Baird.] 170 [Nov. 20, 



Prof. Marshall may be judged from the fact that Ve says: " It makes indeed 

 little real difference to the life of a family whether its yearly income is 

 1000 or 5000." No one but an economist could enunciate such non- 

 sense, and still retain his position as an authority in a high department of 

 knowle ge. 



His book, largely accepting the doctrines of Ricardo. is full of apologies 

 for him, and for his inaccuracy of statement. For instance, he says: 



"His exposition is as confused as his thought is profound. He uses 

 words in artificial senses which he does not explain, and to which he does 

 not adhere, and he changes from one hypothesis to another without giv- 

 ing notice. If, then, we desire to understand him, we must interpret him 

 generously, more generously than he himself interpreted Adam Smith. 

 When his words are ambiguous, we must give that interpretation which 

 other passages in his writings indicate that he would have wished us to 

 give them. " 



. It is quite proper that a teacher who can talk in this style should have 

 no difficulty in deciding that Carey and others who have refuted Ricardo 

 do not understand him. After myself reading "Ricardo" more than 

 thirty years ago, I told Mr. Carey that I could not understand what he 

 was driving at. His reply was, "Ricardo did not imself understand." 

 Nor do I think he did. Confusion in language involves confusion not 

 merely in argument, but in thought ; and in no other department of 

 knowledge but that of political economy, would it be possible for one who 

 needs such apologies, as those made for Ricardo by Prof. Marshall, to 

 become the founder of a distinct school. 



The blunders which Mr. Marshall has made wit'\ reference to Carey 

 and Frederick List, and especially as to the indebtedness of the former-to 

 the latter, are most remarkable. 



For instance, he says Carey was born in Ireland, when, had he taken 

 the least trouble to examine any biographical notice of him, he would, at 

 a glance, have seen that he was bom in Philadelphia. Then he asserts 

 that List's "Outlines of a New System of Political Economy," a tract 

 published in Philadelphia, 1827, and its wide circulation were "the be- 

 ginning of his fame, as it was of the systematic advocacy of protectionist 

 doctrines in America," whereas this movement was commenced in 1819, 

 and Mathew Carey was one of the originators of it ; and three years be- 

 fore the appearance of List's tract, or in 1824, the first really protective 

 tariff enacted in the United States was passed. 



Then he says that this publication of List's was made ten years before 

 the publication of Carey's first important work, his "Principles of Politi- 

 cal Economy," and adds, "Carey owes many of his best thoughts on 

 protection to List." 



Now, Carey's attention to economic subjects commenced in 1835, when 

 he published his "first important work," the "Essay on the Rate of 

 Wages," and there is not a particle of evidence that he ever read the in- 

 significant little tract of Frederick List. If he ever did he wholly failed 



