the higher class, who have been accustomed to them from infancy, they are as much Necessaries as they are to all classes in England. To the higher classes in Turkey, wine is a luxury and tobacco a decency; in Europe, it is the reverse. The Turk drinks and the European smokes, not in obedience, but in opposition, both to the rules of health and to the forms of society.

"The question, whether a given commodity is to be considered. as a Decency or a Luxury, is obviously one to which no answer can be given, unless the place, the time, and the rank of the individual using it be specified. The dress which in England was only decent a hundred years ago, would be almost extravagant now; while the house and furniture which now would afford merely decent accommodation to a gentleman would then have been luxurious for a Peer. The causes which entitle a commodity to be called a Necessary are more permanent and more general. They depend partly upon the habits in which the individual in question has been brought up, partly on the nature of his occupation, on the lightness or the severity of the labors and hardships that he has to undergo, and partly on the climate in which he lives. The fuel, shelter, and raiment, which are essential to a Laplander's existence, would be worse than useless under the tropics. And as habits and occupations are very slowly changed, and climate suffers scarcely any alteration, the commodities which are necessary to the different classes of the inhabitants of a given district may, and generally do, remain for centuries unchanged, while their Decencies and Luxuries are continually varying.

"Among all classes, the check imposed by an apprehended deficiency of mere Luxuries is but slight. The motives, perhaps we might say the instincts, that prompt the human race to marriage, are too powerful to be much restrained by the fear of losing conveniences unconnected with health or station in society. Nor is Population much retarded by the fear of wanting merely Necessaries. In comparatively uncivilized countries, in which alone, as we have already seen, that want is of familiar occurrence, the Preventive check has little operation. They see the danger, but want prudence and self-denial to be influenced by it. On the other hand, among nations so far advanced in civilization as to be able to act on such a motive, the danger that any given person

or his future family shall actually perish from indigence, appears too remote to afford any general rule of conduct.

"The great Preventive check is the fear of losing Decencies; or, what is nearly the same, the hope to acquire, by the accumulation of a longer celibacy, the means of purchasing the Decencies which give a higher social rank. When an Englishman stands hesitating between love and prudence, a family actually starving is not among his terrors; against actual want, he knows that he has the fence of the poor-laws. But however humble his desires, he cannot contemplate without anxiety a probability that the income which supported his social rank while single may be insufficient to maintain it when he is married; that he may be unable to give to his children the advantages of education which he enjoyed himself; in short, that he may lose his caste. Men of more enterprise are induced to postpone marriage, not merely by the fear of sinking, but also by the hope that, in an unencumbered state, they may rise. As they mount, the horizon of their ambition keeps receding, until sometimes the time has passed for realizing those plans of domestic happiness which probably every man has formed in his youth."

CHAPTER IX.

THE THEORY OF RENT.

RENT is the compensation paid to the landlord for permission to hold and use a certain portion of land. As the real ownership is sometimes divided between several parties, for instance, between

several

the government, the nominal landlord, and the occupier, sorts of Rent have come to be distinguished from each other, and called by different names. Moreover, Rent was not always paid in money, but sometimes by rendering military services, sometimes by performing menial or agricultural labor, and sometimes in kind,

that is, by a given portion of the actual products of the soil. A fixed charge payable annually forever, without regard to the greater or less productiveness of the soil, is more properly considered as a case of coproprietorship than of Rent; the owner of one

undivided fourth of the property, for instance, instead of receiving each year one fourth of the net annual product, whatever it may be, may have this share commuted into a fixed sum payable annually forever, such payment being then called a Rent-charge. So, also, when the government is sole owner or a coproprietor of the soil, what it annually receives is more properly regarded as a tax, than as Rent. A land-tax not liable to be altered in amountand such is the case with the land-tax in England - is properly a Rent-charge.

A quit-rent is a fixed sum, usually but a small part of the net annual product, annually paid by the possessor, as one of the coproprietors, to his feudal lord as the other coproprietor. It is so called because it quiets the claim of the lord, or makes the occupier quit of him. The labor, whether fixed or indeterminate in amount, due to the lord from servile cultivators of the land, might be called a serf-rent, as it was really a compensation for the serf's tenement or holding of ground, or for his right of subsistence on the estate to which he was attached. Metayer rent is a division of the actual products of the farm between the cultivator and the land-owner, such as is practised in Tuscany and other portions of southern Europe; it corresponds to our New England mode of letting a farm "on shares." Rack-rent is the largest sum that can be obtained for the annual hire of the land, when it is offered to tenants in free competition, as by auction.

Cottier rents are paid in Ireland by peasant farmers, who hire small patches of land, each being barely sufficient for the subsistence of a single family; and even these small parcels of land, except where the custom of tenant-right prevails, are usually rackrented. The conacre is a patch of land already manured, which the Irish agricultural laborer is allowed by the farmer to cultivate for the season, on paying therefor a Rent of several pounds an acre, this Rent being worked out in labor at a money valuation. Ryot-rent is the portion of the annual product which, in India, is paid by the peasant cultivator to the sovereign, as the proprietor of the ground. Farmer-rent, which is the usual meaning of the word rent in England, is the covenanted annual sum paid to the landlord by one who furnishes all the capital, and employs all the laborers, for cultivating a tract of land varying in size from a dozen, up to two or three thousand, acres. It should be added

that, in England, the word farmer means one who pays Rent for the land that he cultivates; while, in this country, it means one who cultivates his own land. Ground-rent is paid in cities and towns for building lots, when mere space or room is wanted, the quality of the soil being a point of no importance.

The supposition, which is the basis of Ricardo's theory, that the Occupier is free to remove from bad to good, or from dearer to cheaper land, is true only in a few of these cases of Rent. In forming his theory, Ricardo had almost exclusive reference to the farming system of England, and regards the farmer as a capitalist who looks only for a due return of profits upon his investment. From the whole sum paid to the landlord, he deducts ordinary profits on all the capital ever laid out in permanent improvements on the land; and the remainder he considers to be Rent properly so called. According to this view, Rent is what is paid for the original and inherent powers of the soil, before any capital is laid out upon it, or any labor bestowed on its cultivation. But in the case of most farming-land, it may be doubted whether, after such a deduction of profits, there would be any remainder; that is, in Ricardo's sense, whether the land yields any Rent. Ordinary tillage-land may be regarded as originally nothing but a matrix for the investment of labor and capital. Reckoning up the whole cost of first clearing the ground, draining it, carrying off rocks and stones, transporting to it soil and mineral manures, fencing it and planting trees, building farm-houses, etc., it would probably be found that ordinary profits on the total of these expenditures would absorb the whole sum now paid annually for the use of the farm. But the theory in question needs to be explained and tested at greater length.

The entire science of English Political Economy may be said to be built upon three leading theories; that of Adam Smith concerning Free Trade, that of Malthus in regard to Population, and thar of Ricardo in regard to Rent. They are intimately connected with each other; and a full appreciation of the mixture of truth and falsehood which they contain would tend to clear the science of its local, English character, and to fit it for universal acceptance and utility. Having considered the first incidentally, and the second at some length, we may pass to an examination of Ricardo's doctrine.

The permanent or average value of everything not limited in quantity depends on its Cost of Production, that is, on the amount of labor required to produce it. But the Cost of producing some commodities cannot always be reduced to the same uniform standard a few persons may enjoy certain facilities, some peculiar implements or patented machinery, which other persons cannot obtain, and by the aid of which they can produce the article at less cost, or with a smaller amount of labor. They cannot, however, thus produce enough to satisfy the whole Demand; and therefore, other persons must produce some at the expense of more labor. In such a case, the Price of the commodity will be determined by the cost of that portion which is produced with the greatest difficulty; for, unless the Price indemnified these producers, they would give up the business, and the necessary amount of the article could no longer be had. But the Price having risen to this point, the persons producing the article more easily, by the aid of a machine or implements of which they have a monopoly, would receive an extraordinary profit. This whole extra profit may be called Rent, a phrase which obviously includes the profits of a patentee of a useful machine, as well as those of a landholder. If the land or the machine were not subject to monopoly, - if it did not have a scarcity-value, no Rent would be paid for the use of

it, any more than for the use of the ocean.

The produce of land, according to Ricardo, is obtained under circumstances precisely analogous to those here supposed. The supply of grain or cattle may be indefinitely increased, by employing more capital and labor; but it cannot always be increased in the same proportion to the capital and labor expended. In the manufacture of cottons, woollens, and silks, double the capital, and you will usually double the amount produced. But in agriculture, this is not the case. The most eligible land is first taken up, either that which is most fertile, or that which is nearest to market, or both. We will call this portion land of the first class. For a while, this produces enough to satisfy the demand. But as the Population increases, more grain is called for; and, because there is no more land of the first class to be had, the producers are obliged to take land of the second class, either that which is less fertile, or farther from market, or both; the demand having previously outrun the supply, the Price has risen enough to remu.