Malthus on the High Price of Provisions

Extract

Malthus's Investigation of the High Price of Provisions, hitherto available in Canada only on microfilm, is a pamphlet well worth republication here both for its topicality and its economic content. Many of Malthus's views on inflation, particularly his discussion of opposing theories, have direct application to current economic controversy. And while the late Lord Keynes, with that excess of generosity which he reserved for the underdog in academic debates, seems to have exaggerated the extent to which Malthus here expounds the principle of effective demand, the pamphlet does anticipate several important elements of the modern theory of income determination.

The Investigation was written in a hurry—in much the same way as a modern British economist takes time from his academic pursuits to dash off a quick pamphlet setting the public straight on some problem of grave national importance. It records, Malthus says elsewhere, “an idea which struck him so strongly as he rode on horseback from Hastings to Town” that he stopped two days in his “garret in town,” “sitting up till two o'clock to finish it that it might come out before the meeting of Parliament.” As a result of this rapid writing, it is clear, incisive, and delightfully personal, in the manner of the first Essay; by the second Essay, for reasons of his own, he had reduced his style to a pedantic verbosity almost worthy of Adam Smith himself.