[1166] Moreover, the entrepreneur may find himself forced to yield a part of this composite rent either to the landlord or to the capitalist from whom he has borrowed his capital or to the workers by whose superior ability he has benefited. The difficult question of determining what proportion ought to be given in this way is discussed by Marshall in his Principles, Book V, chap. 10, § 4; Book VI, chap. 8, § 9.
[1167] Walker might answer by saying that the dividend is simply the interest upon the capital. But we can hardly bring ourselves to believe this.
[1168] This word “acquired” is not quite in conformity with the pure theory of rent, for if these advantages are acquired the remuneration thus received should be considered merely as interest upon capital spent.
[1169] Stuart Mill, Principles, Book III, chap. 5, § 4.
[1170] “Wages and profits represent the universal elements in production, while rent may be taken to represent the differential and peculiar: any difference in favour of certain producers, or in favour of production in certain circumstances, being the source of a gain, which, though not called rent unless paid periodically by one person to another, is governed by laws entirely the same with it.” (Ibid., Book III, chap. 5, § 4.)
[1171] “Rent, it should be remembered, is the difference between the produce obtained by equal portions of labour and capital employed on land of the same or different qualities.” (Ricardo, Principles, chap. 9.)
[1172] Principles, Book II, chap. 16, § 2.
[1173] Ricardo had already made use of the following argument: “Suppose that the demand is for a million of quarters of corn, and that they are the produce of the land actually in cultivation. Now, suppose the fertility of all the land to be so diminished that the very same lands will yield only 900,000 quarters. The demand being for a million of quarters, the price of corn would rise, and recourse must necessarily be had to land of an inferior quality sooner than if the superior land had continued to produce a million of quarters.” (Principles, chap. 32, p. 246.) Towards the end of his life Ricardo seems to have been more favourably inclined to a conception of rent somewhat closer akin to J. B. Say’s. Compare the curious quotations given in Frézouls, op. cit., p. 21.
[1174] “A commodity may no doubt, in some contingencies, yield a rent even under the most disadvantageous circumstances of its production; but only when it is, for the time, in the condition of those commodities which are absolutely limited in supply, and is therefore selling at a scarcity value—which never is, nor has been, nor can be a permanent condition of any of the great rent-yielding commodities.” (Principles, Book III, chap. 5, § 4.) For the position with regard to mines see the same chapter, § 3.
[1175] In this case Stuart Mill seems to compare rent to a monopoly revenue: “A thing which is limited in quantity, even though its possessors do not act in concert, is still a monopolised article.” (Ibid., Book II, chap. 16, § 2.) The expression, though adopted by several other writers, is not quite accurate. In the case of a monopoly the owners fix the quantity which they will produce beforehand with a view to getting a maximum of profit. But this cannot apply to landowners. At any rate, if there is any monopoly it must be an incomplete one.