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CAIRNES, JOHN ELLIOTT (1823–1875)

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Originally appearing in Volume V04, Page 952 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CAIRNES, See also:JOHN See also:ELLIOTT (1823–1875) , See also:British See also:political economist, was See also:born at See also:Castle See also:Bellingham, See also:Ireland, in 1823. After leaving school he spent some years in the counting-See also:house of his See also:father, a See also:brewer. His tastes, however, See also:lay altogether in the direction of study, and he was permitted to enter Trinity See also:College, See also:Dublin, where he took the degree of B.A. in 1848, and six years later that of M.A. After passing through the curriculum of arts he engaged in the study of See also:law and was called to the Irish See also:bar. But he See also:felt no very strong inclination for the legal profession, and during some years he occupied himself to a large extent with contributions to the daily See also:press, treating of the social and economical questions that affected Ireland. He devoted most See also:attention to political See also:economy, which he studied with See also:great thoroughness and care. While residing in Dublin he made the acquaintance of See also:Archbishop See also:Whately, who conceived a very high respect for his See also:character and abilities. In 1856 a vacancy occurred in the See also:chair of political economy at Dublin founded by Whately, and Cairnes received the See also:appointment. In accordance with the regulations of the See also:foundation, the lectures of his first See also:year's course were published. The See also:book appeared in 1857 with the See also:title Character and Logical Method of Political Economy. It follows up and expands J. S.

See also:

Mill's treatment in the Essays on some Unsettled Questions in Political Economy, and forms an admirable introduction to the study of See also:economics as a See also:science. In it the author's See also:peculiar See also:powers of thought and expression are displayed to the best See also:advantage. Logical exactness, precision of See also:language, and See also:firm grasp of the true nature of economic facts, are the qualities characteristic of this as of all his other See also:works. If the book had done nothing more, it would still have conferred inestimable benefit on political economists by its clear exposition of the true nature and meaning of the ambiguous See also:term " law." To the view of the See also:province and method of political economy expounded in this See also:early See also:work the author always remained true, and several of his later essays, such as those on Political Economy and See also:Land, Political Economy and Laissez-Faire, are but reiterations of the same See also:doctrine. His next contribution to economical science was a See also:series of articles on the See also:gold question, published partly in See also:Fraser's See also:Magazine, in which the probable consequences of the increased See also:supply of gold attendant on the Australian and Californian gold discoveries were analysed with great skill and ability. And a See also:critical See also:article on M. See also:Chevalier's work On the Probable Fall in the Value of Gold appeared in the See also:Edinburgh See also:Review for See also:July 186o. In 861 Cairnes was appointed to the professorship of political economy and See also:jurisprudence in See also:Queen's College, See also:Galway, and in the following year he published his admirable work The Slave See also:Power, one of the finest specimens of applied economical See also:philosophy. The inherent disadvantages of the employment of slave labour were exposed with great fulness and ability, and the conclusions arrived at have taken their See also:place among the recognized doctrines of political economy. The opinions expressed by Cairnes as to the probable issue of the See also:war in See also:America were largely verified by the actual course of events, and the See also:appearance of the book had a marked See also:influence on the attitude taken by serious political thinkers in See also:England towards the See also:southern states. During the See also:remainder of his See also:residence at Galway See also:Professor Cairnes published nothing beyond some fragments and See also:pamphlets mainly upon Irish questions. The most valuable of these papers are the series devoted to the See also:consideration of university See also:education.

His See also:

health, at no See also:time very See also:good, was still further weakened in 1865 by a fall from his See also:horse. He was ever afterwards incapacitated from active exertion and was constantly liable to have his work interfered with by attacks of illness. In 1866 he was appointed professor of political economy in University College, See also:London. He was compelled to spend the session 1868–1869 in See also:Italy but on his return continued to lecture till 1872. During his last session he conducted a mixed class, ladies being admitted to his lectures. His health soon rendered it impossible for him to See also:discharge his public duties; he resigned his See also:post in 1872, and retired with the honorary title of See also:emeritus professor of political economy. In 1873 his own university conferred on him the degree of LL.D. He died at See also:Blackheath, near London, on the 8th of July 1895. The last years of his See also:life were spent in the collection and publication of some scattered papers contributed to various reviews and magazines, and in the preparation of his most extensive and important work. The Political Essays, published in 1893, comprise all his papers See also:relating to Ireland and its university See also:system, together with some other articles of a somewhat similar nature. The Essays in Political Economy, Theoretical and Applied, which appeared in the same year, contain the essays towards a See also:solution of the gold question, brought up to date and tested by comparison with See also:statistics of prices. Among the other articles in the See also:volume the more important are the criticisms on See also:Bastiat and See also:Comte, and the essays on Political Economy and Land, and on Political Economy and Laissez-Faire, which_have been referred to above.

In 1874 appeared his largest work, Some Leading Principles of Political Economy, newly Expounded, which is beyond doubt a worthy successor to the great See also:

treatises of See also:Smith, See also:Malthus, See also:Ricardo and Mill. It does not expound a completed system of political economy; many important doctrines are See also:left untouched; and in See also:general the treatment of problems is not such as would be suited for a systematic See also:manual. The work is essentially a commentary on some of the See also:principal doctrines of the See also:English school of economists, such as value, cost of See also:production, See also:wages, labour and See also:capital, and See also:international values, and is replete with keen See also:criticism and lucid See also:illustration. While in fundamental See also:harmony with Mill, especially as regards the general conception of the science, Cairnes differs from him to a greater or less extent on nearly all the See also:cardinal doctrines, subjects his opinions to a searching examination, and generally succeeds in giving to the truth that is See also:common to both a firmer basis and a more precise statement. The last labour to which he devoted himself was a republication of his first work on the Logical Method of Political Economy. Taken as a whole the works of Cairnes formed the most important contribution to economical science made by the English school since the publication of J. S. Mill's Principles. It is not possible to indicate more than generally the See also:special advances in economic doctrine effected by him, but the following points may be noted as establishing for him a claim to a place beside Ricardo and Mill: (I) His exposition of the province and method of political economy. He never suffers it to be forgotten that political economy is a science, and consequently that its results are entirely neutral with respect to social facts or systems. It has simply to trace the necessary connexions among the phenomena of See also:wealth and dictates ne rules for practice. Further, he is distinctly opposed both to those who would treat political economy as an integral See also:part of social philosophy, and to those who have attempted to See also:express economic facts in quantitative formulae and to make economy a See also:branch of applied See also:mathematics.

According to him political economy is a mixed science, its See also:

field being partly See also:mental, partly See also:physical. It may be called a See also:positive science, because its premises are facts, but it is hypothetical in so far as the See also:laws it See also:lays down are only approximately true, i.e. are only valid in the See also:absence of counteracting agencies.951 From this view of the nature of the science, it follows at once that the method to be pursued must be that called by Mill the physical or See also:concrete deductive, which starts from certain known causes, investigates their consequences and verifies or tests the result by comparison with facts of experience. It may, perhaps, be thought that Cairnes gives too little attention to the effects of the organism of society on economic facts, and that he is disposed to overlook what See also:Bagehot called the postulates of political economy. (2) His See also:analysis of cost of production in its relation to value. According to Mill, the universal elements in cost of production are the wages of labour and the profits of capital. To this theory Cairnes See also:objects that wages, being remuneration, can in no sense be considered as cost, and could only have come to be regarded as cost in consequence of the whole problem being treated from the point of view of the capitalist, to whom, no doubt, the wages paid represent cost. The real elements of cost of production he looks upon as labour, See also:abstinence and See also:risk, the second of these falling mainly, though not necessarily, upon the capitalist. In this analysis he to a considerable extent follows and improves upon See also:Senior, who had previously defined cost of production as the sum of the labour and abstinence necessary to production. (3) His exposition of the natural or social limit to See also:free competition, and of its bearing on the theory of value. He points out that in any organized society there can hardly be the ready transference of capital from one employment to another, which is the indispensable See also:condition of free competition; while class distinctions render it impossible for labour to See also:transfer itself readily to new occupations. Society may thus be regarded as consisting of a series of non-competing See also:industrial See also:groups, with free competition among the members of any one See also:group or class. Now the only condition under which cost of production will regulate value is perfect competition.

It follows that the normal value of commodities—the value which gives to the producers the See also:

average and usual remuneration—will depend upon cost of production only when the See also:exchange is confined to the members of one class, among whom there is free competition. In exchange between classes or non-competing industrial groups, the normal value is simply a See also:case of international value, and depends upon reciprocal demand, that is to say, is such as will satisfy the See also:equation of demand. This theory is a substantial contribution to economical science and throws great See also:light upon the general problem of value. At the same time, it may be thought that Cairnes over-looked a point brought forward prominently by Senior, who also had called attention to the bearing of competition on the relation between cost of production and value. The cost to the producer fixes the limit below which the See also:price cannot fall without the supply being affected; but it is the See also:desire of the consumer—i.e. what he is willing to give up rather than be compelled to produce the commodity for himself—that fixes the maximum value of the article. To treat the whole problem of natural or normal value from the point of view of the producer is to give but a one-sided theory of the facts. (4) His See also:defence of the wages fund doctrine. This doctrine, expounded by Mill in his Principles, had been relinquished by him, but Cairnes still undertook to defend it. He certainly succeeded in removing from the theory much' that had tended to obscure its real meaning and in placing it in its very best aspect. He also showed the sense in which, when treating the problem of wages, we must refer to some fund devoted to the See also:payment of wages, and pointed out the conditions under which the wages fund may increase or decrease. It may be added that his Leading Principles contain admirable discussions on See also:trade unions and See also:protection, together with a clear analysis of the difficult theory of international trade and value, in which there is much that is both novel and valuable. The Logical Method contains about the best exposition and defence of Ricardo's theory of See also:rent; and the Essays contain a very clear and formidable criticism of Bastiat's economic doctrines.

Professor Cairnes's son, See also:

CAPTAIN W. E. CAIRNES (1862–1906), was an able writer on military subjects, being author of An Absent-minded War (1900), The Coming See also:Waterloo (1905), &e.

End of Article: CAIRNES, JOHN ELLIOTT (1823–1875)

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