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acting simultaneously, and affecting large surfaces, and many from different periods. The removal of the overslaugh in the Hudson, below Albany, would add something to the value of every bushel of corn that passes through the Erie canal, and, of course, to that of the land on which it is grown: a break in that canal, interrupting its navigation for a week, is felt in every grain market in the Old Northwest Territory.

The only way to assign their proper influence to causes of such wide operation, is to take a large territory, and compare the price at which it is estimated, with that of the labour expended in its various improvements. Let us take the State of New York as an example. The cash value of the farms of this State, as ascertained by the census of 1850, is $554,546,642. The entire assessed value of real estate, as returned to the State Comptroller in the Fall of 1851, is $907,571,695. If we add the assessed value of the city property to that of the farms, as ascertained by the United States' census, it will exceed the aggregate valuation derived from the assessment rolls. These valuations were made by different officers, for different purposes, and in mutual ignorance of each other's ascertained results. The State assessment was made under a law passed subsequent to the taking of the census, and the information obtained by the census was not published until a year after the valuation by the County assessors. The latter is likely to be too low; the estimate of the marshals who took the census, being founded upon the statements of proprietors, not prone to depreciate their own farms, is quite likely to be high enough. That there is no greater discrepancy between the two, affords a strong presumption that neither is very remote from the truth. Nevertheless, to avoid all cavil, we propose to assume $1,200,000,000 as the value of the soil of New York, in its existing condition as to buildings and other improvements, public and private. This would pay for the labour of one million of men, working three hundred days in the year, at one dollar per day, for four years.

Let any one now picture the State as it was the day that Hendrick Hudson cast anchor in the Bay of Manhattan, and then consider whether a million of men could fell the forests, drain the swamps, make the roads, canals, and railways, quarry the stone, burn the

bricks, cut and saw the timbers, erect the buildings, public and private, and execute all the work, that has made the Empire State out of the hunting-grounds of the Iroquois and the Delawares, in four years, or in ten years. No one will conclude it possible, after a deliberate survey of the multitude of things to be accomplished. Still less will he believe that the labour which has actually been expended upon the soil, can be adequately represented by as low a figure as that of a million of men for four years. The work was, in point of fact, wrought with inferior machinery and inferior mechanical skill to that which the labourer of the present day brings to his task; and, therefore, absorbed a much greater quantity of muscular exertion than would now be expended in reproducing the same effects.

We might take State after State, and exhibit the same discrepancy between the labour actually expended in the improvement of the soil, and that which its soil, covered with the improvements, would command if offered for sale. If there is anything peculiar to the States of our Confederacy, more than the fact that we can obtain more accurate statistics in regard to them than to the countries of the Old World, it is a circumstance which prevents them from exhibiting as great a deficiency in the value of their soil, compared with the cost of its improvements, as the kingdoms of Europe. The cultivation of the United States was begun and carried on by people, who were in an advanced state of civilization at the outset. If we take such a country as England, and endeavour to estimate the labour expended upon it since the landing of Julius Cæsar, we shall find that it must exceed enormously the amount of labour for which it would now exchange. The entire value of the real estate of Great Britain and Ireland, including mines, roads, &c., is estimated by statisticians at about £2,000,000,000 sterling, say, $10,000,000,000. This would purchase the labour of five millions of men for ten years, at the average wages of two hundred dollars per annum, Can any one believe this to be any approximation to the amount of labour which, during the eighteen centuries since the Roman invasion, has been devoted to the amelioration of the soil, or even to the amount of the better instructed and equipped labour of the present day, that would be requisite for reproducing the United Kingdom, if it

could be set back to its condition in the days of Hengist and Horsa? The difference between the two is enormous; for the labour of the Saxons, the Danes, and the Normans, was done with wretched tools, and was therefore inefficient, compared with that of the modern Englishman.

No case can be found, which would lead to an inference different from that we deduce from the preceding. It is that land, like everything else, owes its value to the labour expended in producing its existing condition; and that its value is continually falling, because less labour is continually required to bring into activity an equal mass of vegetative power. The same labour which one generation expended upon the thin soils of the uplands, suffices, with their improved machinery, and increased co-operation of natural agents, to enable its children to subdue and till the valleys, in which Nature has accumulated the elements of fertility, that have washed for ages from the slopes above. Land, like air, the principle of gravitation, and the other natural agents, is without value; that is derived only from the accumulated labour that has been combined with it, whether by actual incorporation with its substance, or in improvements, like roads and canals, the advantages of which are spread over large districts. The drainage of one man's swampy-land relieves his neighbour from the fogs which it engendered, and thereby not only promotes his health and physical strength, but increases his crops; for the mists which bring ague to man bring mildew and rust to grain.

Having established the truth that capital in land is not to be discriminated, in quality, from capital in movable things, we ought to find that the law regulating its use is the same. In the progress of improvement, Rent should constitute a decreasing proportion of the crop, though its absolute amount should increase; while, both the proportion and the absolute quantum of the labourer who tills the land should be enlarged. The absence of facts exhibiting such a tendency, would be inconsistent with the truth of the proposition; their existence is incompatible with a contrary supposition, like that of Mr. Ricardo, that Rent is paid for certain fancied "original and indestructible powers of the soil". for something valuable which remains in it, after all that it owes to labour has been subtracted.

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Mr. Ricardo, as we have seen, has stated his theory in the following

terms:

"With every step in the progress of population, which shall oblige a country to have recourse to land of a worse quality to enable it to raise its supply of food, rent on all the more fertile land will rise.

"Thus, suppose land-No. 1, 2, 3-to yield, with an equal employment of capital and labour, a net produce of 100, 90, and 80 quarters of corn. In a new country, where there is an abundance of fertile land compared with the population, and where, therefore, it is only necessary to cultivate No. 1, the whole net produce will belong to the cultivator, and will be the profits of the stock which he advances. As soon as population had so far increased as to make it necessary to cultivate No. 2, from which 90 quarters only can be obtained, after supporting the labourers, rent would commence on No. 1; for either there must be two rates of profit of an agricultural capital, or 10 quarters, or the value of 10 quarters, must be withdrawn from the produce of No. 1 for some other purpose. Whether the proprietor of the land, or some other person, cultivate No. 1, these 10 quarters would equally constitute rent; for the cultivator of No. 2 would get the same result from his capital, whether he cultivated No. 1, paying 10 quarters for rent, or continued to cultivate No. 2, paying no rent. In the same manner, it might be shown that when No. 3 is brought into cultivation, the rent of No. 2 must be 10 quarters, or the value of 10 quarters, whilst the rent of No. 1 would rise to 20 quarters; for the cultivator of No. 3 would have the same profits, whether he paid 20 quarters for the rent of No. 1, 10 quarters for the rent of No. 2, or cultivated No. 3 free of all rent." Ricardo's Political Economy, chap. 2.

Such are the necessary results of the notion, that men commence the work of cultivation on the best soil, proceeding to the worse; and that land has inherent value independent of labour. If they are true, then the proportion of the crop belonging to the landlord rises with the progress of society, and that of the labourer falls; the one becoming constantly richer and more powerful, the other poorer and more dependent.

Now, what have been the facts? Adam Smith states them thus: "At present, in the opulent countries of Europe, a very large, frequently the largest portion of the produce of the land, is destined for replacing the capital of the rich and independent farmer, the other for paying his profits and the rent of the landlord. But anciently, during the prevalence of the feudal government, a very small portion of the produce was sufficient to replace the capital employed in cultivation. It consisted commonly in a few wretched cattle, maintained altogether by the spontaneous produce of uncultivated land, and which might be considered, therefore, as a part of that spontaneous produce. It generally, too, belonged to the landlord, and was by him advanced to the occupiers of the land. All the rest of the produce properly belonged to him, too, either as rent for his land, or as profit upon this paltry capital. The occupiers of the land were generally bondmen, whose persons and effects were equally his property. Those who were not bondmen were tenants at will; and though the rent which they paid was often nominally little more than a quit-rent, it really amounted

to the whole product of the land. Their lord could, at all times, command their labour in peace and their service in war. Though they lived at a distance from his house, they were equally as dependent upon him as his retainers, who lived in it. But the whole produce of the land undoubtedly belongs to him who can dispose of the labour and service of all those whom it maintains. 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 lands, however, in all the improved parts of the country, has been tripled and quadrupled 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 extent, diminishes in proportion to the produce of the land."- Wealth of Nations, Book 2., chap. 3.

Mr. Malthus, though fully agreeing in principle with Ricardo, admits that the facts in Great Britain correspond with the statement of Adam Smith. He says,

"According to the returns lately made to the Board of Agriculture, the average proportion which rent bears to the value of the whole produce, seems not to exceed one-fifth; whereas, formerly, when there was less capital employed and less value produced, the proportion amounted to onefourth, one-third, or even two-fifths. Still, however, the numerical difference between the price of produce and the expenses of cultivation increases with the progress of improvement; and though the landlord has a less share of the whole produce, yet this less share, from the very great increase of the produce, yields a larger quantity."--Principles of Political Economy, page 177.

It is evident, from a comparison of these two statements, that the proportion which rent bore to the whole produce in the British Islands, has fallen, in the interval between the publication of the "Wealth of Nations," and the work of Mr. Malthus some forty years. In a period of about equal duration, from 1790 to 1833, according to Mr. Porter, (Progress of the Nation, vol. 1, page 164,) who deduces the fact from the evidence taken in the latter year, before the Parliamentary Committee on Agricultural Distress, the revenues drawn, in the shape of rent, from the ownership of the soil, had been at least doubled in every part of Great Britain, while the condition of agricultural labourers is everywhere stated to have been visibly amended. Mr. Caird, as Commissioner for the Times newspaper, to examine the agricultural condition of England, devoted eight months, in 1850 and 1851, to an inspection of thirtytwo of the forty English counties. Twenty-six of those visited by him, were also visited by the celebrated agricultural tourist, Arthur Young, in 1770. The average rent per acre, of cultivated lands in those counties, as deduced from the inquiries of Mr. Young, was

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