Ramsgate, 12 September 1880 

My dear Sir, 

I need not tell you that I should feel only too happy to do anything 
you consider useful,°° but a short statement of the circumstances in 
which I find myself at this moment will convince you that I am at pre- 
sent unfit for theoretical labour. Having been sent here by the medi- 
cal men in order to ‘do nothing’ and to restore my nervous system by 
the ‘far niente’ an illness of my wife, under which she suffered long 
time since, has suddenly been aggravated to a degree which menaces 
to tend to a fatal termination. Whatever little time I may snatch for 
work, is necessarily limited to things which I must get rid of. 

However, the most important part for the public in general is that 

* Moore and Beust-° Friedrich Beust-° Abbreviated from dolce far niente (sweet 
doing nothing), which originates from a similar Latin expression used by Pliny the 
Younger in Epistle VIII. 

which you have already performed — the drawing up of the statistical 
tables and the interpretation of the facts which they imply. It would 
be a pity if you delayed the publication which I expect myself with 
the greatest impatience. 

Whatever you may have found useful in my letters for that pur- 
pose, you may freely dispose of. Only I fear it is not much, since I sent 
you only a few fragmentary scraps. 

The present crisis was the greatest England has passed through 
with regard to duration, extent and intensiveness,*’ but despite the 
failures of some Scotch and English provincial banks —— the crowning 
of the past English great periodical crises, I mean the financial crash 
in London, shone by its absence. This most extraordinary incident — 
the absence of the monetary panic properly so called, was due to a con- 
catenation of circumstances the analysis of which would lead me too 
far at present. One of the most decisive circumstances was, however, 
this: The heavy bullion drain of 1879 was to a great extent met by the 
cooperation of the Banque de France and the Imperial Bank of 
Germany. On the other hand, the sudden revival in the United 
States—-since the spring of 1879—reacted on England like a deus 
ex machina.* 

As to the agricultural crisis, it will gather strength, develop itself, 
and, by the bye, come to a head, carrying with it quite a revolution in 
the relations of landed property,— quite independent of the cycles of 
the commercial-industrial crises. Even such optimists as Mr Caird 
have commenced ‘to smell a rat’. Most characteristic of English 
blockheadedness is this: since two years there have been published 
letters of farmers—in The Times as well as in agricultural papers — 
giving the items of their expenses in cultivating their farms, compar- 
ing them with their returns at present prices, and winding up with a 
positive deficit. Would you believe that not one of the specialists — 
expatiating upon these accounts— has thought of considering how 
these accounts would stand if the item of rent was struck out in many cases 
or reduced ‘most feelingly’ in many other cases? But this is a delicate 
point which must not be touched. The farmers themselves, though 
become unbelievers in the nostrums proposed by their landlords or 
the ‘plumitifs’» of the latter, dare not yet assume attitudes of bold vi- 

* deus ex machina— a god from the machine (by which in ancient theatre gods were 
shown in the air); a power or an event that comes in the nick of time to solve a difficulty - 
 hired scribblers 

rility, considering that they, on their part, are denounced by the rus- 
tic ‘labouring class’. A nice pickle it is altogether. 

I hope there will be no general war in Europe. Though, ultimately, 
it could not check, but would rather intensify, the social, I mean 
thereby the economical, development, it would certainly produce 
a useless exhaustion of forces for some longer or shorter interval. 

Please to send your letters as before to my London address, from 
where I shall always receive them even in case of momentary absence. 

Yours most sincerely 
A. Williams*