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Show 316 OF THE PROFITS OF CAPITAL. [CH. V. 1naterials, \vill permanently retnain cotnparatively low. The rise of corn and l~bour at home will not proportionally raise the price of such products; and as far as. these products fonn any portion of the farn1er's capital this capital \vill be rendered n1ore productive; but leather, iron, timber, soap, candles, cottons, \Voollens, &c. &c. all enter more or less into the capitals of the farn1er, or the vvages of the labourer, and are all influenced in their prices 1nore or less by itnportation. While the value of the farn1er's produce rises, these articles \vill not rise in proportion, and consequentJy a given value of capital v;rill yield a greater value of produce. All these three circumstances, it is obvious, have a very strong tendency to counteract the effects arising fron1 the necessity of taking poorer laud into cultivation; and it will be observed that, as they are of a nature to increase in efficiency with the natural progress of population and in1proven1ent, it is not easy to say ho\v long and to what extent they n1ay balance or overcome ' them. · The reader will be a\vare that the reason why, in treating of profits, I {l\vell so n1uch on agricul- . tural profits is, that the ,vhole stress of the ques· tion rests upon this point. 1"'he argun1ent against the usual vie\v which has been taken of proiits, as depending principally upon the con1petition of capital, is founded upon the physical necessity o~ a fall of profits in ~griculture, arising fro1n the m~ · EC. 111.] OI THE PROFITS OF CAPITAL. 317 creasing quantity of labour required to procure the san1e food; and it is certain that if the profits on land permanently fall from this or any other cause, profits in n1anufactures and commerce must fall too, as it is an acknowledged truth that in an iinproved and civilized country the profits of stock, with few and tetnporary exceptions \Vhich 1nay be easily accounted for, n1ust be nearly on a level in all the different branches of industry to which capital is applied. N O\V I am fully disposed to allow the truth of this argun1ent, as appl~ed to agricultural profits, and also its natural consequences on all profits. This truth is indeed necessarily involved both in the Principle of P()pulation and in the theory of rent "\vhich I published separately in 1815. But I 'vish to she\V, theoretically as 'veil as practically, that po\verfu l and certain as this cause is, in its final operation, so n1uch so as to over\vhehn every other; yet in the actual state of the vvorld, its natural progress is not only extretnely slow, but is so frequently counteracted and overcon1e by other causes as to leave very great play to the principle of the competition of capital; so that at any one period of sotne length in the last or following hundred years, it might Inost safely be asserted that profits had depended or would depend very n1uch 1nore upon the causes vvhich had occasioned a comparatively scanty or a.bundant suEply of capital than upon the natural fertility of the land last taken into cultivation. The facts which support this position arc obvi~us • |
