An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent, and the Principles by which it is Regulated. | Page 6

of the persons employed on the land.
Secondly, that quality peculiar to the necessaries of life of being able to
create their own demand, or to raise up a number of demanders in
proportion to the quantity of necessaries produced.
And, thirdly, the comparative scarcity of the most fertile land.
The qualities of the soil and of its products, here noticed as the primary
causes of the high price of raw produce, are the gifts of nature to man.
They are quite unconnected with monopoly, and yet are so absolutely

essential to the existence of rent, that without them, no degree of
scarcity or monopoly could have occasioned that excess of the price of
raw produce, above the cost of production, which shows itself in this
form.
If, for instance, the soil of the earth had been such, that, however well
directed might have been the industry of man, he could not have
produced from it more than was barely sufficient to maintain those,
whose labour and attention were necessary to its products; though, in
this case, food and raw materials would have been evidently scarcer
than at present, and the land might have been, in the same manner,
monopolized by particular owners; vet it is quite clear, that neither rent,
nor any essential surplus produce of the land in the form of high profits,
could have existed.
It is equally clear, that if the necessaries of life the most important
products of land - had not the property of creating an increase of
demand proportioned to their increased quantity, such increased
quantity would occasion a fall in their exchangeable value. However
abundant might be the produce of a country, its population might
remain stationary And this abundance, without a proportionate demand,
and with a very high corn price of labour, which would naturally take
place under these circumstances, might reduce the price of raw produce,
like the price of manufactures, to the cost of production.
It has been sometimes argued, that it is mistaking the principle of
population, to imagine, that the increase of food, or of raw produce
alone, can occasion a proportionate increase of population. This is no
doubt true; but it must be allowed, as has been justly observed by
Adam Smith, that 'when food is provided, it is comparatively easy to
find the necessary clothing and lodging. And it should always be
recollected, that land does not produce one commodity alone, but in
addition to that most indispensable of all commodities - food - it
produces also the materials for the other necessaries of life; and the
labour required to work up these materials is of course never excluded
from the consideration.(6)
It is, therefore, strictly true, that land produces the necessaries of life,

produces food, materials, and labour, produces the means by which,
and by which alone, an increase of people may be brought into being,
and supported. In this respect it is fundamentally different from every
other kind of machine known to man; and it is natural to suppose, that
it should be attended with some peculiar effects.
If the cotton machinery, in this country, were to go on increasing at its
present rate, or even much faster; but instead of producing one
particular sort of substance which may be used for some parts of dress
and furniture, etc. had the qualities of land, and could yield what, with
the assistance of a little labour, economy, and skill, could furnish food,
clothing, and lodging, in such proportions as to create an increase of
population equal to the increased supply of these necessaries; the
demand for the products of such improved machinery would continue
in excess above the cost of production, and this excess would no longer
exclusively belong to the machinery of the land.(7)
There is a radical difference in the cause of a demand for those objects
which are strictly necessary to the support of human life, and a demand
for all other commodities. In all other commodities the demand is
exterior to, and independent of, the production itself; and in the case of
a monopoly, whether natural or artificial, the excess of price is in
proportion to the smallness of the supply compared with the demand,
while this demand is comparatively unlimited. In the case of strict
necessaries, the existence and increase of the demand, or of the number
of demanders, must depend upon the existence and increase of these
necessaries themselves; and the excess of their price above the cost of
their production must depend upon, and is permanently limited by, the
excess of their quantity above the quantity necessary to maintain the
labour required to produce them; without which excess of quantity no
demand could have existed, according to the laws of nature, for more
than was necessary to support the