now, that her fame be not sullied. She is pressing her victory too far--dangerously far, as uselessly. The Nemesis of battle may indeed be near her; greater glory she cannot win by the taking of Paris, nor the overrunning of provinces--she only prolongs suffering, redoubles death, extends loss, incalculable and irremediable. But let her now give unconditional armistice, and offer terms that France can accept with honor, and she will bear such rank among the nations as never yet shone on Christian history.

For us, we ought to help France now, if we ever did anything, but of course there remains for us only neutrality--selling of coke, and silence (if we have grace enough left to keep it). I have only broken mine to say that I am ashamed to speak as being one of a nation regardless of its honor alike in trade and policy; poor, yet not careful to keep even the treasure of probity--and rich, without being able to afford itself the luxury of courage.

I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.

_Oct._ 7.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] The _Daily Telegraph_ of Oct. 7 contained amongst its Paris news that of the decision of the Government of National Defence to cast a statue of the city of Strasburg in bronze, in memory of its "heroic resistance to the enemy during a murderous siege of fifty days."

[27] This letter was signed "W. C. P.," who, after stating himself to be an English resident in Germany, proceeded to lament the changed position of England in the opinion of foreign nations, and especially in that of the Germans, who no longer spoke of her, as formerly, "with affectionate admiration or even envious respect." "And I must confess," concluded the letter, "that I find it difficult to answer them; for it seems to me that we have already good reason to say, in reference to the present struggle, 'All is lost save money.'"--_Times_, October 7, 1870.

[28] The turret ship "Captain" foundered off Cape Finisterre on September 7, 1870. For the articles alluded to, see the _Daily Telegraph_ of September 12 and following days.

[From "Fraser's Magazine," July, 1876, pp. 121-123.]

_MODERN WARFARE._

_To the Editor of "Fraser's Magazine."_

SIR: The article on modern warfare in your last June number[29] contains statements of so great importance to public interest, that I do not hesitate to ask you to spare me space for a question or two respecting it, which by answering, your contributor may make the facts he has brought forward more valuable for practical issues.

The statistics[30] given in the second column of page 695, on which P. S. C. rests his "incontestable" conclusion that "battles are less sanguinary than they were," are incomplete in this vital respect, that they furnish us only with the proportion, and not with the total number, of combatants slain. A barricade fight between a mob of rioters a thousand strong, and a battery of artillery, in which fifty reformers get shot, is not "less sanguinary" than a street quarrel between three topers, of whom one gets knocked on the head with a pewter pot: though no more than the twentieth part of the forces on one side fall in the first case, and a third of the total forces engaged, in the second. Nor could it be proved by the exhibition of these proportions of loss, that the substitution of explosive shells, as offensive weapons, for pewter pots, rendered wounds less painful, or war more humane.

Now, the practical difference between ancient and modern war, as carried on by civilized nations, is, broadly, of this kind. Formerly, the persons who had quarrelled settled their differences by the strength of their own arms, at the head of their retainers, with comparatively inexpensive weapons such as they could conveniently wield; weapons which they had paid for out of their own pockets, and with which they struck only the people they meant to strike: while, nowadays, persons who quarrel fight at a distance, with mechanical apparatus, for the manufacture of which they have taxed the public, and which will kill anybody who happens to be in the way; gathering at the same time, to put into the way of them, as large a quantity of senseless and innocent mob as can be beguiled, or compelled, to the slaughter. So that, in the words of your contributor, "Modern armies are not now small fractions of the population whence they are drawn; they represent--in fact are--whole nations in arms." I have only to correct this somewhat vague and rhetorical statement by pointing out that the persons in arms, led out for mutual destruction, are by no means "the whole nation" on either side, but only the individuals of it who are able-bodied, honest, and brave, selected to be shot, from among its invalids, rogues, and cowards.

The deficiencies in your contributor's evidence as to the totality of loss do not, however, invalidate his conclusion that, out of given numbers engaged, the mitrailleuse kills fewer than the musket.[31] It is, nevertheless, a very startling conclusion, and one not to be accepted without closer examination of the statistics on which it is based. I will, therefore, tabulate them in a simpler form, which the eye can catch easily, omitting only one or two instances which add nothing to the force of the evidence.

In the six under-named battles of bygone times, there fell, according to your contributor's estimate, out of the total combatants--

At Austerlitz ⅐

Jena ⅙

Waterloo ⅕

Marengo ¼

Salamanca ⅓

Eylau 1/2½

while in the under-named five recent battles the proportion of loss was--

At Königgratz 1/15

Gravelotte 1/12

Solferino 1/11

Worth 1/11

Sedan 1/10

Now, there is a very important difference in the character of the battles named in these two lists. Every one of the first six was decisive, and both sides knew that it must be so when the engagement began, and did their best to win. But Königgratz was only decisive by sudden and appalling demonstration of the power of a new weapon. Solferino was only half fought, and not followed up because the French Emperor had exhausted his _corps d'élite_ at Magenta, and could not (or, at least, so it is reported) depend on his troops of the line. Worth was an experiment; Sedan a discouraged ruin; Gravelotte was, I believe, well contested, but I do not know on what extent of the line, and we have no real evidence as to the power of modern mechanics for death, until the proportions are calculated, not from the numbers engaged, but from those under fire for equal times. Now, in all the upper list of battles, probably every man of both armies was under fire, and some of the regiments under fire for half the day; while in the lower list of battles, only fragments of the line were hotly engaged, and the dispute on any point reaching its intensity would be ended in half an hour.

That the close of contest is so rapid may indeed be one of the conditions of improvement in our military system alleged by your correspondent; and the statistics he has brought forward do indeed clearly prove one of two things--either that modern weapons do not kill, or that modern soldiers do not fight as effectually as in old times. I do not know if this is thought a desirable change in military circles; but I, as a poor civilian, beg to express my strong objection to being taxed six times over what I used to be, either for the equipment of soldiers who rarely fight, or the manufacture of weapons which rarely kill. It may be perfectly true that our last cruise on the Baltic was "less sanguinary" than that which concluded in Copenhagen. But we shook hands with the Danes after fighting them, and the differences between us were ended: while our expensive contemplation of the defences of Cronstadt leaves us still in daily dread of an inspection by the Russian of those of Calcutta.

It is true that the ingenuity of our inventors is far from being exhausted, and that in a few years more we may be able to destroy a regiment round a corner and bombard a fleet over the horizon; but I believe the effective result of these crowning scientific successes will only be to confirm the at present partial impression on the minds of military and naval officers, that their duty is rather to take care of their weapons than to use them. "England will expect" of her generals and admirals to maintain a dignified moral position as far as possible out of the enemy's sight: and in a perfectly scientific era of seamanship we shall see two adverse fleets affected by a constant law of mutual repulsion at distances of two or three hundred miles; while in either squadron, an occasional collision between the leading ships, or inexplicable foundering of the last improved ones, will make these prudential manœuvres on the whole as destructive of the force, and about ten times more costly to the pocket, of the nation, than the ancient, and, perhaps, more honorable tactics of poorly-armed pugnacity.

There is, however, one point touched upon in P. S. C.'s letter, to me the most interesting of all, with respect to which the data for accurate comparison of our former and present systems are especially desirable, though it never seems to have occurred to your correspondent to collect them--the estimates, namely, of the relative destruction of civil property.

Of wilful destruction, I most thankfully acknowledge the cessation in Christian warfare; and in the great change between the day of the sack of Magdeburg and that of the march into Paris, recognize a true sign of the approach of the reign of national peace. But of inevitable destruction--of loss inflicted on the peasant by the merely imperative requirements and operations of contending armies--it will materially hasten the advent of such peace, if we ascertain the increasing pressure during our nominally mollified and merciful war. The agricultural losses sustained by France in one year are estimated by your correspondent at one hundred and seventy millions of pounds. Let him add to this sum the agricultural loss necessitated in the same year throughout Germany, through the withdrawal of capital from productive industry, for the maintenance of her armies; and of labor from it by their composition; and, for third item, add the total cost of weapons, horses, and ammunition on both sides; and let him then inform us whether the cost, thus summed, of a year's actual war between two European States, is supposed by military authorities to be fairly representative of that which the settlement of political dispute between any two such Powers, with modern instruments of battle, will on an average, in future, involve. If so, I will only venture further to suggest that the nations minded thus to try their quarrel should at least raise the stakes for their match before they make the ring, instead of drawing bills for them upon futurity. For that the money-lenders whose pockets are filled, while everybody else's are emptied, by recent military finance, should occultly exercise irresistible influence, not only on the development of our--according to your contributor--daily more harmless armaments, but also on the deliberation of Cabinets, and passions of the populace, is inevitable under present circumstances; and the exercise of such influence, however advantageous to contractors and projectors, can scarcely be held consistent either with the honor of a Senate or the safety of a State.

I am, Sir,
Your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.

P.S.--I wish I could get a broad approximate estimate of the expenditure in money, and loss of men by France and Prussia in the respective years of Jena and Sedan, and by France and Austria in the respective years of Arcola and Solferino.

FOOTNOTES:

[29] "Remarks on Modern Warfare." By a Military Officer. The article was signed "P. S. C."

[30] See the tables given in this letter (pp. 30 and 31).

[31] "The proportion of killed and wounded," wrote P. S. C., "was far greater with the old-fashioned weapons than it is at the present day."

LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.

THE DEPRECIATION OF GOLD. 1863.

THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND. 1864.
(Three letters: October 26 and 29, and November 2.)

MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON. 1873.
(Two letters: November 8 and 15.)

STRIKES _v._ ARBITRATION. 1865.

WORK AND WAGES. 1865.
(Five letters: April 20, 22, and 29, and May 4 and 20.)

THE STANDARD OF WAGES. 1867.

HOW THE RICH SPEND THEIR MONEY. 1873.
(Three letters: January 23, 28, and 30.)

COMMERCIAL MORALITY. 1875.

THE DEFINITION OF WEALTH. 1875.

THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY. 1877.

ON COÖPERATION. (Two letters.) 1879-80.

LETTERS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY.

[From "The Times," October 8, 1863.]

_THE DEPRECIATION OF GOLD._

_To the Editor of "The Times."_

SIR: Being out of the way of my letters, I did not, till now, see your excellent article of the 23d September on the depreciation of gold.[32] Will you allow me, thus late, a very few words in confirmation of your statement of the insufficiency of the evidence hitherto offered on that subject?

The market value of "a pound" depends less on the supply of gold than on the extravagance or economy of the persons holding documentary currency (that is to say, claim to goods). Suppose, for instance, that I hold stock to the value of £500 a year;--if I live on a hundred a year, and lay by four hundred, I (for the time) keep down the prices of all goods to the distributed amount of £400 a year, or, in other words, neutralize the effect on the market of 400 pounds in gold imported annually from Australia. If, instead of laying by this sum in paper, I choose to throw it into bullion (whether gold-plate or coin does not matter), I not only keep down the price of goods, but raise the price of gold as a commodity, and neutralize 800 pounds' worth of imported gold. But if I annually spend my entire 500 (unproductively) I annually raise the price of goods by that amount, and neutralize a correspondent diminution in the supply of gold. If I spend my 500 productively, that is to say, so as to produce as much as, or more than I consume, I either leave the market as I find it, or by the excess of production increase the value of gold.

Similarly, whatever I lay by will, as it is ultimately spent by my successors, productively or unproductively, in that degree (_cœteris paribus_) increase or lower the value of gold. These agencies of daily economy have so much more power over the market than the supply from the mine that no statistics of which we are yet in possession are (at least in their existing form) sufficient to prove the dependence of any given phenomena of the market on the rate of metallic supply. The destruction of property in the American war and our European amusements in the manufacture of monster guns and steel "backings" lower the value of money far more surely and fatally than an increased supply of bullion, for the latter may very possibly excite parallel force of productive industry.

But the lowered value of money is often (and this is a very curious case of economical back current) indicated, not so much by a rise in the price of goods, as by a fall in that of labor. The household lives as comfortably as it did on a hundred a year, but the master has to work half as hard again to get it. This increase of toil is to an active nation often a kind of play; men go into it as into a violent game; fathers of families die quicker, and the gates of orphan asylums are choked with applicants; distress and crime spread and fester through a thousand silent channels; but there is no commercial or elementary convulsion; no chasm opens into the abyss through the London clay; no gilded victim is asked of the Guards; the Stock-Exchange falls into no hysterics; and the old lady of Threadneedle Street does not so much as ask for "My fan, Peter."

I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.

CHAMOUNIX, _Oct._ 2.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] See one of the leading articles in _The Times_ of Sept. 23, 1863, upon the then panic as to the depreciation of gold, excited by the considerable fresh discoveries of the precious metal in California and Australia.

[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 28, 1864.]

_THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._

_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_

SIR: In your valuable article of to-day on the strike of the colliers, while you lay down the true and just law[33] respecting all such combinations, you take your stand, in the outset, on a maxim of political economy, which, however trite, stands yet--if I am not deceived--in need of much examination and qualification. "Labor," you say, like every other vendible commodity, "depends for its value on the relation of supply to demand." But, Sir, might it not be asked by any simple and practical person, who had heard this assertion for the first time--as I hope all practical persons will some day hear it for the last time--"Yes; but what does demand depend upon, and what does supply depend upon?" If, for instance, all death-beds came to resemble that so forcibly depicted in your next following article, and, in consequence, the demand for gin were unlimitedly increased towards the close of human life,[34] would this demand necessitate, or indicate, a relative increase in the "value" of gin as a necessary article of national wealth, and liquid foundation of national prosperity? Or might we not advisably make some steady and generally understood distinction between the terms "value" and "price," and determine at once whether there be, or be not, such a thing as intrinsic "value" or goodness in some things, and as intrinsic un-value or badness in other things; and as value extrinsic, or according to use, in all things? and whether a demand for intrinsically good things, and a corresponding knowledge of their use, be not conditions likely, on the whole, to tend towards national wealth? and whether a demand for intrinsically bad things, and relative experience in their use, be not conditions likely to lead to quite the reverse of national wealth, in exact proportion to the facility of the supply of the said bad things? I should be entirely grateful to you, Sir, or to any of your correspondents, if you or they would answer these short questions clearly for me.

I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.[35]

DENMARK HILL, _Oct._ 26.

FOOTNOTES:

[33] The strike was amongst the South Staffordshire colliers: the law laid down in the article that of free trade.

[34] Upon the then recent and miserable death of an Irish gentleman, who had been an habitual hard-drinker.

[35] To this letter an answer (_Daily Telegraph_, October 29) was attempted by "Economist," writing from "Lloyds, Oct. 28," stating that "Value in political economy means exchangeable value, not intrinsic value." The rest of his letter is given in Mr. Ruskin's reply to it.

[From "The Daily Telegraph," October 31, 1864.]

_THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._

_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_

SIR: I am grateful to your correspondent "Economist" for trying his hand on me, and will be a docile pupil; but I hope his hand is not quite untried hitherto, for it would waste your space, and my time, and your readers' patience, if he taught me what I had afterwards to unlearn. But I think none of these will be wasted if he answers my questions clearly; there are, I am sure, many innocent persons who, like myself, will be glad of the information.

1. He tells me, then, in the outset, "The intrinsic value of commodities is a question outside political economy."

Is that an axiom for all political economists? and may I put it down for future reference? I particularly wish to be assured of this.

2. Assuming, for the present, that I may so set it down, and that exchangeable value is the only subject of politico-economical inquiry, I proceed to my informant's following statement:

"The" (question) "of intrinsic value belongs to the domain of philosophy, morals, or statecraft. The intrinsic value of anything depends on its qualities; the exchangeable value depends on how much there is of it, and how much people want it."

(This "want" of it never, of course, in anywise depending on its qualities.)

Μανθανω. Accordingly, in that ancient and rashly-speculative adage, "Venture a sprat to catch a herring," it is only assumed that people will always want herrings rather than sprats, and that there will always be fewer of them. No reference is involved, according to economists, to the relative sizes of a sprat and herring.

Farther: Were a fashionable doctor to write an essay on sprats, and increase their display at West-end tables to that extent that unseasonable sprats became worth a guinea a head, while herrings remained at the old nursery rate of one and a half for three-halfpence, would my "recognition" of the value of sprats in paying a guinea for one enable me to dine off it better than I should off that mysterious eleven-penny worth of herring? Or to take a more elevated instance. There is now on my room wall a water-color drawing, which was once bought for £30, and for which any dealer would to-morrow give me £300. The drawing is intrinsically worth about one-tenth of what it was when bought for £30, the sky having faded out of it, and many colors having changed elsewhere. But men's minds have changed like the colors, and Lord A. or Sir John B. are now ready to give me £300 instead of £30 for it.

Now, I want to know what it matters to "Economist," or to the Economical Society he (as I understand) represents, or to the British nation generally, whether Lord A. has the bit of colored paper and I the £300, or Lord A. the £300 and I the bit of paper. The pounds are there, and the paper is there: what does it nationally matter which of us have which?

Farther: What does it nationally matter whether Lord A. gives me £30 or £300 on the exchange? (Mind, I do not say it does not matter--I only want "Economist" to tell me if it does, and how it does.) In one case my lord has £270 more to spend; in the other I have. What does it signify which of us has?

Farther: To us, the exchangers, of what use is "Economist's" information that the rate of exchange depends on the "demand and supply" of colored paper and pounds? No ghost need come from the grave to tell us that. But if any economical ghost would tell my lord how to get more pounds, or me how to get more drawings, it might be to the purpose.

But yet farther, passing from specialties to generals:

Let the entire property of the nation be enumerated in the several articles of which it consists--_a_, _b_, _c_, _d_, etc.; we will say only three, for convenience sake. Then all the national property consists of _a_ + _b_ + _c_.

I ask, first, what _a_ is worth.

"Economist" answers (suppose) 2 _b_.

I ask, next, what _b_ is worth.

"Economist" answers (suppose) 3 _c_.

I ask, next, what _c_ is worth.

"Economist" answers--_a/b_.

Many thanks. That is certainly Cocker's view of it.

I ask, finally, What is it _all_ worth?

"Economist" answers, 1⅔ _a_, or 3⅓ _b_, or 10 _c_.

Thanks again. But now, intrinsic value not being in "Economist's" domain, but--if I chance to be a philosopher--in mine, I may any day discover any given intrinsic value to belong to any one of these articles.

Suppose I find, for instance, the value of _c_ to be intrinsically zero, then the entire national property = 10_c_ = intrinsically 0.

Shall I be justified in this conclusion?

3. In relation to the question of strikes, the difficulty, you told me yourself, Mr. Editor[36] (and doubtless "Economist" will tell me also), depends simply on supply and demand: that is to say, on an under-supply of wages and an over-supply of laborers. Profoundest thanks again; but I, poor blundering, thick-headed collier, feel disposed further to ask, "On what do this underness and overness of supply depend?" Have they any remote connection with marriage, or with improvidence, or with avarice, or with accumulativeness, or any other human weaknesses out of the ken of political economy? And, whatever they arise from, how are they to be dealt with? It appears to me, poor simple collier, that the shortest way of dealing with this "darned" supply of laborers will be by knocking some of them down, or otherwise disabling them for the present. Why is this mode of regulating the supply interdicted to me? and what have Economists to do with the morality of any proceeding whatever? and, in the name of economy generally, what else can I do?[37]

I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.

DENMARK HILL, _Oct._ 29. [Monday.]

FOOTNOTES:

[36] See _ante_, p. 39.

[37] "Economist" does not seem to have continued his argument. A reply to this letter was however attempted by "John Plummer," writing from Kettering, and dealing with the over-supply of laborers and under-supply of wages, and Mr. Ruskin's possible views on the matter. The next letter ended the correspondence.

[From "The Daily Telegraph," November 8, 1864.]

_THE LAW OF SUPPLY AND DEMAND._

_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_

SIR: Having, unfortunately, occupation enough in my own business for all hours of the day, I cannot undertake to reply to the general correspondence which might, in large supply to my limited demand, propose itself in your columns. If my first respondent, "Economist," or any other person learned in his science, will give me direct answers to the direct questions asked in my Monday's letter, I may, with your permission, follow the points at issue farther; if not, I will trouble you no more. Your correspondent of to-day, Mr. Plummer, may ascertain whether I confuse the terms "value" and "price" by reference to the bottom of the second column in page 787 of "Fraser's Magazine" for June, 1862. Of my opinions respecting the treatment of the working classes he knows nothing, and can guess nothing.[38]

I am, Sir, yours, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.

DENMARK HILL, _Nov._ 2.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] In the "Essays on Political Economy," since reprinted as "Munera Pulveris." See p. 10, § 12 of that book, where the passage is printed in italics: "The reader must, by anticipation, be warned against confusing value with cost, or with price. Value is the life-giving power of anything; cost, the quantity of labor required to produce it; price, the quantity of labor which its possessor will take in exchange for it."

[From "The Scotsman," November 10, 1873.]

_MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON._

CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_Nov. 8th_, 1873.

_To the Editor of "The Scotsman."_

SIR: In your impression of the 6th inst. I find a report of a lecture delivered by Professor Hodgson in the University of Edinburgh on the subject of "Supply and Demand," in which the Professor speaks of my "denunciations" of the principles he had expounded. Permit me, in a matter respecting which accuracy is of more importance to others than to myself, to correct the Professor's expression. I have never "denounced" the principles expounded by the Professor. I have simply stated that no such principles exist; that no "law of supply and demand," as expounded by Professor Hodgson and modern economists, ever did or can exist.

Professor Hodgson, as reported in your columns, states that "demand regulates supply." He does not appear to entertain the incomparably more important economical question, "What regulates demand?" But without pressing upon him that first question of all, I am content absolutely to contradict and to challenge him before the University of Edinburgh to maintain his statement that "demand regulates supply," and together with it (if he has ventured to advance it) the correlative proposition, "supply regulates demand."

A. Demand does not regulate supply.

For instance--there is at this moment a larger demand for champagne wine in England and Scotland than there was ten years ago; and a much more limited supply of champagne wine.

B. Supply does not regulate demand.

For instance--I can name many districts in Scotland where the supply of pure water is larger than in other namable localities, but where the inhabitants drink less water and more whiskey than in other namable localities.

I do not therefore denounce the so-called law of supply and demand, but I absolutely deny the existence of such law; and I do in the very strongest terms denounce the assertion of the existence of such a law before the University of Edinburgh as disgraceful both to its assertor and to the University, unless immediate steps be taken to define, in scientific terms, the limitations under which such statement is to be understood.

I am, etc.,
JOHN RUSKIN.[39]

FOOTNOTES:

[39] To this letter Professor Hodgson replied by one printed in the _Scotsman_ of November 14.

[From "The Scotsman," November 18, 1873]

_MR. RUSKIN AND PROFESSOR HODGSON._

OXFORD, _November_ 15, 1873.

_To the Editor of "The Scotsman."_

SIR: For Professor Hodgson's "undue encroachments on your space and his own time," I leave you to answer to your readers, and the Professor to console his class. To his criticisms on my language and temper I bow, their defence being irrelevant to the matter in hand. Of his harmless confusion of the word "correlative" with the word "consequent" I take no notice; and his promise of a sifting examination of my economic teaching I anticipate with grateful awe.[40]

But there is one sentence in his letter of real significance, and to that alone I reply. The Professor ventured (he says) to suggest that possibly I with others "believe that economists confused existing demand with wise and beneficial demand, and existing supply with wise and beneficial supply."

I do believe this. I have written all my books on political economy in such belief. And the entire gist of them is the assertion that a real law of relation holds between the non-existent wise demand and the non-existent beneficial supply, but that no real law of relation holds between the existent foolish demand and the existent mischievous supply.

That is to say (to follow Professor Hodgson with greater accuracy into his lunar illustrations), if you ask for the moon, it does not follow that you will get it; nor is your satisfaction more secure if you ask for sixpence from a Poor-Law guardian; but if you limit your demand to an honest penny, and endeavor to turn it by honest work, the divine law of supply will, in the plurality of cases, answer that rational and therefore divine demand.

Now, Professor Hodgson's statement, as reported in your columns, was that "demand regulates supply." If his assertion, in his lecture, was the qualified one, or that "wise demand regulates beneficial supply," your reporter is much to be blamed, the Professor's class profoundly to be congratulated, and this correspondence is at an end; while I look forward with deepest interest to the necessary elucidations by the Professor of the nature of wisdom and benefit; neither of these ideas having been yet familiar ones in common economical treatises. But I wrote under the impression that the Professor dealt hitherto, as it has been the boast of economists to deal, with things existent, and not theoretical (and assuredly the practical men of this country expect their children to be instructed by him in the laws which govern existing things); and it is therefore only in the name of your practical readers that I challenged him, and to-day repeat my challenge, in terms from which I trust he will not again attempt to escape by circumambient criticism of my works,[41] to define, in scientific terms, the limits under which his general statement that "supply regulates demand" is to be understood. That is to say, whether he, as Professor of Political Economy, is about to explain the relations (A) of rational and satiable demand with beneficial and benevolently-directly supply; or (B) of irrational and insatiable demand with mischievous and malevolently-directed supply; or (C) of a demand of which he cannot explain the character with a supply of which he cannot predict the consequence?

I am, etc.,
J. RUSKIN.

FOOTNOTES:

[40] "I hereby promise Mr. Ruskin that ere very many months are over he shall have in print a sifting examination of his economic teaching." I do not find, however, that Professor Hodgson fulfilled his promise.

[41] Professor Hodgson's letter had quoted, with criticism, several passages from "Fors Clavigera," "Munera Pulveris," and "Time and Tide."

[From "The Pall Mall Gazette," April 18, 1865.]

_STRIKES v. ARBITRATION._

_To the Editor of "The Pall Mall Gazette."_

SIR: I read your _Gazette_ so attentively that I am always falling into arrears, and have only to-day arrived at your last week's articles on strikes, arbitration, etc., which afford me the greatest satisfaction, but nevertheless embarrass me somewhat. Will you permit me to ask for a word or two of further elucidation?

I am an entirely selfish person, and having the means of indulging myself (in moderation), should, I believe, have led a comfortable life, had it not been for occasional fits and twinges of conscience, to which I inherit some family predisposition, and from which I suffer great uneasiness in cloudy weather. Articles like yours of Wednesday,[42] on the proper attention to one's own interests, are very comforting and helpful to me; but, as I said, there are yet some points in them I do not understand.