An Inquiry into the Nature and Progress of Rent, and the Principles by which it is Regulated. | Page 9

one set of people to another; but a most
real and essential part of the whole value of the national property, and
placed by the laws of nature where they are, on the land, by
whomsoever possessed, whether the landlord, the crown, or the actual
cultivator.

Rent then has been traced to the same common nature with that general
surplus from the land, which is the result of certain qualities of the soil
and its products; and it has been found to commence its separation from
profits, as soon as profits and wages fall, owing to the comparative
scarcity of fertile land in the natural progress of a country towards
wealth and population.
Having examined the nature and origin of rent, it remains for us to
consider the laws by which it is governed, and by which its increase or
decrease is regulated.
When capital has accumulated, and labour fallen on the most eligible
lands of a country, other lands less favourably circumstanced with
respect to fertility or situation, may be occupied with advantage. The
expenses of cultivation, including profits, having fallen, poorer land, or
land more distant from markets, though yielding at first no rent, may
fully repay these expenses, and fully answer to the cultivator. And
again, when either the profits of stock or the wages of labour, or both,
have still further fallen, land still poorer, or still less favourably situated,
may be taken into cultivation. And, at every step, it is clear, that if the
price of produce does not fall, the rents of land will rise. And the price
of produce will not fall, as long as the industry and ingenuity of the
labouring classes, assisted by the capitals of those not employed upon
the land, can find something to give in exchange to the cultivators and
landlords, which will stimulate them to continue undiminished their
agricultural exertions, and maintain their increasing excess of produce.
In tracing more particularly the laws which govern the rise and fall of
rents, the main causes which diminish the expenses of cultivation, or
reduce the cost of the instruments of production, compared with the
price of produce, require to be more specifically enumerated. The
principal of these seem to be four: first, such an accumulation of capital
as will lower the profits of stock; secondly, such an increase of
population as will lower the wages of labour; thirdly, such agricultural
improvements, or such increase of exertions, as will diminish the
number of labourers necessary to produce a given effect; and fourthly,
such an increase in the price of agricultural produce, from increased

demand, as without nominally lowering the expense of production, will
increase the difference between this expense and the price of produce.
The operation of the three first causes in lowering the expenses of
cultivation, compared with the price of produce, are quite obvious; the
fourth requires a few further observations.
If a great and continued demand should arise among surrounding
nations for the raw produce of a particular country, the price of this
produce would of course rise considerably; and the expenses of
cultivation, rising only slowly and gradually to the same proportion, the
price of produce might for a long time keep so much ahead, as to give a
prodigious stimulus to improvement, and encourage the employment of
much capital in bringing fresh land under cultivation, and rendering the
old much more productive.
Nor would the effect be essentially different in a country which
continued to feed its own people, if instead of a demand for its raw
produce, there was the same increasing demand for its manufactures.
These manufactures, if from such a demand the value of their amount
in foreign countries was greatly to increase, would bring back a great
increase of value in return, which increase of value could not fail to
increase the value of the raw produce. The demand for agricultural as
well as manufactured produce would be augmented; and a considerable
stimulus, though not perhaps to the same extent as in the last case,
would be given to every kind of improvement on the land.
A similar effect would be produced by the introduction of new
machinery, and a more judicious division of labour in manufactures. It
almost always happens in this case, not only that the quantity of
manufactures is very greatly increased, but that the value of the whole
mass is augmented, from the great extension of the demand for them,
occasioned by their cheapness. We see, in consequence, that in all rich
manufacturing and commercial countries, the value of manufactured
and commercial products bears a very high proportion to the raw
products;(10) whereas, in comparatively poor countries, without much
internal trade and foreign commerce, the value of their raw produce
constitutes almost the whole of their wealth. If we