Page:Notes on the Anti-Corn Law Struggle.djvu/63

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Thomas Perronet Thompson.
55

given, after some prefatory matter, of which we do not think so highly as of the work itself, an enumeration of a hundred and sixty fallacies on the Corn Laws: or, to speak more accurately, ten or twelve fallacies exhibited in a hundred and sixty different shapes. Mr. Thompson is master of his subject, and has disposed of the fallacies with great philosophical accuracy, and considerable clearness, conciseness, and felicity of expression. As this mode of combating those Proteus-


    recently been advertised under the title of 'The true Theory of Rent, in opposition to Mr. Ricardo and others.' This pamphlet appears to us a striking exemplification of the mistakes of an ingenious mind, more accustomed to think in solitude than to discuss, and compare its ideas with those of other men. Mr. Thompson does not perceive that his theory of rent differs from that of Mr. Ricardo only in the expression. . . . Mr. Thompson's opinions on tithes and other taxes on the land are indeed different from those of Mr. Ricardo. But if he will read Mr. Ricardo's work again carefully, he will perceive that his opinions on those topics are not corollaries from his doctrine of rent, but from a peculiar and altogether erroneous opinion on profits, which he conceives to be regulated, like wages, by the proportion between numbers and demand. We have not space to be more explicit, nor can we venture to refer any but the very laborious reader to Mr. Thompson's work; for, erroneous as we deem its conclusions, it is to the full as difficult of comprehension as it could be if it were the quintessence of pure reason. Nor is this to be ascribed to any defect in the author's style. On the contrary, our copious extracts from his ' Catechism on the Corn Laws ' afford sufficient proof that he possesses