mand, or inaccessible to demand, or in a climature that mars occasionally the fertility of the soil. Of land of the first-rate quality, beyond the reach of demand, or inaccessible to a demand, there are thousands of acres unculti vated in North America. In that country, as in every other, the banks of the navigable rivers, without reference to the quality of the soil, were the first cultivated. Those lands alone in the vicinity of the American towns bear a rent, whether of the first, second, or third quality. * But further, lands of the first quality never can come first into cultivation. It requires a very advanced progress in Agriculture to be able to cultivate them. It is the thin, dry, every-day ploughable land that is first cultivated. The rich lands require draining, and an attention to the wet or dry condition of the soil, before they can be brought to produce abundant crops; and the plough and the horses must be of a superior kind to what are used in the first stages of rural culture. We, at this day, see the ancient vestiges of the plough, high up on the dry sides of our hills, where now-adays no person thinks of turning up the soil. In those ancient times, the holm, haugh, or flat rich lands, were not cultivated. The rich soils of the Carse of Gowrie were, to the extent of one-third, not in cultivation ninety years ago; yet the dry lands of Perthshire had long before been completely occupied. The vale of the Garonne, the richest land in France, only came into full cultivation after the formation of the great canal and the beautiful roads of Languedoc; yet the records of Estates in Burgundy prove that the whole of the dry limestone soils of that district were occupied in corn and vines three hundred years ago. It is within our own recollection, that two-thirds of the fen lands of Lincolnshire (certainly the most fertile soil in England) were not in cultivation. The rich plains of Lombardy were brought into their present state only after the completion of the Naviglio grande," in 1270, which conveys the waters of the Tesino to Milan, a distance of thirty miles; but long before that period, land of the second and third quality on light dry surfaces was in extensive tillage. It is most strange that Ricardo should have been so ignorant of rural affairs, as to form a theory on the supposition that it was practicable, in the first stages of Agriculture, to cultivate rich soils. But his views were clearly limited to a vague notion of North American culture, of which we have all read so much, but of which few have a correct idea; for he writes of our rich soils wearing out, and never considers that inferior soils, in an improved state of agriculture, are always approaching to a higher scale of fertility. Universally, it is the demand for the produce of the soil, and cheapness and facility to supply that demand, which create rent, or a remuneration given to the owner, for the use of the ground, by him who thinks he can turn a profit out of the land by the employment of his capital, his industry, skill, and labour. All your volumes of definitions of the nature of Rent are idle discussions, that have embarrassed the plainest and most commonsense subject. They have led only to false theories, and from such theories we need not be surprised that the most absurd, however ingenious, deductions have been the result. They remind me of a grave leading article in the Scotsman newspaper some months ago, in which is discussed, in sober seriousness, the question of a wine-merchant demanding a higher price for wine kept by him beyond the usual time of the trade. The writer of the article hesitates to pronounce what constitutes the additional price which Master Boniface's wine-merchant exacts for his old wine. Mr Ricardo and his followers have never yet declared whether money obtained for the use of pasture-land is Rent. The new school preserve a most profound silence on this point, although it constitutes the riches of a great portion of the most fertile soils in Europe: The province of Holland, the plains of Holstein, Lombardy, Romney Marsh in England, extensive tracts in Hungary, in Switzerland, in Bohemia ;-in short, there is no part of Europe that does not contain a large portion of pasture ground of as great fertility as are the arable grounds which yield what we call Rent. Suppose I have a large island entirely in pasture, rich in meadows for cattle, with dry upland feeding for horses, and high down pasture for sheep: Suppose my tenants send annually for sale, cattle, sheep, and horses, to Kent, or to any other county, and purchase in return, wheat, barley, hops, and clothing; bringing back also some money in their pockets, part of which they pay to me for the use of my land: Come forward now, ye deep-thinking scholars of the new school, and pronounce, Is this money paid to me as Rent, or is it not? We of the old school call it simply rent; nay, more, we say, that if there be a demand for sheep, my high down pasture may command a rent at 3s. per acre, before I can let my rich meadows for L.3 per acre, although my rich meadow may have been in grass as many centuries as the meadows of the province of Holland. In this province, nineteentwentieth parts have been in grass for ages, while, at the same time, the poor soils of Guelderland have, time out of mind, been tortured by the plough. Are we, by the Ricardo theory, to put the rich meadows of Holland out of the pale of rent; and admit, that the miserable sands of Guelderland yield a rent, because land of the first, and second, and third quality, (or any lower number in the scale of fertility,) have been previously completely occupied ? Now to the grand corollary on this precious theory, which every newspaper repeats from shreds and remnants collected from reviews on Political Economy. When the demand for land of the second or third quality allows a rent for land of the first quality, the cultivator of the inferior soil must receive a greater remunerating price for his produce, than did the cultivator of the superior soil before the poor soil was cultivated: Or when land of an inferior quality is cultivated, the deficient produce, compared to that of superior land, demands a higher price to remunerate its cultivator. He cultivates because there is a demand for corn, and if he were not remunerated he would cease to cultivate. Hence corn from the whole superior soil must rise in price to the remunerating price of the inferior. In other words, the cultivation of poor soil taxes the whole community with an additional price for corn produced from all the good, all the middling, and all the inferior soils, be cause the cultivation of the last must be indemnified; and as there cannot be two prices, the whole cultivators must partake of this increased price, nor can there be two rates of profits or remunerating prices. I have placed this stronghold of the new school in every light in which the scholars exhibit it, and I trust your readers thoroughly understand pears more strange to me, than that this curious proposition. Nothing aphave enlisted under the banners of the many of my ardent acute friends, who whole theory hinges on false premises. new school, do not perceive that the It is a mere assumption, a sheer begging the question, that the demand the supposition of a constant demand for corn is constant ; and it is only on such an argument can be grounded. above the supply, that any shadow of In given to cultivation by the Corn Laws, consequence of the encouragement we have, in spite of a rapid increase of ourselves with corn without the aid our population, been able to supply of foreign importations; and the result was, that the price of wheat has twice within these few years been below what any of the corn-importing school dare avow they wish corn to be in this country. Yet during that time and whether with or without a remupoor soils were in full cultivation; nerating price, their produce, when brought to market, as every sensible person would conclude, was obliged is, that price which depends upon the to submit to the market price; that proportion of supply to the demand. All other speculations on price are nonsense. If there be an axiom in Political Economy which approximates to certainty, it is this. Whatever is the produce of human industry, be it the very rude stones dug out of the corn, or cattle, or manufactures, or earth; everything brought to market, will be regulated in price by the ratio in defiance of the cost of production, of the demand to the supply. That tainly the boldest, yet the most ingecorn should form an exception, is cerin our day on the common sense of nious imposition that has been made mankind. result in figures: Suppose the produce Their proposition amounts to this of Great Britain was last year (1826) twelve millions of quarters of wheat, raised from land of the first quality : and that the inferior soils produced half a million of quarters of wheat: Suppose this inferior land required the price of wheat to be five shillings per quarter above the price which would indemnify land of the first quality, that the cultivators of the inferior land might be remunerated; then, by the Ricardo theory, the whole wheat of the country would rise in price five shillings per quarter, because half a million of quarters (one twenty-fourth part of the whole, a large allowance from poor soils) costs that additional price. That is, the nation pays three millions extra to the cultivators of fine soils, because an additional expense of L.125,000 is incurred by the cultivators of poor soils. Now, let us suppose that the demand continues for this quantity of wheat, and this year, 1827, the cultivation of the same quantity of poor soil continues; but, by the blessing of Providence, the produce from the first quality of soil rises to thirteen and a half millions of quarters of wheat, and the poor soils yield 600,000 quarters, at only four shillings additional expense above the superior soils, (on account of the increased productiveness by reason of the fine season)-With this increased quantity of one-thirteenth on the whole produce (nearly equal, it is said, to our highest importation quantity), suppose that the supply is rather above the demand: Come forward, ye expounders of the new doctrine, and tell us in plain intelligible terms, Will the cultivators of the poor soils, in the year 1827-28, raise the price of the whole fourteen millions of quarters four shillings per quarter, because they raised 600,000 quarters from poor soils at this additional expense? When the market is full, week after week, will their small quantity bear a sway so as to command the price over the whole produce of the country? If the doctrine of remuneration for raising corn on poor soils be true to the proportion of one twenty-fifth part of the whole produce of Great Britain, it must, in like manner, be true, when the produce of poor soils bears the smallest proportion to that of rich soils; as one to a hundred, or one to a thousand. A Theory on which a science of certainty is founded, must be true to the greatest or to the smallest proportions. It can have no limits, else that Theory is false; but if we refer this question, as well as most others in Political Economy, to the well-known principles of supply and demand, everything becomes clear, plain, and simple, and true to the uttermost extreme to which we may push the application of those principles. Suppose once more, that the late scarcity of water were to continue, and to increase to a very great extent, and that water were in demand at one penny per gallon; water, we must allow, is more necessary than corn, be cause we can live on roast beef and mutton, but we cannot bake our wheat without water: Suppose several huge joint-stock water-drawing companies started up, dug immense pits, erected steam-engines, and contrived to draw water at a pretty tight joint-stock-like cost; but to remunerate them, it required that their water should sell for one penny farthing per gallon-are we to conclude, upon the Ricardo theory of corn prices, that all the water of the country must rise a farthing per gallon, because our water-drawers of the joint-stock race must be remunerated for drawing out of their wells one millionth part of the whole water drank by the community? The favourite result of these speculations of the new school, on Rent and on the Corn Laws, is to put down the cultivation of bad land; to open our ports to foreign corn; to send our dismissed poor-soil cultivators to the 90 degrees heated manufacturing mills; to reimburse, out of the increased manufactures, the growers of corn abroad for what we purchase from them; to encourage the foreigner's industry, and his means of purchasing our manufactures; and finally, to increase our wealth and comforts, by encouraging a reciprocity of industry between the two nations directly, or indirectly, through the medium of a third nation. The Chinese hinted repeatedly to Lord M'Cartney their extreme contempt for foreign commerce: "That beggarly foreign trade, of what value is it to the mighty empire of the great Kien-Long?" Well!" I dare exclaim, "what is your beggarly export of manufactures, compared to the home-consumption?" I shall give you a simple ground of comparison. Take the population of Great Britain alone at twelve millions-Examine a British family-a man, his wife, and three children, the common computation of a family-Value the worth of British manufactures, with which they are clothed-Examine in any country in Europe, any number of families, and take an average of the value of British manufactures, as clothing, in their possession-we shall not find a twelfth part of our manufactures on a foreign family compared to one at home. Now, the result is, that in clothing alone, our people consume annually more than do 144 millions of foreigners, without taking into account the household manufactures used by the British families. I leave after this the telescopic Economists to amuse themselves in spying out valuable customers for Manchester and Glasgow among the miserable serfs of Poland. But we have too many manufacturers of fancy goods already, compared to the rest of the community; and such a population is the most dangerous for security of person or property. In every period of six or seven years, a check at the point of extreme employment, suddenly shakes credit, public and private, to the foundation. Thousands of unemployed workmen are thrown upon the world in want and in despair, and the State has to contend against the most hazardous of all public evils-a great population in want of food. But we must owe all these evils to the Corn Laws!! Have the Corn Laws kept down the cotton weaver's wages to seven or eight shillings a-week for some years past? Did the Corn Laws import into Glasgow some thousands of linen weavers from the North of Ireland, and convert them into cotton weavers? Why have the linen weavers of Dunfermline, of Kirkaldy, and of the towns in Forfarshire, never suffered distress? Did the Corn Laws export cargo after cargo of Manchester and Glasgow cotton goods to South America, and double and triple their powerful machinery in consequence-to South America, I say, from whence the value of the packing-cases has never yet been received in return? We of the old school imagine we can solve these questions distinctlybut we dread coming before the tribunal of the new school, lest we might be interrogated on that puzzling question, and display our ignorance as to what constitutes the advanced price which Mr Magnum demands for a hogshead of (what, alas! we cannot afford to taste) his prime 1815!!! X.X. Our Correspondent has here done all that ingenuity can do against truth; for that, he must allow us to say, rests impregnably with the new school, “Si Pergama dextrâ," &c. The sum of his opposition to the new doctrine of Rent, (which doctrine, though adopted and applied to most important consequences by Mr Ricardo, is not originally his, or claimed by him, but is Sir Edward West's,) lies in two arguments: 1st, That the several qualities of soil were not brought into cultivation agreeably to the order assumed by Mr R., viz. the best soil first, the second best next, and so on. Possibly this is true; but it makes no iota of difference in the doctrine; let the order of development have been what it may, the difference is no less real between one soil and another, and the difference is all that is essential to the new doctrine of Rent. Let the order of cultivation assumed by Mr R. have been even absolutely inverted, and every consequence will still arise just as before. 2d, He puts a case, the substance of which may be briefly stated thus:Edinburgh wants ten millions quarts of water, which can be furnished at one penny each. Afterwards Edinburgh wants one thousand quarts more, which cannot be furnished at less than one penny farthing. Now, is that any reason, says he, why the ten million men should renounce their advantage, and raise their price by a farthing in order to countenance the thousand men? This is his question. But he forgets one little thing. Before any man would think of producing the last thousand quarts, the ten millions must have been found insufficient for the demand; that insufficiency would express itself by a rise in the market price of the ten millions. This rise would act as a summons to the production of the last thousand quarts, and would take place not after (as our correspondent supposes the Ricardian to say) but before the production of that last thousand. That this increased price would be sustained after the supply was equalized with the demand, is evident, because the penny men could not without driving return to their old price, and undersell the penny-farthing men, them out of the market; since a penny-farthing, by the supposition, is the least sum that will pay profits and wages on the thousand quarts. But the pennyfarthing men cannot be driven out of the market, because the whole product by the very terms of the case is no more than sufficient for the demand; and if for a moment they should be driven out of the market, the increase of price consequent on insufficient supply would immediately recall them. In this state of things, the landlords of that land, or of those wells which produce the ten million quarts, finding that the producers have an advantage over the thousand quart men, step in and demand the whole difference between them, viz. a farthing and so commences Rent. For those who raise water at a penny-farthing have the ordinary rate of profits; and therefore those who can raise it at a penny, have more than the ordinary rate by a farthing. This rent becomes confirmed by contracts; and after that all attempts to undersell become impossible, except by sacrificing some part of the ordinary rate of profit. Such is our answer to his case of the water. His other case of the wheat is precisely the same in so much of it as relates to the question at issue. But he has here employed the sophisma per plures interrogationes, having complicated the true question regarding the natural price with another and irrelevant one about the market price. A Smithian, however, he must recollect, is as little entitled to confound these two modes of price as a Ricardian. We shall answer him by distinguishing his two questions. First, will the price (i. e. the natural price) of the whole fourteen million quarters rise by the additional four shillings required to produce the last six hundred thousand quarters? Answer-Undoubtedly it will. And this is the question we have already answered in the case of the water. Secondly, Because by the supposition there is an excess of supply beyond the demand, will the price (i. e. the market price) fall in consequence of that excess? Answer-Undoubtedly; it will fall, say five, ten, fifteen, or any number of shillings answerable to that excess; but it will always fall by four shillings less than it would have fallen but for the last six hundred thousand quarters. Our excellent correspondent will find it vain to kick against these irresistible doctrines. But he must allow us to add, that the old theory of Rent is not (as he supposes) opposed to the new theory, but simply different from it. Adam Smith did not deny anything essential to the new views; he merely overlooked something, viz. the fact of the different rates of fertility in the soil. Neither did he uniformly overlook this; some things which, he says, imply that he had a glimpse of it; and with regard to mines, he was pretty sensible of this scale of differences, and of its consequences.-C. N. |