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Show ( 134 ) CHA.PTER III. OF THE RENT OF LAND. SECTION I. Of the Nature and Causes of .Rent. THE rent of land may be defined to be that por- · tion of the value of the 'vhole produce \vhich remains to the o-vvner of the land, after all the outgoings belonging to its cultivation, of \vhatever kind, have been paid, including the profits of the capital employed, estimated according to the usual and ordinary rate of the profits of agricultural stock at the tin1e being. It sometimes happens that, from accidental and temporary circumstances, the farmer pays more, or less, than this; but this is the point to-vvards which the actual rents paid are constantly gravitating, · and \vhich is therefore always referred to when the terrr1 is used in a general sense. Rent then being the excess of price above what is necessary to pay the wages of the labour and the profits of the capital en1ployed in cultivation, the first object which presents itself for inquiry, is, the cause or causes of this exe~ss of price. After very careful and repeated revisions of the s.ubject, I do not find myself able to agree entirely SEC. I.] OF THE RENT OF LAND. 135 in the vie'v taken of it, either by Adatn Sn1ith, or the l~conomists; and still less, by son1e more tnodern vvriters. Aln1ost all these \Vritei·s appear to me to consider rent as too nearly resen1 bling, in its nature, and the la\vs by \Vhich it is governed, that excess of price above the cost of production, vv hich is the characteristic of a comn1on monopoly. Adan1 Smith, though in some parts of the eleventh chapter of his first book he conte1nplates rent quite in its true light,* and has interspersed through his \Vork n1ore just observations on the su_bject than any other \Vriter, has not explained the n1ost essential cause of the high price of ra\v produce \Vith sufficient distinctness, though he· often touches on it; and by applying occasionally the term n1onopoly to the rent , of land, without stopping to n1ark its n1ore radical peculiarities, he leaves the reader vvithout a definite in1pression of the real difference betw·een the cause of the high price of the necessaries of life, and of rnouopolized con1rnodities. * I cannot, however, aarre '''ith him in think'ino- that all land' 0 b which yielils food must necessarily yield rent. The land which is l:>Ucccssively taken into cultivation in improving countries, may' (mly pay profits and labour. A fair profit on the stock employed, including, of course, the payment of labour, will alway~ be a sufficient inducement to cultivate. But, practically, the cases are very rare, where land is to be had by any body who chooses to take it: and probably it 'is true, almost universally, that all appropri~tcd land which y.iel~l~ food in its natural state, always yjelds a rent, whether cultjva,ted or uncultiv~tcd. K4 |