EX-POST-FACTO THEORY OF PRODUCTION.
THE Morning Post has obtained possession of a patent invention in political economy, which has been as long in the window as the genuine Bear at the celebrated haircutter's in the fashionable street of old undisturbed St. Giles's ; and we passed it often, without any Special note. A week or two back, however, the doctrine flashed upon us in the new lustre of an official reflex from the United States : we noticed it, the English original challenged us, and in a moment of goodnatured inadvertency we unluckily men- tioned the neglected Post. Had we mentioned the tragedies of Mr. Jones, the currencies of Mr. Buchanan, or the lamp of Captain Atcherley, we could not have committed a greater indis- cretion. Delighted at that so rare advertisement, the eager enthusiast rushes at us with the most amusing ingenuity of importunate provocatives to do it again : now flatters, now jokes, now taunts—" you dare not do it r—now insinuates, now jeers, at last guesses that he will never hear of us again; and to make the provocative more telling, appeuls to our weak point and declares that we have misrepresented him. The Post challenged us, by name, to answer one " view "—which we did; now it says that we have not stated the case fairly—so it is put again, in a newly corrected form with the repeated provocatives on the " there stands a post, touch it if you dare " principle. fk; we are in for a second advertisement " The new theory," touched up and revised by the Post for our special game at " knock 'em downs," is this- ' That view we have often before enunciated, and now repeat in these terms—' that in every purchase for consumption, the returns of capital and of industry which reward producers and stimulate further production are obtained only on the side of the seller,"—the benefit of the transaction, so far as the stimulus to industry is a benefit, being delived by producers who have found the consumption market they were seeking, the country or locality of such production thriving and prosperous. This follows from our first proposition. On the other hand, on the aide of consumers there is no stimulus to industry, no return of capital, no distribution in wages amongst labourers consequent upon the purchase. The consumer has got what he wants ; be it a looking-glass or chandelier, or be it a rich viand or delicate wine, or be it a song of Jenny Lind's, he has made his purchase and enjoys it ; but what labour does he set in motion by his purchase ? who but him- self benefits by the value received for what he has paid away ? The new theory we claim to have explained is this peculiarity of all purchases for consumption ; from which results the further position, that trade is not an exchange of commodities equally supporting industry and giving returns to capital on both sides, but is the entire process for finding and conveying to consumers the products of nature or of industry. The search of a con- sumption-market is the business of merchants ; when that is found, the commodity produced has reached its end, and from the consumer's wealth, consisting of superfluities of any kind in his possession, the payment is made. To get that payment back again to the country of production is a work of remittance quite independent of the speculation which produced the article, and is a transaction that ought not to be confounded with the sale for consumption."
Our readers will perceive at once that this is not the statement which we before cited, and with which we were then challenged to grapple ; yet that it is substantially the same ; so that the pretext for a new advertisement is only colourable. No matter; we will even violate the spirit of Sam Johnson's refusal, and give the Post both advertisement and information too. He deprecates our say-
ing anything about " treasure " or " wealth " : like all shaky
ri . theo- ries, his will not stand any rough handling of words. It is like those verses which can only be read into rhythm by the coaxing voice of the author. The consumer, says the champion of " the new theory," only stimulates industry on the side of the seller, -as he pays for the article consumed out of his "wealth," as above defined, and there it ends. As we understand it the case is thus : A buys wine, and B the wine-merchant must go to the wine-grower to -replace the pipe, which stimulates industry ; but as to A, he simply drinks the wine, and the transaction terminates in his stomach, no indus- try being stimulated on his side. No industry, we suppose' was needed to produce the equivalent which A gave for the wine? no industry will be required to replace the vacuum in wealth caused by the amount abstracted to pay that price ? There is no constant process at work, of accumulating wealth for the very purpose of bringing about transactions like that which appears to terminate in A's luxurious stomach? The fact is, that the process of accumu- lation seems to cut off the new economist's perception of this ex- change : it is to him, so long since the produce was made con- verted into wealth, and stored by A for deferred exchange, that the seer cannot discern the whole of the process. He looks into A's consuming throat, and loses himself in trying to see down the abysmal obscurity. He forgets that A's luxurious life is the pre- mium-exemplar for that accumulation which io perpetually en- gaged in risking fortunes to live like A, the " gentleman "; that even rents are the accumulation of produce : A is the triangular intermediate between the producer, whose industry was stimulated to fill A's store of wealth, and the wine-grower, whose induatry is only now stimulated by the deferred exchange. But unless capi- talists live from hand to mouth, this writer thinks that there is no exchange of produce ; so that he has evidently that 'notion of "wealth" or "capital" which belongs to the romantic boy : the only capital he knows is Fortunatus's cap. To its newest display of "the new theory," the Post adds another foreign illustration—
"If France and England are trading on the footing of reciprobal duties on imports, and each nation is making air it can by supplying the wants of the other on these terms, and one of the two, as England recently has done, abolishes its duties and lets in the produce of the other free, she receives, of course, much more than she used to do from her neighbours, and has to pay for it. But how, pray, is the power of making the remittance in goods in- creased, if all she sends is still subject to the same duty or import Ware?"
Precisely by the facility afforded to the export of French goods, There can be no exchange without mutual delivery of produce and reciprocal profit, or the exchange will cease. France will not give away her goods, untaxed though they be, without equivalent from England. And her sending goods more valuable to thriA English produce, enables England to export more to France, di- rectly, or by what has been called "the triangular process."
But really the Post must excuse our discussing the accidence of economy any further : though we often differ in opinion, we do respect our contemporary, on account of his political earnest- ness; but we must have some regard for our adult readers. We have now, for the second time, announced the economic spe- cialty of our friend; and if any of our readers like the article' we advise them most heartily to take in the Post ; which they will find to be a very desirable daily journal, with fashionable news all Protection proceedings, critiques on the liberal arts often above the average, and foreign intelligence at first hand. There—We have done the thing handsomely, and bid adieu to our contempo- rary, with every wish for his we/Are and ancocos.
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