Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie (21 June 1826 – 27 January 1882), Irish

Ireland

Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...

 economist

Economist

An economist is a professional in the social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy...

. He was professor of jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

 and political economy

Political economy

Political economy originally was the term for studying production, buying, and selling, and their relations with law, custom, and government, as well as with the distribution of national income and wealth, including through the budget process. Political economy originated in moral philosophy...

 in Queen's College, Belfast, noted for debunking the Wages-Fund doctrine and for addressing contemporary agrarian policy

Land tenure

Land tenure is the name given, particularly in common law systems, to the legal regime in which land is owned by an individual, who is said to "hold" the land . The sovereign monarch, known as The Crown, held land in its own right. All private owners are either its tenants or sub-tenants...

 questions. A critic of Ricardian orthodoxy, he said that it had sidelined consumer behavior and demand. He developed the idea of consumer sovereignty

Consumer sovereignty

Consumer sovereignty is a term used in economics. It refers to consumers determining the production of goods. The term can prescribe what consumers should be permitted, or describe what consumers are permitted...

, but insisted that the analysis of demand should be based on historical

English historical school of economics

The English historical school of economics, although not nearly as famous as its German counterpart, sought a return of inductive methods in economics, following the triumph of the deductive approach of David Ricardo in the early 19th century...

 and comparative institutional

Institutional economics

Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping economic behaviour. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instinct-oriented dichotomy between technology on the one side and the "ceremonial" sphere of society on the...

 work.

Early life

T. E. Cliffe Leslie was born in the county of Wexford

County Wexford

County Wexford is a county in Ireland. It is part of the South-East Region and is also located in the province of Leinster. It is named after the town of Wexford. In pre-Norman times it was part of the Kingdom of Uí Cheinnselaig, whose capital was at Ferns. Wexford County Council is the local...

 in (as is believed) the year 1826, the second son of the Rev. Edward Leslie, prebendary of Dromore, and rector of Annahilt, in the county of Down

County Down

-Cities:*Belfast *Newry -Large towns:*Dundonald*Newtownards*Bangor-Medium towns:...

. His family was of Scottish descent, but had been connected with Ireland since the reign of Charles I

Charles I of England

Charles I was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue whilst Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles...

. Amongst his ancestors were John Leslie

John Leslie (bishop of Clogher)

John Leslie was a combative Scottish royalist bishop of Clogher, who became known as the "fighting bishop" for his resistance to the Irish rebellion of 1641 and the parliamentarian forces.-Life:...

 (1571–1671), bishop first of Raphoe

Raphoe

Raphoe is a town in County Donegal, part of the province of Ulster in Ireland. It is the main town in the fertile district of East Donegal known as the Laggan, as well as giving its name to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Raphoe and the Church of Ireland Diocese of Derry and Raphoe.-Name:Raphoe,...

 and afterwards of Clogher

Clogher

Clogher is a village in County Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It lies on the River Blackwater, south of Omagh. The United Kingdom Census of 2001 recorded a population of 309.-History:...

, and the bishop's son Charles Leslie.

Cliffe Leslie received his elementary education from his father, who resided in England, though holding church preferment and some landed property in Ireland. His father taught him Latin

Latin

Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...

, Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 and Hebrew

Hebrew language

Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...

 at an unusually early age. Afterwards, for a short time he was under the care of a clergyman at Clapham

Clapham

Clapham is a district in south London, England, within the London Borough of Lambeth.Clapham covers the postcodes of SW4 and parts of SW9, SW8 and SW12. Clapham Common is shared with the London Borough of Wandsworth, although Lambeth has responsibility for running the common as a whole. According...

, and was then sent to King William's College

King William's College

King William's College is a leading world International Baccalaureate HMC independent school for ages 3 to 18, situated near Castletown on the Isle of Man...

, in the Isle of Man

Isle of Man

The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...

.

He entered University of Dublin, Trinity College

Trinity College, Dublin

Trinity College, Dublin , formally known as the College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, was founded in 1592 by letters patent from Queen Elizabeth I as the "mother of a university", Extracts from Letters Patent of Elizabeth I, 1592: "...we...found and...

 in 1842, being then only fifteen years of age. He was a distinguished student there, obtaining, besides other honors, a classical scholarship in 1845, and a senior moderatorship (gold medal) in mental and moral philosophy at his degree examination in 1846. He became a law student at Lincoln's Inn, was for two years a pupil in a conveyancers chambers in London, and was called to the English bar. But his attention soon turned from the pursuit of legal practice, for which he seems never to have had much inclination.

Academic career

In 1853, Cliffe Leslie was appointed to the professorship of jurisprudence and political economy in Queen's College, Belfast. The duties of this chair requiring only short visits to Ireland in certain terms of each year, he continued to reside and pursue his studies in London, and became a frequent writer on economic and social questions in the principal reviews and other periodicals.

In 1860 he collected a number of his essays, adding several new ones, into a volume entitled Land Systems and Industrial Economy of Ireland, England and Continental Countries. JS Mill

John Stuart Mill

John Stuart Mill was a British philosopher, economist and civil servant. An influential contributor to social theory, political theory, and political economy, his conception of liberty justified the freedom of the individual in opposition to unlimited state control. He was a proponent of...

 gave a full account of the contents of this work in a paper in the Fortnightly Review, in which he pronounced Leslie to be one of the best living writers on applied political economy. Mill had sought his acquaintance on reading his first article in Macmillan's Magazine; he admired his talents, took pleasure in his society, and treated him with a respect and kindness which Leslie always gratefully acknowledged.

In the frequent visits which Leslie made to the continent, especially to Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 and some of the less-known districts of France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 and Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, he occupied himself much in economic and social observation. He studied the effects of the institutions and system of life which prevailed in each region, on the material and moral condition of its inhabitants. In this way he gained an extensive and accurate acquaintance with continental rural economy, of which he made excellent use in studying parallel phenomena at home. The accounts he gave of the results of his observations were among his happiest efforts; no one, said Mill, was able to write narratives of foreign visits at once so instructive and so interesting. In these excursions he made the acquaintance of several distinguished persons, amongst others of M. Lonce de Lavergne and M. Émile de Laveleye

Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye

Émile Louis Victor de Laveleye was a Belgian economist. He was one of the co-founders of the Institut de droit international in 1873....

. To the memory of the former of these he afterwards paid a graceful tribute in a biographical sketch (Fortnightly Review, February 1881); and to the close of his life there existed between him and M. de Laveleye relations of mutual esteem and cordial intimacy.

Writings

Leslie's work falls into two categories: applied political economy and the discussion of the philosophical method of the science. The Land Systems and Industrial Economy of Ireland, England and Continental Countries belonged principally to the former division. Two essays of Leslie's appeared in volumes published under the auspices of the Cobden Club

Cobden Club

The Cobden Club was a political gentlemen's club in London founded in 1866 for believers in Free Trade doctrine, and named in honour of Richard Cobden, who had died the year before....

. The Land System of France (2nd ed., 1870), contained an earnest defence of la petite culture and still more of la petite propriété. Financial Reform (1871), set forth the impediments to production and commerce arising from indirect taxation. Many other articles were contributed by him to reviews between 1875 and 1879, including several discussions of the history of prices and the movements of wages in Europe, and a sketch of life in Auvergne

Auvergne (province)

Auvergne was a historic province in south central France. It was originally the feudal domain of the Counts of Auvergne. It is now the geographical and cultural area that corresponds to the former province....

 in his best manner. The most important of them, however, related to the philosophical method of political economy, notably a memorable one which appeared in the Dublin University periodical, Hermathena.

In 1879 the provost and senior fellows of Trinity College published for him a volume in which a number of these articles were collected under the title of Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy. These and some later essays, together with the earlier volume on Land Systems, form the essential contribution of Leslie to economic literature. He had long contemplated, and had in part written, a work on English economic and legal history, which would have been his magnum opus, a more substantial fruit of his genius and his labors than anything he has left. But the manuscript of this treatise, after much pains had already been spent on it, was unaccountably lost at Nancy in 1872; and, though he hoped to be able speedily to reproduce the missing portion and finish the work, no material was left in a state fit for publication. What the nature of it would have been may be gathered from an essay on the History and Future of Profit in the Fortnightly Review for November 1881, which is believed to have been in substance an extract from it.

That he was able to do so much may well be a subject of wonder when it is known that his labors had long been impeded by a painful and depressing malady, from which he suffered severely at intervals, whilst he never felt secure from its recurring attacks. To this disease he in the end succumbed at Belfast, on 27 January 1882.

Cliffe Leslie empahasized the land question as a central issue for the social welfare of both Ireland and England. This volume has both a breadth of view and a rich variety of illustrative detail. His general purpose was to show that the territorial systems of both countries were so encumbered with historical elements of a feudal origin as to be altogether unfit to serve the purposes of a modern industrial society. The policy he recommended is summed up in the following

Had there been in England a simple jurisprudence relating to land, a law of equal intestate succession, a prohibition of entail, a legal security for tenants' improvements, an open registration of title and transfer, a considerable number of peasant properties, the rural economy of England would long since have created unanswerable objections to the Irish land system in the public mind. -- The Land Systems, ed. 1870, p. 2

Much of Cliffe Leslie's work concerned the problems of Ireland. He rejected Home Rule

Home rule

Home rule is the power of a constituent part of a state to exercise such of the state's powers of governance within its own administrative area that have been devolved to it by the central government....

 as a solution, preferring land reform

Land reform

[Image:Jakarta farmers protest23.jpg|300px|thumb|right|Farmers protesting for Land Reform in Indonesia]Land reform involves the changing of laws, regulations or customs regarding land ownership. Land reform may consist of a government-initiated or government-backed property redistribution,...

 in favour of small proprietorship.

Method

Cliffe Leslie defended the inductive method in political economy, against the attempt to deduce the economic phenomena of a society from the so-called universal principle of the desire of wealth. Of course, English empiricism has a long tradition, dating from David Hume

David Hume

David Hume was a Scottish philosopher, historian, economist, and essayist, known especially for his philosophical empiricism and skepticism. He was one of the most important figures in the history of Western philosophy and the Scottish Enlightenment...

 and Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon

Francis Bacon, 1st Viscount St Albans, KC was an English philosopher, statesman, scientist, lawyer, jurist, author and pioneer of the scientific method. He served both as Attorney General and Lord Chancellor of England...

. Leslie was of this empirical tendency of British economic thought. He said that

[Economics'] fundamental laws ought to be obtained by careful induction, that assumptions from which an unreal order of things and unreal uniformities are deduced cannot be regarded as final or adequate ; and that facts, instead of being irrelevant to the economist's reasoning, are the phenomena from which he must infer his general principles, and by which he ought constantly to verify his deductions.

Further, he spoke of the

...necessity of studying every economic problem in conformity with the universal canons of the logic of science -- of accepting no assumptions as finally established without proof, none as adequate from which conclusions untrue as matters of fact are found to result, and no chains of deduction from hypothetical premises as possessing more than hypothetical truth, until verified by observation.

The first influence which impelled Cliffe Leslie in the direction of the historical and comparative institutional methods was that of Sir Henry Maine

Henry James Sumner Maine

Sir Henry James Sumner Maine, KCSI , was an English comparative jurist and historian. He is famous for the thesis outlined in Ancient Law that law and society developed "from status to contract." According to the thesis, in the ancient world individuals were tightly bound by status to traditional...

, himself a student of historical jurisprudence as represented by Savigny

Friedrich Carl von Savigny

Friedrich Carl von Savigny was one of the most respected and influential 19th-century jurists and historians.-Early life and education:...

. Maine's Ancient Law (1861) is famous for the thesis that law and society developed "from status to contract". Maine's personal teaching of jurisprudence, as well as the example of his writings, led Cliffe Leslie to look at the present economic structure and state of society as the result of a long evolution. Of the German economists who represent similar tendencies, only perhaps Roscher

Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher

Wilhelm Georg Friedrich Roscher was a German economist from Hanover.He studied at Göttingen, where he became a member of Corps Hannovera, and Berlin, and obtained a professorship at Göttingen in 1844 and subsequently at Leipzig in 1848.The main origins of the historical school of political economy...

 was an influence. And the writings of Comte

Auguste Comte

Isidore Auguste Marie François Xavier Comte , better known as Auguste Comte , was a French philosopher, a founder of the discipline of sociology and of the doctrine of positivism...

, whom he admired though critically, must have powerfully co-operated to form in him the habit of regarding economic science as only a single branch of sociology

Sociology

Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

.

The earliest writing in which Leslie's revolt against the so-called orthodox school distinctly appears is his Essay on Wages, first published in 1868 and reproduced as an appendix to the volume on Land Systems. In this, after criticism of the Wages-Fund doctrine and the lack of agreement between its results and the observed phenomena, he concludes by declaring that political economy must be an inductive, instead of a purely deductive science. By this change, it will gain in utility, interest and real truth far more than a full compensation for the forfeiture of a fictitious title to mathematical exactness and certainty. But it is in the essays collected in the volume of 1879 that his attitude in relation to the question of method is most decisively marked. In one of these, on the political economy of Adam Smith, he exhibits in a very interesting way the co-existence in The Wealth of Nations

The Wealth of Nations

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith...

 of historical-inductive investigation in the manner of Montesquieu

Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu

Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu , generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French social commentator and political thinker who lived during the Enlightenment...

 with a priori

A priori and a posteriori (philosophy)

The terms a priori and a posteriori are used in philosophy to distinguish two types of knowledge, justifications or arguments...

speculation founded on theologico-metaphysical bases, and points out the error of ignoring the former element, which is the really characteristic feature of Smith's social philosophy, and places him in strong contrast with the school of Ricardo.

The essay, however, which contains the most brilliant polemic against the orthodox school, as well as the most luminous account and the most powerful vindication of the new direction, was that of which we have above spoken as having first appeared in Hermathena. It may be recommended as supplying the best extant presentation of one of the two contending views of economic method. On this essay mainly rests the claim of Leslie to be regarded as the founder and first head of the English historical school of political economy. Those who share his views on the philosophical constitution of the science regard the work he did, notwithstanding its unsystematic character, as in reality the most important done by any English economists in the latter half of the 19th century. But even the warmest partisans of the older school acknowledge that he did excellent service by insisting on a kind of inquiry, previously too much neglected, which was of the highest interest and value, in whatever relation it might be supposed to stand to the establishment of economic truth. The members of both groups alike recognized his great learning, his patient and conscientious habits of investigation and the large social spirit in which he treated the problems of his science.

Cliffe Leslie insisted on an inductive, historical and institutional approach, which was in vogue in the late-Nineteenth Century. Even so, a recent assessment views his work in applied economics as complementary to contemporary theoretical work.

Literature

• J. M. Rigg, "Leslie, Thomas Edward Cliffe", Dictionary of National Biography, v. XXXIII (1893), pp. 108–9.
• F. W. Fetter, "Leslie, T. E. Cliffe", International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences D. L. Sills (ed.) (Macmillan and Free Press, 1968), vol. 2.
• G. M. Koot, English Historical Economics, 1870–1926: The Rise of Economic History and Neomercantilism, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (1987)
• G. M. Koot, "T. E. Cliffe Leslie, Irish Social Reform, and the Origins of the English Historical School of Economics," in James Wilson (1805–1860), Isaac Butt (1813–1879), T. E. Cliffe Leslie (1827–1882), ed. Mark Blaug, Elgar Reference Collection Series, Pioneers in Economics, vol. 22. Aldershot, Elgar pp. 92–116 (1991)
• Gregory C. G. Moore, "T. E. Cliffe Leslie and the English Methodenstreit," Journal of the History of Economic Thought 17 pp. 57–77 (Spring 1995)
• Geoffrey Martin Hodgson, "The Historical School in the British Isles", How Economics Forgot History: The Problem of Historical Specificity in the Social Sciences, Routledge (2001) ISBN 0-415-25716-6
• R. D. Collison Black, "The political economy of Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie (1826-82): a re-assessment", European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Volume 9, Number 1, pp. 17–41 (March 1, 2002)

Works

• The Military Systems of Europe Economically Considered (1856)
• "Political Economy and the Rate of Wages", Fraser's Magazine (July 15, 1868); Reprinted in Land Systems... (1870) pp. 357–379. On line.
• Land Systems and Industrial Economy of Ireland, England and Continental Countries, London, Longmans, Green (1860); new edition, (1870) ISBN 0-678-00346-7
• The Love of Money (1862) Reprinted in Essays in Political Economy, cited below, p. 189.
• "The Political Economy of Adam Smith", Fortnightly Review (November 1, 1870)
• Financial Reform, Cobden Club Essays, 2nd Series (1871)
• "The History of German Political Economy", Fortnightly Review (July 1, 1875)
• "On the Philosophical Method of Political Economy", Hermathena, Dublin University (1876)
• The Land System of France, Cobden Club Essays (1876)
• "Political Economy and Sociology", Fortnightly Review (January 1, 1879)
• Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy, Dublin and London, Hodges, Foster & Figgis and Longmans, Green (1879)
• Essays in Political Economy, Dublin, Hodges, Figgis & Co. (1879, 1888)
• "Political Economy in the United States", Fortnightly Review (October 1, 1880)
• "The Irish Land Question", Appleton's Journal (1881)
• "History and Future of Profit", Fortnightly Review (November, 1881)

Sources

• Author and Book Info.com

External links

• Works of Thomas Edward Cliffe Leslie available at the Archive for the History of Economic Thought website at McMaster
• New School: Thomas E. Cliffe Leslie, 1825-1882