トマス・アトウッドと農業家エコノミスト群像 : リカード主義に対抗する「インフレーショニズム」の展開、一八一五年-一八三六年

抄録

Strong opposition to the resumption of cash payments after the Napoleonic Wars principally came from two sources: Birmingham and agriculture. Thomas Attwood, a Birmingham banker, pointing to the ruinous effects of the return to the gold standard, urged the "inflationism" to secure the full employment of "the industrious classes". Inflationism was also advocated by the agricultural economists, such as Sir John Sinclair, Arthur Young and John Rooke. A coalition of these two in their attack upon the gold standard seems to have been kept throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. It could be called "the Anti Gold Law League", in contrast with "the Anti-Corn Law League" As a sharp decline in wheat prices shows, the British agriculture passed suddenly from prosperity to extreme depression in the Post-Napoleonic period. Attwood and Rooke argued in the Farmers' Journal that the agricultural distress was caused by Pell's Resumption Act of 1819 and that the landed interest should look to the money laws rather than to the corn laws for obtaining the adequate prices for corn. Attwood's views on currency had been adopted by 'Squire' Western, who was to come out as a champion of the agricultural inflationists. In 1822 Western moved a Parliamentary inquiry into the effects of Pell's Bill, which raised "the great debate" concerning devaluation and deflation between the Attwood school and the Ricardian school. The propagation of inflationism was apparently accelerated by the opposition to the monetary and banking acts of 1826, which prohibited the small note circulation and suppressed the country banks. Attwood, Richard Cruttwell and Henry Burgess wrote in defence of the country banking. Blackwod's Edinburgh Magazine also defended the interests of the country against the encroachment of the monopolistic power of the City. Attwood's associates in Parliament were active in debates concerning the small note bill. Sir James Grahanm, Mathias Attwood, C.C. Western, E.D. Davenport, Sir Richard Vyvyan, all contended for an abundant circulation to keep industry and labour fully employed, opposing the deflationary policy of the Wellington government. The currency question was a rallying point of the Tory opponents of the Government, and gave them a vital link with some Whigs and Radicals The "Ultra Tories" were perhaps most responsible for the downfall of the Wellington government in 1830. In the Reformed House of Commons Thomas Attwood moved a Parliamentary committee on the national distress and the monetary system in 1833. Attwood's motion was defeated, but it was only by the majority of 34. It appeared a virtual triumph of Attwood over Sir Robert Peel. A coalition collaboration of Attwood and the Agricultural Economists reached its culmination in the formation of the Central Agricultural Society in 1835-1836. Richard Spooner, a partner of Attwood, Spooner & Co., was Chairman of the Society 'Squire' Western and E.S. Cayley were both Vice President. Attwood and some other Birmingham Economists were the members of it. Attwood and the Agricultural Economists struggled for obtaining the monetary system for the industrious classes, fearing the transferrance of national wealth into the money power. They sought an alternative in opposition to Ricardiansim.