{"product_id":"original-scribal-manuscript-draft-with-numerous-manuscript-corrections-ht6hb7cr","title":"Original scribal manuscript draft, with numerous manuscript corrections, of Senior's 'Report - On the State of Agriculture'. Published anonymously in the Quarterly Review (July 1821), pp. 467-504.","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eAn original manuscript draft of the earliest published article on economics by Nassau William Senior (1790-1864), a key figure in the English School of Classical Political Economy.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSenior’s debut article on economics was an important contribution to debates surrounding the discovery of the law of diminishing returns and the differential theory of rent, one of the most significant episodes in the development of classical economic thought. It was published under the title ‘Report - On the State of Agriculture’ in the July 1821 issue of the \u003cem\u003eQuarterly Review\u003c\/em\u003e, a journal to which Senior had already earlier contributed several reviews on legal and literary subjects. It has been described as “a miniature treatise on economics, containing significant remarks on prices, rent, profit, wages, taxation and commerce, with special reference to the Corn Laws” (Levy, 1970, p. 48).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe article was prompted by the publication of the first Report of a Parliamentary Select Committee appointed to consider means of alleviating the agricultural collapse following the end of the Napoleonic Wars, which ultimately recommended the gradual abolition of the Corn Laws. Senior’s article was also simultaneously ostensibly a review of a six-year old book; Edward West’s \u003cem\u003eEssay on the Application of Capital to Land, with Observations showing the Impolicy of any great Restriction of the Importation of Corn, and the Bounty of 1680 did not lower the price of it\u003c\/em\u003e (1815). West’s \u003cem\u003eEssay\u003c\/em\u003e is a significant milestone for being first statement of the theory of differential rent based on the principle of diminishing returns, preceding separate publications in the same year by Torrens, Malthus and Ricardo, all of whom also each independently formulated the concept. “Each tract was in its own way a reaction to committees appointed by Parliament to report on the recent fall in grain prices, and each took as its starting point the relationship between high grain prices and the extension of cultivation to less fertile and less accessible land during the years of the Napoleonic Wars” (Blaug, \u003cem\u003eEconomic Theory in Retrospect\u003c\/em\u003e, 1997, p. 77).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“In his article, published in the \u003cem\u003eQuarterly Review\u003c\/em\u003e of July, 1821, Senior elaborated this fundamental principle [of the Law of Diminishing Returns as applied to agriculture] and contrasted it with the Law of Increasing Returns as applied to manufacturing industries. Commenting on the Report of the Committee on the State of Agriculture Senior showed conclusively that instead of protecting agriculture the effect of the Corn Laws was to produce widespread distress. … Interspersed among his arguments against the Corn Laws we find in this article the germs of many ideas which Senior later developed into his system of political economy. In fact this essay is a sort of miniature treatise on the general principles of production, value, rent, profits, and taxation. Even on the subject of wages Senior at that early date expressed views contrary to the popular doctrines of those days-little anticipating that many years after his death professors of political economy would impute to him theories which he, for the first time, had endeavoured to explode” (Levy, 1918, pp. 352-3).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eThe present manuscript contains a significant number of deletions that did not appear in the final version published in the \u003cem\u003eQuarterly Review\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/strong\u003e Most of the omitted passages, from f. 22-43 in the MS, were printed by S. Leon Levy in his book \u003cem\u003eNassau W. Senior 1790-1864 Critical Essayist, Classical Economist and Adviser of Governments\u003c\/em\u003e (Newton Abbot: 1970), appearing as Appendix IV (‘Senior’s Views in 1821 on Agricultural Economics, Taxation, etc’, pp. 221-25). It is possible that Levy had another source as the material he prints on pp. 220 and the beginning of p. 221 does not seem to be in this MS. Levy, in Appendix I (‘Senior’s Economic Manuscripts and other Writings’) to *Industrial Efficiency and Social Economy by Nassau W. Senior: Original MSS (1928), lists what may be this manuscript as M2. The deletions are of particular interest as they contain “Senior’s earliest views as to the incidence of taxation on raw agricultural produce with special reference to tithes, … The omission was probably in deference to Ricardo, whom Senior criticised” (Levy, 1970, p. 292, n. 93).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSenior’s editorial deference to Ricardo appears to have been a wise decision as Ricardo was particularly complimentary of the article, commenting in a letter to his friend Hutches Trower: “I am glad I have got so good an ally, for what I think the correct principles” (Ricardo’s \u003cem\u003eWorks and Correspondence\u003c\/em\u003e, IX, p. 122). Senior’s article was positively received in general and helped launch his career. Levy claims that: “It was no doubt his article on the Corn Laws that induced James Mill to recommend him as a member of the lately-established Political Economy Club, to which he was unanimously elected in February 1823” (Levy, 1970, p. 50).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSee: Fetter (Frank Whitson), ‘The Economic Articles in the Quarterly Review and Their Authors, 1809-52’, \u003cem\u003eJournal of Political Economy,\u003c\/em\u003e Feb., 1958, Vol. 66, No., pp. 47-64; Levy (S. Leon), ‘Nassau W. Senior, British Economist, in the Light of Recent Researches: I’, \u003cem\u003eJournal of Political Economy\u003c\/em\u003e, Apr., 1918, Vol. 26, No. 4 (Apr., 1918), pp. 347-365; Levy (S. Leon), \u003cem\u003eNassau W. Senior 1790-1864 Critical Essayist, Classical Economist and Adviser of Governments\u003c\/em\u003e (Newton Abbot: 1970).\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eProvenance:\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis manuscript may have come from the cache of papers owned by Senior’s granddaughter Mrs Amy St Loe Strachey that were ‘discovered’ c. 1912 by Samuel Leon Levy (1886-1975) and used by him for his collection of Senior’s unpublished writings, \u003cem\u003eIndustrial Efficiency and Social Economy by Nassau W. Senior: Original MSS. Arranged and edited by S. Leon Levy,\u003c\/em\u003e 2 vols (New York \u0026amp; London, 1928). The bulk of those manuscripts have long been in the National Library of Wales. Their online catalogue states:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e“Senior’s grand-daughter, Mrs Amy St. Loë Strachey, had inherited the papers from her mother, Mrs M. C. M. Simpson, Senior’s only daughter. Mrs Strachey’s husband, John St. Loë Strachey (editor of the Spectator), had loaned the Senior papers to S. Leon Levy in 1912, on the understanding that Levy would confine his studies to the economic aspects of Senior’s career. Having published his much-criticised study of Senior’s economic theories in 1929, Levy proceeded to write a book on Senior’s controversial theological views. Mrs Strachey disapproved and demanded that the remaining manuscripts in Levy’s possession be returned. Despite repeated efforts, not all the missing Senior manuscripts were recovered. The Nassau Senior papers were first deposited (in 1941) and subsequently donated (in 1944) to the National Library of Wales by Senior’s grand-daughter Mrs Amy St. Loë Strachey.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLevy used this material to write \u003cem\u003eNassau W. Senior: The Prophet of Modern Capitalism\u003c\/em\u003e (1943). In a “New Edition” of that book, \u003cem\u003eNassau W. Senior 1790-1864 Critical Essayist, Classical Economist and Adviser of Governments\u003c\/em\u003e (1970) he included 13 appendices printing previously unpublished material.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOther groups of manuscripts, including letters to Senior, journals, and family correspondence have appeared at auction in the last three decades, some of which was acquired by the National Library of Wales. For example, a fair copy of a journal of a tour to Scotland, Ireland and Wales in 1819 sold at Sotheby’s in 2007 is now NLW MS 23965C while other manuscripts were acquired at Christie’s (from the Marquess of Lansdowne’s papers) and from the dealer Jeffrey Stern in 1994. A group of 47 manuscript travel journals covering 1849-63 which had passed by descent to the family of his grandson were offered at Christie’s, 8\/6\/2011, lot 19 [unsold]. Three other travel journals for 1860-63 were acquired by the Bodleian Library in 1961.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis manuscript had been housed in a brown envelope from old Maggs stock, c. 1960s \/ early 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Maggs Bros.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48228628725917,"sku":"262737","price":15000.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0669\/0045\/9677\/files\/262737_01.jpg?v=1778558458","url":"https:\/\/store.maggs.com\/products\/original-scribal-manuscript-draft-with-numerous-manuscript-corrections-ht6hb7cr","provider":"Maggs Bros.","version":"1.0","type":"link"}