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Book I.

Chap. vii.
Sect. 6.

In the next place, if rents in a country occupied by farmers, should ever rise from that cause alone, which has been so confidently stated by Two Indi- Mr. Ricardo, to be the sole possible cause of a increased rise of rents, namely, "the employment of an adEfficiency. "ditional quantity of labor with a proportionally

dations of

agricultural

"less return," and a consequent transfer to the landlords of a part of the produce before obtained on the better soils; then the average proportion of the gross produce taken by the landlords as rent, will necessarily increase. This is almost self-evident, but it may be as well perhaps to give a short calculation. Let B, C and D, then, be soils cultivated with equal capitals, &c.; let B produce 12 quarters of corn, C 14, and D 16; then, B yielding the ordinary profits of stock, C will have 2, and D 4 quarters of corn as surplus profits or rent. The landlord's proportion of the produce of C and D taken together, will be 6 quarters out of 30, or one-fifth. During the progress of population, let it be necessary to cultivate another soil A, yielding to the same quantity of capital which is employed on B, C and D, only 8. quarters of corn. Then as 8 quarters must now yield the ordinary profits of stock on the capital employed, B, which before paid no rent, will have 4 quarters as surplus profits or rent, C 6, and D 8 quarters and the landlord will take from the soils paying rents, 18 quarters out of 42, or a fraction more than two-fifths of their gross produce, instead of one-fifth, his former proportion. And so progressively, as additional labor and capital are em

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Book I.

Chap. vii.

Sect. 6.

Two Indi

increased

ployed in tillage, with a proportionally less return, additional portions of the produce of the old soils will continue to be transferred to the landlords as surplus profits, in order to equalize the profits made cations of by all the cultivators; and a larger proportion of agricultural the whole produce will thus, step by step, assume Efficiency. the shape of rent'. In any country, therefore, in which there has been a general rise of rents, proceeding "from the employment of an additional 'quantity of labor with a proportionally less re"turn," and the consequent transmutation of a part of the produce of the old soils into rent, these two results must be observable: First, the industry of a larger proportion of the population must be devoted to agriculture; Secondly, the proportion of the gross produce paid to the landlords, as rent, must have increased. If these two results are not observable, these rents must have increased from some other cause or causes, and not from "the employment of additional labor in agriculture "with a proportionally less return;" and in that case, Mr. Ricardo and his school must have been wrong, when they supposed this last to be the only possible cause of increasing rents.

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This reasoning is so obvious, that when brought

1 Mr. Ricardo himself was perfectly aware, (indeed he could not be otherwise,) that this was a necessary conclusion from his doctrine as to the one sole cause of augmented rents. "The 66 same cause," he says, "the difficulty of production, raises "the exchangeable value of raw produce, and raises also the "proportion of raw produce paid to the landlord as rent."Ricardo on Political Econony, 2nd edit. p. 71.

Sect. 6.

BOOK I. into contact with circumstances as they exist around Chap. vii. 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 assistEfficiency. ance of these principles, is conclusive as to the fact,

cations of

agricultural

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.
Sect. 6.

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.

exact can be ascertained on this point, which is not at all essential to our present purpose.

The gradual diminution of the landlord's proIncrease of portion of the produce has long been notorious.

English

Rents is

from increased Produce.

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The

After

following statement is from Adam Smith.
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
'parts of the country, has been tripled and qua-
"drupled 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
"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 ob-
tain', a fact to be expected, if his doctrine, con-
tained 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.

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