Chap. vii. Sect. 6. BOOK I. into contact with circumstances as they exist around us, the result must have served to rouse more wary reasoners into an immediate suspicion, or rather conTwo Indi- viction, of the unsoundness of their system. The increased instance of our own country, viewed with the assistagricultural Efficiency. ance of these principles, is conclusive as to the fact, cations of that the cause erroneously assumed by Mr. Ricardo to be the sole source of every rise of rents, cannot possibly have been in action during the great elevation of rents which has actually taken place here. On this point, the example of England is the more important, because it is there alone we can observe on a scale large enough to be satisfactory, the progress of farmers' rents, and the connexion of that progress with the fortunes of the other classes of society. The Increase of Rents in England has proceeded from the Increase of Agricultural Produce. The statistical history of England presents to us, prominently, three facts; First, there has been a spread of tillage accompanied by a rise in the general rental of the country; Secondly, there has been a diminution of the proportion of the people employed in agriculture; Thirdly, there has been a decrease in the landlord's proportion of the produce. No one of these circumstances requires surely any formal proof. That there has been a great spread of tillage we know. That there has been a considerable increase in the general rental of the country, is a fact admitted by persons who hold Chap. vii. English from in Produce. the most opposite opinions as to the real causes of Book 1. that increase. That there has been a great augmentation of the relative numbers of the non-agricultural classes, is a fact almost equally notorious. Increase of The returns to the two last population acts, prove that Rents is this process is still going on. The non-agriculturists creased in England, amount at present to double the agriculturists, a proportion so widely different from that which prevails in other parts of the world, as to constitute perhaps the most striking among many peculiarities in the economical position of the English population. In France, before the Revolution, the cultivators were as 4 to 1, when compared with the rest of the people. The progress of the other classes has, since the Revolution, been extremely rapid; instead of one-fifth, they now constitute onethird of the whole population. France has, with the exception of England, the largest non-agricultural population of any considerable nation on the face of the globe. There is no reason whatever to suppose, that the cultivators of England 300 years ago, were less numerous, when compared with the rest of the English population, than those of France are now, compared with the rest of the French people. The change which has so completely reversed their relative numbers, and given so great a superiority to the other classes, has probably been long in progress, and although we know it lately to have proceeded with considerable rapidity, those movements of the different branches of the population, by which it has been effected, were probably, at the commencement, slow; but nothing very BOOK I. Chap. vii. Sect. 6.. Increase of English from increased Produce. exact can be ascertained on this point, which is not at all essential to our present purpose. The gradual diminution of the landlord's proportion of the produce has long been notorious. The following statement is from Adam Smith. After asserting, that in more ancient times, nearly the whole of the produce belonged to the landlord, he goes on to say, "In the present state of Europe, the share "of the landlord seldom exceeds a third, sometimes "not a fourth part of the whole produce of the land. "The rent of land, however, in all the improved 66 66 parts of the country, has been tripled and quadrupled since those ancient times; and this third "or fourth part of the annual produce is, it seems, "three or four times greater than the whole had "been before. In the progress of improvement, "rent, though it increases in proportion to the ex"tent, diminishes in proportion to the produce of 66 the land." Various returns made to the Board of Agriculture shew, that the third or fourth part mentioned by Adam Smith, as having become in his time the ordinary share of the landlords in the produce, is a larger proportion than they now obtain', a fact to be expected, if his doctrine, contained in the sentence just printed in Italics, be correct. 1 Some of these returns may be seen in Mr. Lowe's book, 2nd edit. p. 155. It will be observed, that the expenses only are there compared with the rent; adding profits on the lowest possible scale, it will be seen that the rent must have ordinarily been about one-fifth of the gross produce. Even this exceeds the usual calculations of some experienced land-valuers. Sect. 6. English from in In England then, rents have risen, the pro- Book I. portion of hands employed in cultivation has be- Chap. vii. come much less than formerly, and the proportion of the gross produce, taken by the landlord Increase of as rent, has diminished. It follows from the pre- Rents is ceding principles and calculations, that the general creased rise of rents which has taken place, has not "pro"ceeded from the employment of an additional quantity of labor with a proportionally less return," but from some cause or causes essentially distinct from that, and attended by opposite results. 66 66 It appears then, as the last result of our analysis, that the increased rents of this country have proceeded from better farming and greater produce1. There are persons, no doubt, and more perhaps among the ranks of the political economists of the present day than elsewhere, who will disdain conclusions so like those of the uninitiated. Those who have been trained in better schools of reasoning, must smile at such a feeling. The enquirer into the secrets of nature expects with reason that the progress of his labors will lead to the continual revelation of fresh wonders: but in ethical and political investigations, our general views must, for the most part, be founded on facts and feelings common 1 To estimate that greater produce fairly, it is always to be recollected, that we must not confine our views to the increased corn produce of small spots, although that is remarkable, but must take in the varied produce of considerable tracts; or at least, of whole farms. Produce. Chap. vii. English Rents is from in creased Produce. 6. BOOK I. to the human race, and forcing themselves into Sect. G. very general observation. On these subjects, therefore, without shewing any quarter to stubborn preIncrease of judice or brute ignorance, we may still very safely conclude that there are no symptoms of a false and diseased spirit of philosophizing so certain, as a feverish thirst for the stimulus of startling novelty; a contempt for obvious truths merely because they are already familiar; and a disposition to thrust aside, unregarded and unnoticed, any conclusions which resemble those to which every day experience and prompt spontaneous judgements have conducted the bulk of mankind. Book I. Interests of other Classes. SECTION VII. The Interests of the Landlord are not in Opposition to those of the other Classes. THERE is great reason to believe, that cases Chap. vii. Sect. 7. very rarely occur, in which the rentals of districts cultivated by farmers, increase, not because more Landlords produce has been obtained from the earth, but benot opposed to those of cause the share of the producing classes has diminished with the increasing difficulties of production. We have just seen, that in England, the only considerable country in which farmers' rents are extensively prevalent, there is strong evidence to shew that this circumstance has not, in any degree, influenced the progress of rents. Still it has been admitted, that in an extreme case, this would be a possible cause of increased rents; and the belief |