Chap. vii. Landlords etors, which are in truth only so many indications Book I and effects of a great and most desirable increase Sect. 7. in the resources of the country. And when discussions have arisen as to practical measures, the Interests of same mistaken views and feelings have evidently not opposed served, first to make one party querulous and angry, other and then the other, as if in self-defence, suspicious and reluctant. to those of Classes. SECTION VIII. Summary of Farmer's Rents. Chap. vii. THE fact that these rents prevail almost exclu- BOOK I. sively in England, is sufficient to fix upon them earnest attention. They deserve it on another ac count. Sect. 8. Summary Rents. There are indications, faint in some quar- of Farmer's ters, stronger in others, but discernible in many, that the European nations will all, sooner or later, approach partially, at least, to a similar system. We have shewn reasons for believing, that their progress towards it will on the whole be very slow; but still it is not the less true that the composition and capabilities of countries in which farmer's rents prevail, must be distinctly understood, if we would thoroughly comprehend either the peculiar economical condition of our own country, or the probable direction and character of the future career of our neighbors. It certainly will be wise, while devoting ourselves to this task, not to repeat an error which U Chap. vii. Sect. 8. BOOK I. has blinded many late writers to truths of a yet more general application: which has led them, while speculating on circumstances peculiar to themSummary, selves, sometimes wholly to neglect those ruder and Rents. more prevalent systems, the results of which decide of Farmer's the fortunes and condition of the largest portion of the human race: at other times, to confound and confuse things and circumstances essentially different, under the cover of imperfect analogies, made more illusory by the careless use of general terms, and idle attempts to reason deductively from them. We are all, as Englishmen, occasionally more liable than could be wished, to some of these mistakes; we are much too prone to consider the state of society in which we exist as a type of all others, and this narrow and mistaken assumption is necessarily the parent of much ignorance and many errors. England is, in fact, at the extreme end and verge of the economical career of nations, as far as that career is yet known; at a point not yet reached by any other considerable community; and one which has placed her in a position, if not more desirable, yet very different from theirs1. We see men here, in agriculture as well as in all the other branches of human industry, aiding their native powers of production by the use of an unusually large mass of accumulated stock, which the 1 I ought, perhaps, to except the Low Countries; but I shall have occasion to shew hereafter, that although farmers rents prevail extensively in those countries, their economical position is still very different from that of England. Sect. 8. Summary skill and invention of successive generations has BOOK I. been tasked so to apply, as to add gradually but Chap. vii. constantly to the productive powers of the existing race. This capital, and the power it has created, in of Farmer's their separate application to the art of agriculture, Rents. enable the soil to support a population, of which the whole amount is triple that of the cultivators. The owners of an imposing mass of accumulated force, themselves maintain and employ the whole of the industrious population. The proprietors of the soil are no longer exclusively either rulers in peace, or leaders in war, and are not the direct sources of subsistence to any part of the population. The nation is influenced by revenues, as it is governed by institutions, in estimating which, the landowners appear only as a part. The national territory, and the estates of the proprietors of land, preserve of course precisely the same extent, while the wealth and numbers of classes wholly independent of the soil, are swelling and multiplying almost indefinitely. Are the fortunes of the landowners in the mean while stationary? Do they sink gradually into insignificance? Do they cease to occupy a useful and prominent station in the community? None of these things happen. By the consequences of a part of the physical constitution of the earth, from the effects of which communities of men could not escape, were they perverse enough to wish it, the landed body preserves a wholesome and modified, though no more an exclusive influence; and its members remain 2 Exclusive of menial servants, of course. Chap. vii. Sect. 8. BOOK I. important elements of a society, in which they are no longer dominant. As the knowledge and skill of the cultivators discover the means of applying a of Farmer's fair portion of the increasing capital of the comSummary, Rents. munity to the important purpose of bringing into play the latent powers of the soil, and of enlarging the means of supporting a growing nation, a new species of rent exclusively prevails: the fresh power thus applied, forcing greater results from the better soils, produces a fund which forms no part of the ordinary remuneration, either of the laborers who till the lands, or of the capitalists who maintain, direct and assist them, and when once identified with this fund, of which we have seen that the progress and amount are quite indefinite, the incomes of the landlords continue progressive with the advancing resources of the country. It is thus that that inequality in the productive powers of different portions of the earth's surface, which at the commencement of the agricultural labors of mankind, exercises no perceptible influence on the origin or on the forms of rent, and but little on its variations, shews at last its peculiar importance; and during the matured and improved advance of nations, is sufficient of itself to secure for the landed body, a steady and necessary, though a limited and innoxious advance of their incomes. We have already seen the utter fallacy of the notion, that this progress must be attended at every step with a decrease in the productiveness of the soils which govern prices, or with a consequent pressure on the means of any class of society. Book I. Observations on some circumstances in the actual Chap. vii. position of England. Sect. 8. Position of In surveying this subject of farmers rents, it England. is not easy, perhaps it is not desirable, to avoid quitting the contemplation of them in a general and abstract point of view, for the purpose of applying the principles which arise out of that survey to the case of England, and to the peculiarities of its actual condition and meaning to steer as clear as possible of every thing commonly called politics, there are a few observations of this description which I cannot turn aside from making. It is, we have seen, on the increasing wealth and progressive skill of the agricultural capitalist, the farmer, that the steady progress of the landed body is independent. Not a step can be made in agriculture, not one improvement, not a single portion of new power introduced into the art of cultivation, which does not, if generally adopted, by its unequal effects over the surface of the country, raise the mass of rents. The property and the energy and mental activity of the farmers, are thus the mainstay, the sole permanent reliance of the landlords. Every circumstance which diminishes the means, the security, or the hopefulness and energy of these agents of cultivation, must be proportionably detrimental to the best interests of the proprietors. I think there is little doubt, that if the changes and fluctuations which have occurred since the peace, had not crippled the means and damped the enterprise of the farmers, they would, by spreading improved |