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Show OF THE HENT OF LAND. [en. 111. neral surplus fron1 the land, into the specific form of rent to a landlord.* Nor is it possible that rents should permailently remain as parts of the profits of stock, or of the wages of labour. If profits and wages were not to fall, then, without particular improven1ents in cultivation, none but the very richest lands could be brought into use. The fall of profits and 'vage~ which practically takes place, undoubtedly tra11Sfers a portion of produce to the landlord, and forms. a part, though, as we shall see farther on, only a part of his rent. But if this transfer can be consi-. dered as injt1rious to the consumers, then every increase of capital aud population must be consi~ dered as injurious; and a country 'vhich might maintain well ten n1illions of inhabitants ought to be kept down to a million. The transfer from pro-. tits al1d wages, and such a price of produce as yields • Mr. Ricardo has quite misunderstood me, when he represents :tne as saying that rent ~mmediately and necessarily rises or falls with the increased or d\mi~ished fertility of the l~pd. (p. 5()7.) How .far tny former words would bear this interpretation the reader must judge; b.ut I was pot aware that they could be so, ~onstrued; and having stated three causes as necessa~y to the prodl: lction of rent, I could not possibly have meant to say that rent would vary alw~ys and exactly in propox:tio~ to one of them. I distinctly stated, indeed, that i1.1 the early periods of society, the surplus produce from the land, or its fertility, appears but little i~ the shape of rent. Surely he has expressed hi:r;nself most inadver· tently while correcti:pg ~e, by referring to the comparative scarcity of the most ferti~e land as the o,nly ca\lse o,f ren~, (p. !)06.) although ~e ~as himself ack1;1owk~ged, that without positive .fertility, n.o :rent (:an exist. (p. 507.) If the most fertile land of any country were stil~ verr poo~, 5Uf;h COU~tr.y could yield b?~ very little fei~.t'~ SEC. II.] OF THE RENT OF LAND. 153 rent, which have been objected to as InJurious, and as depriving the consumer of vvhat it gives to the landlord, are absolutely necessary in order to obtain any considerable addition to the wealth and revenue of the first settlers in a new country ; and are the natural and unavoidable consequences of that increase of capital and population for vvhich nature has provided in the propensities of the human race. When such an accumulation of capital takes place on the lands first chosen, as to rend er the returns of the additional stock employed less than could be o btained from inferior land,* it must evidently ansvver to· cultivate such inferior land. But the cultivators of the richer land, after profits had fallen, if they paid no rent, vvould cease to be n1ere farmers, or persons living upon the profits of agricultural stock; they would evidently unite the characters of landlords and farmers-a union by no means uncommon, but vvhich does not alter in any degree the nature of rent, or its essential separation from profits and 'vages. If the profits of stock on the inferior land taken into cultivation were thirty per cent. and portions of the old land would yield forty per cent., ten per cent. of tl~e forty would obviously be rent by \vhomsoever rece1ved. When capital had further accumulated, * The immediate motive fot the cultivation of fresh land can only be the prospect of employing an increasing c~pital to greater ~dvantage than on the old land. A rise in the market-price of corQ c<:uld not alone furnish such a motive. |
