other part of the world, is too certain and too cogent an answer to this criticism. I shall but just ask one other question,-Will Mr Buchanan contend that a country can attain to as great wealth under bad laws and institutions, and with a bad soil, climate, and situation, as under the contrary in all these respects ? If he would, I shall beg leave to refer him to the last chapter of the first book of this Inquiry, and desire him to answer, not my arguments, but the arguments he will there find collected from Mr Hume, Dr Smith, and Mr Malthus. It is true indeed, as was before explained,* that a country under good government can never, strictly speaking, become absolutely stationary, but must continue necessarily, from the principles of human nature, to improve and increase indefinitely both in wealth and population; but then we must remember the mode and nature of that increase which must come at last, as was shown, to be so very slow, as to be almost, if not altogether, insensible. And this should, I think, be sufficient to vindicate Dr Smith in the language he has used; for I believe it will not be disputed, that such an indefinitely small increase as is here admitted to be possible, even in the last and highest stage of national improvement, should not hinder but that we may speak in a loose and general way, and in order to illustrate a particular subject, which was Dr Smith's intention, of a country advanced to that point, as having acquired its full complement of riches, in comparison with others which are still at a great distance from it, and which consequently still retain the capability of improving and increasing very largely and rapidly both in wealth and population. To return :-There is just one observation more I would wish to make, before concluding, upon this new theory of See book i. chap. 10, sect. 4, and book ii. chap. 5. the causes which force down the rate of profit. No theory, I will venture to affirm, was ever conceived or constructed in a spirit of such utter contempt and defiance of experience and fact. A slight retrospective glance at the history of interest for the last hundred years will render this apparent. During that period we have been uniformly increasing our population and extending our agriculture, but we have not observed any thing like a concomitant sinking of interest. On the contrary, we have seen, that uniformly, during the continuance of peace, and when capital was accumulating, interest gradually sunk, and as uniformly during war it again rose, in consequence of the expenditure and diminution of capital. In 1812, for example, interest was as high as five per cent.; whereas in 1732, when our population was less by several millions, and when our agriculture was consequently much less extended over the poorer soils, interest was as low as three per cent. In denying, therefore, the effects of the accumulation of capital, and referring exclusively to its productiveness as applied to and extended over the land, the Ricardo economists have endeavoured to establish a distinction without a difference, and to substitute a theory which is not only obscure and far-fetched, but really inapplicable to things as they are, for one which is simple and obvious, and which agrees in every particular with the phenomena to be accounted for. CHAPTER VII. OF THE RENT OF LAND. SECTION I. RENT DEFINED. THE rent of land is that portion (or the price or value of that portion) of the produce raised from it, which is over and above what is required to pay the wages and interest of as much labour and capital as is necessary to cultivate it, to replace the capital employed, and to draw the returns in its actual condition and circumstances.* Rent, as the term is commonly used, means the price, whatever that may be, which is agreed upon between landlord and tenant, to be paid annually by the latter to the former for the use of his land in its actual condition and circumstances; but as the principle of competition causes this price (which is the actual rent) either perfectly to coincide with or very nearly to approximate the precise portion of produce indicated by the definition just given, it is that portion, or the price or value of that portion, which is to be considered as the natural rent of land, or which is to be esteemed rent by the landlord who farms his own land. "Rent," therefore, as Dr Smith has observed, "considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord Including, of course, situation or local position under these terms. endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle, and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming-stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself, without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the same thing, whatever part of its price, is over and above this share, be naturally endeavours to reserve to himself as the rent of his land, which is evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality, more frequently the ignorance of the landlord, makes him accept of somewhat less than this portion; and sometimes too, though more rarely, the ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake to pay somewhat more, or to content himself with somewhat less, than the ordinary profits of farming-stock in the neighbourhood. This portion, however, may still be considered as the natural rent of land, or the rent for which it is naturally meant that land should for the most part be let.”* Mr Ricardo is, however, not satisfied with this statement, or with the definition comprised in it, and he therefore advances and endeavours to establish another in its stead, as follows:-" Rent," he says, "is that portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil."+ Nothing can be more futile and absurd than this definition, or more vain and useless than the attempt to distinguish what is paid for the land independent of any clearing, draining, or any other improvements or meliorations made upon it by human labour and capital, from what is paid on • Wealth of Nations, book i. chap. 11. the distinct consideration of such improvements, or for the land as it actually is in its improved state. For what is it, I should like to be informed, that Mr Ricardo means by "the original and indestructible powers of the soil ?"—Or how much rent is ever paid for these powers where they have not been in any degree improved, or where no labour or capital has ever been bestowed on the land which claims them ?-A field, we shall suppose, is cleared of wood, enclosed, drained, and by a few years' judicious cropping, is brought to a high degree of fertility, and lets accordingly for a proportionably high rent. What, I should beg leave to inquire, is to be considered as the rent of this land according to Mr Ricardo's definition ?—Or what part of its present fertility is to be ascribed to its "original and indestructible powers," and what to the factitious improvements made upon it ?-The improvements made upon this field (or upon any other field or farm, or upon the whole land of the country) are none of them "indestructible." By neglect alone they will most of them go to decay and ruin, and the land will fall back to its antecedent waste and unprofitable state. The best of it, however, is, that even if the most correct answers could be given to the questions just put, it would be of no earthly use in the adjustment of this matter. Suppose it were possible to distinguish and exactly to ascertain what part of the value and fertility of the land were owing to its "original and indestructible powers," and what to those that have been added to it by the art and industry of man, it would not be of the smallest advantage or utility in the settlement of this question. And why ?-Because, when capital is once sunk upon the land, and rendered inseparable from it, it is identified with the land, and the revenue arising from it becomes subject to all the laws which influence or regulate rent, and it is therefore as properly rent as any other portion of the revenue of land. |