Thay drynke water, thay eate apples, with bred right brown made of rye. Thay eate no flesche, but if it be selden, a litill larde, or of the entrails, or heds of bests sclayne for the nobles and marchaunts of the lond. Thay weryn no wollyn, but if it be a pore cote under their uttermost garment, made of grete canvas and cal it a frok. Their hosyn be of like canvas, and passen not their knee; wherefor they be gartrid, and their thyghs bare. Their wyfs and children gone barefote; thay may in non otherwise lyve; for sume of them, that was wonte to pay to his lord for his tenement, which he hirith by the yere, a scute,* payyth now to the kyng, over that scute fyve skuts. Wher thrugh they be artyd by necessitie so to watch, labour, and grub in the ground, for their sustenaunce, that their nature is much wastid, and the kynd of them brought to nowght. Thay gone crokyd and ar feble, not able to fyght, nor to defend the realme; nor thay have wepon, nor monye to buy them wepon withal; but verely thay lyvyn in the most extreme povertie and myserye, and yet thay dwellyn in one the most fertile realme of the world."‡

The reader has already seen that, so recently as the commencement of the last century, the people of that country wanted bread one-half of their time, and went clothed in skins, for want of power to obtain cloth. A century since, only 7,000,000 ate wheaten bread; now, there are 20,000,000-the improvement in the character of the food consumed, having been greater than the increase in the numbers requiring to be fed. The power to obtain the necessaries, conveniences, and luxuries of life, is dependent on the power to demand of nature their production-the greater the power of association, the greater, as we invariably see, being the quantity produced. "Comparing," says M Passy, "the figures relating to the ten richest and most populous departments, with those relating to the ten departments which are the least so, we find that, in the former, the average yield of a hectare (2:47 acres), is from 15 to 20 hectolitres (the hectolitre is 2.84 bushels) of wheat; while, in the latter, it is only from 7 to 11-there being an equal disproportion in all the other products. In regard

* A scute was a French gold coin, and the same with an escu, or ecu d'or, which was denominated from the legend, Dieu est mon escu,' God is my shield. It was worth 3s. 4d. in Fortescue's time.

† Arcted, compelled or restrained, from the old French verb coarcter. Quoted by EDEN, History of the Poor, vol. i. p. 70.

to consumption, they offer a difference equally marked. The food is not only superior in quality, in the advanced departments; it is also superior in quantity, head for head-the consumption being thirty per cent. more in weight, than in the less dense and poorer departments."'*

Similar to these, are the facts we meet with in every advancing country. The people of Russia are now much better fed and clothed than they were in the days of Peter the Greatnotwithstanding an increase of numbers that would, long since, have compelled resort to inferior soils, had Mr. Ricardo's theory been accurate. So, too, has it been, and so is it, with those of Germany, Belgium, Denmark, and Sweden-all of whom are now incomparably better fed, than were their ancestors of the days when land was most abundant. Looking, next, to the early settlement of what are now the United States, we find their history but a record of severe privations-resulting from a paucity of numbers that forbade association, or combination. The second of the above propositions is, therefore, directly opposed to every fact presented in the history of the world-all of them being, on the contrary, in strict accordance with the one we here present :

As wealth and population increase, men are more and more enabled to associate together, and to combine their efforts, with constantly increasing tendency to development of their various faculties, and constantly increasing power to compel the various forces of nature to labor in their service-every step in the course of progress, being marked by increase of power to determine for themselves what soils to select for cultivation, with constant increase in the return to labor, and in the facility of production and accumulation.-Man thus becomes the master of nature; whereas, according to Mr. Ricardo, he becomes more and more her slave.

4. The next proposition is, that, with the necessity for applying labor less productively, rent arises- the owner of No. 1, yielding 100 quarters, being enabled to demand 10 quarters when resort is had to those of second quality, yielding 90 quarters; and 20, when No. 3 is brought into use, yielding only 80 quarters.

* Dictionnaire de l'Économie Politique, art. Agriculture.

Were all land of precisely equal productive power, no such necessity could be supposed; yet compensation would still be paid for the use of a farm provided with buildings and enclosures, that would be denied to the owner of one remaining in a state of nature. That compensation is regarded by Mr. Ricardo as being only interest upon capital, and as requiring to be distinguished from what is paid for the use of the powers of the soil. When lands of different capabilities are in use-all being equally provided with houses, fences, and barns-he supposes the owner of No. 1 to receive interest upon his capital, plus the difference between the 100 quarters that it is capable of yielding, and the 90, 80, or 70 quarters yielded by the soil of lowest power to whose cultivation the necessities of man have forced him. This difference he holds to be the true rent.

Cultivation, however, always commencing on the poorer soils, and proceeding from them to the better ones, the reverse course must be pursued-the owner of the land first cultivated receiving interest, minus the difference between its powers and those of other lands, that may, with the increase of population and wealth, be brought under cultivation with an expenditure of the same amount of human effort. The first little clearing on the hill-side, with its miserable cabin, cost twice as many days of labor as would be now required for clearing a larger quantity of better land, and placing upon it a tolerable log-house. The first settler, desiring to let his property, finds himself compelled to accept, not profits, plus difference, but profits, minus difference. Daily observation shows that such is the course of proceeding-land, thus, obeying the same laws that govern all other commodities and things. The old ship having cost much more labor than would now be required for a new one of double power, her owner receives, as freight, profits, minus difference. The old house cost much labor, but it is small, and its accommodations are indifferent. A new one, capable of affording better shelter to twice the number of persons, costing, now, but half the labor of the first, the early builder, or his representative, receives as rent, profits of capital, minus a large difference. So, too, is it with early engines, railroads, mills, and machines of every kind —there being but a single system of laws for the government of all matter, whatever the form it takes.

The price of land is more or less, in proportion to the rent it will command. The doctrine of Mr. Ricardo being true, its selling price should be the capital invested, plus the value of what he regards as the true rent. Being untrue -the poorer soils always first being occupied-its price should be the capital, minus the difference between its powers and those of other lands that could, at similar cost, be subjected to cultivation. In the one case, the power of capital over labor must steadily increase. In the other, it must as regularly decline- the laborer constantly obtaining better lands in return for diminishing proportions of its products, paid as rent. Declining value of the early lands follows, as a necessary consequence. That such decline does take place, and that it is a consequence of growing facility of accumulation, has been already shown *- land, everywhere, obeying the same law as ploughs, axes, and engines-all of which, in time, fall below the cost of production. Its value being everywhere limited to the cost of reproduction, and that tending to decline with every increase in the growth of wealth, its owner finds himself compelled to accept, from the man who uses it, a diminished proportion of its products. No such rent as that imagined by Mr. Ricardo, ever has been, or can be, paid. As well might the owner of the early engine, or the early mill, expect to be paid for the use of "the original and indestructible properties" of the iron-as the owner of the early land.

§ 5. The third proposition is, that, with the increase of wealth and population, and the consequent necessity for resorting to the poorer soils, the landlord's proportion tends to increase rent rising as labor becomes less and less productive. If cultivation does commence with the richer soils, then is this proposition true -the necessary result of an increase in the numbers of mankind, and in the power of combination and association, being the growing subjection of the men who labor, to the will of those who own the land. The ultimate slavery of man is, thus, the natural termination of the Ricardo-Malthusian doctrines. If, however, he does not commence on the rich soils-if, on the contrary, he commences always on the poorer ones-proceeding thence to those

* See ante, vol. i. pp. 125 to 130.

which are richer, with constantly increasing return to labor, the reverse of this must be true. The proportion of the landlord must, then, as steadily decrease-leaving a larger proportion of an increased quantity for the laborer, whose ultimate lot must be freedom, instead of slavery; and that such is the course of things, is proved by the history of all the advancing nations of the world.

Adam Smith told his readers that, whereas, in the early period of society, the cultivators of the land had been bondsmen, whose person and effects, and the produce of whose labor, had been the property of their lord, the share of the landlord of his day seldom exceeded a third, or even a fourth part of the product—the amount of rent having, meanwhile, so much increased, that it was then "three or four times greater than the whole had been before."*

That the proportion was falling, was admitted by Mr. Malthus, when assuring his readers that, according to the returns then lately made to the Board of Agriculture, its average did not exceed one-fifth; whereas, it had formerly been a fourth, a

* Wealth of Nations, book 2, chap. iii.

The fact thus remarked by Dr. Smith, was in direct opposition to the general principle elsewhere enunciated by him, in virtue of which "the landlord's share of the produce necessarily increases with the increase of the produce." Further, he tells his readers, that "the real value of the landlord's share, his real command of the labor of other people, not only rises with the real value of the produce, but the proportion of his share to the whole produce rises with it."***"No more labor being required to collect the larger quantity, a greater proportion of it, consequently, must belong to the landlord."— Ibid, book 4, chap. xi.

As the reader has already seen, Dr. Smith long preceded Mr. Ricardo in the announcement of the fact that man commenced the work of cultivation on the rich soils of the earth. So commencing, he was led, necessarily, to the further proposition, that, "when the most fertile soils have all been occupied, less profit can be made by the cultivation of what is inferior in soil and situation."— Ibid, book 1, chap. ix. This, however, must have been precisely the condition in which Britain, according to his theory, must have found herself at the moment at which he wrote-population then increasing at a rate such as had never before been known, and producing the very necessity thus predicted. The inferior soils should have been rapidly coming into cultivation- the landlord's proportion should have been increasingwages should have been falling; and yet, the very reverse of this is what he himself describes the landlord's proportion falling, and wages rising. In no part of his work, is Dr. Smith less consistent with himself, than in that portion treating of the division of labor's products-the cause of inconsistency being attributable to the fact, that, while he held the idea that man ought to become more free, his theory of occupation led, inevitably, to the conclusion that he must become more and more enslaved. His work is a remarkable one for the day in which it was written; but they who confine their study of social science to the Wealth of Nations, commit the same error with those who limit their chemical researches to the works of Chaptal and Lavoisier.