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Show 170 OF THE RENT OF LAND. [ CH. II I. irnproven1ents, which were the effects of so powerful an encouragen1ent to agriculture, have acted like the creation of fresh land, and have increased the .real wealth and population of the -country, without increasing the labour and difficulty of raising a given quantity of grain. It is obvious then that a fall in the value of the precious metals, co1nmencing 'vi th a rise in the price of corn, has a strong tendency, vvhile it lasts, to encourage the cultivation of fresh land and the formation of increased rents. A silnilar effect would be produced in a country which continued to feed its o\vn people, by a great and increasing den1and fori ts manufactures. These manufactures, if from such a demand the value of their amount in foreign countries was greatly to increase, would bring back a great increase of value in return, \vhich increase of .value could not fall to increase the value of the raw produce. The demand for agricultural as well as tnanufactured produce vvould be augmented; and a considerable stimulus, , though not perhaps to the san1e extent as in the last case, .would be given to every kind of in1proveinent on the land. Nor \Vould the result be very different fron1 the introduction of ne\v n1achinery, and a more j udicious division of labour in n1anu factures. It aln1ost always happens in this case, not only that the quantity of n1anufactures is very greatly increased, but that the value of the \Vhole n1ass is augmented, frotn the great extension of the den1and for then1 both abroad and at no1\1e, occasioned by SEC. III.] OF THE RENT OF IJAND. 171 their cheapness. We see, in consequence, that in all rich manufacturing and commercial countries, the value of manufactured and commercial products bears a very high proportion to the ra\v products;* whereas, in cotnparatively poor countries, without much internal trade and foreign comtnerce, the value of their raw produce constitutes almost the whole of their wealth. In those cases where the stimulus to agriculture originates in a prosperous state of commerce and Inanufactures, it sometimes happens that the first step towards a rise of prices is an advance in the \vages of commercial and n1anufacturing labour. This will naturally have an immediate effect upon the price of corn, and an ad vance of agricultural labour will follow. It is not, ho,;vever, necessary, even in those cases, that labour should rise first. If, for instance, the population were increasing as fast as the tnercantile and manufacturing capita], the only effect might .be an increasing number of workmen e1nployed at the same wages, which ' vould occasion a rise in the price of corn before any rise had taken place in the wages of labouL We are supposing, however, now, that labourdoes ultimately rise nearly to its fortner level com .... pared \vith corn, that both are considerably higher,. * According to the calculations of Mr. Colquhoun, the value of our trade, foreign and domestic, and of our manufactures, ex-.. elusive of raw materials, is nearly equal to the gross value derived from the land. In no other large country probably is this the case.-Treatise on the Wealth, Power, and Resources of the British Empire, p. 96. |
