Robert Torrens (economist)

For the colonial Premier of South Australia, see Robert Torrens.

Colonel Robert Torrens (1780, Ireland – 1864) was a British army officer, political economist, MP and owner of the influential Globe newspaper.

Born in Ireland of Protestant parents, Torrens achieved renown in 1811 by overseeing the defence of the Baltic island of Anholt against superior Danish forces. 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 remained a consistent critic of the "labor theory of value".

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 labourrers 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 believed to have been named after him.

His son Robert Torrens, the colonial Premier of South Australia, invented the Torrens title system of registering land titles, which is widely used in the British Commonwealth and other states (e.g. Iowa) and countries.

Works of Robert Torrens

• The Economists Refuted, 1808. ["Economists" in this context refers to supporters of the French Physiocratic theory that agriculture was the only real source of wealth.]
• An Essay on Money and Paper Currency, 1812.
• An Essay on the External Corn Trade, 1815.
• An Essay on the Production of Wealth, 1821.
• Letters on Commercial Policy, 1833.
• On Wages and Combination, 1834.
• The Principles and Practical Operation of Sir Robert Peel's Bill of 1844, 1844.

References

• Colonel Robert Torrens, 1780-1864

• Leigh Rayment's Peerage Pages