Economist
He was an independent discoverer of the principle of comparative advantage in international trade, which principle is usually attributed to David Ricardo although Torrens wrote about it in 1815, two years before Ricardo's book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation was first published. He was a strong advocate of Catholic Emancipation, publishing a tract and a novel on the subject.
Torrens was a founder member of the Political Economy Club. He was also one of the first to theorize about the optimal tariff, predating J. S. Mill's thoughts on the subject by 11 years. His advocacy of reciprocity rather than unconditional free trade in the 1840s was highly controversial, and he was later cited as a precursor by supporters of Joseph Chamberlain's tariff reform campaign.
Torrens was a strong advocate of state-sponsored emigration to relieve population pressure in the United Kingdom (particularly in Ireland; he argued that Irish living standards could only be improved by making Irish agriculture more profitable, but that at the same time this would lead to massive short-term displacement of laborers who must somehow be supported during the transition period.) He took a prominent role in the foundation of South Australia as a colony, and chaired the first commissioners set up to oversee it; he was sacked in 1841 for financial mismanagement and conflict of interest (he had bought land in the colony). The River Torrens, which runs through Adelaide, is named after him.
He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in December 1818.
Read more about this topic: Robert Torrens (economist)
Famous quotes containing the word economist:
“As a preacher, I should be prompted to tell men, not so much how to get their wheat bread cheaper, as of the bread of life compared with which that is bran. Let a man only taste these loaves, and he becomes a skillful economist at once.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)