It is generally thought that this species of remuneration has a tendency to rise, if not in the case of manufacturing, at least in the case of agricultural improvements. Supposing this rent to have been equitable at the beginning, it has a tendency, it is said, to degenerate into abuse; because the proprietor, sitting with his hands across, sees it increase year after year, solely in consequence of the increase of population and the enlarged demand for corn.
I allow that this tendency exists, but it is not peculiar to the rent of land,—it is common to all departments of industry. In all, value increases with the density of population, and even the common day-labourer earns more in Paris than he could in Brittany.
And then, as regards the rent of land, the tendency to which we have referred is powerfully counterbalanced by another tendency—that of progress. An amelioration, realized at the present day by improved processes, effected with less manual labour, and at a time when the rate of interest has fallen, saves our paying too dearly for improvements effected in former times. The fixed capital of the landed proprietor, like that of the manufacturer, is deteriorated in the long-run by the invention of instruments of equal value and greater efficiency. This is a magnificent Law, which overturns the melancholy theory of Ricardo; and it will be explained more in detail when we come to the subject of landed property.
Observe, that the problem of the distribution of the services which form the remuneration of permanent improvements can be resolved only by a reference to the law of interest. The capital [p207] itself cannot be spread over a succession of purchasers, for this is rendered impossible by their indeterminate number. The first would pay for the last, which would be unjust. Besides, a time would arrive when the proprietor would become possessed both of the capital laid out in the improvement, and of the improvement itself, which would be equally unfair. Let us acknowledge, then, that the natural mechanism of society is too ingenious to require the substitution of artificial contrivances.
I have presented the phenomenon in its simplest form, in order to render it intelligible; but, in practice, things do not take place quite as I have described them.
The proprietor does not regulate the distribution himself, or determine that each hectolitre shall be charged with one franc, more or less, as in the hypothetical case which I have put. He finds an established order of things, as well with reference to the average price of corn as to the rate of interest. Upon these data he decides how he shall invest his capital. He will devote it to agricultural improvements, if he finds that the average price of corn will return him the ordinary rate of interest. If not, he will devote his capital to a more lucrative branch of industry—a branch of industry which, just because it is more lucrative, presents, happily for society, greater attractions for capital. This movement of capital from one department to another, which is what actually takes place, tends to the same result, and presents us with another Harmony.
The reader will understand that I confine myself to a special instance only for the sake of elucidating a general law, which applies to all trades and professions.
A lawyer, for example, cannot expect, from the first suit of which he happens to have charge, to be reimbursed the expense of his education, of his course of probation, of his establishment in business, which we may suppose to amount to 20,000 francs. Not only would this be unjust—it would be impracticable; for were he to make such a stipulation, his first brief would never make its appearance, and our Cujacius would be obliged to imitate the gentleman who, on taking up house, could get nobody to come to his first ball, and declared that next year he would begin with his second.
The same thing holds with the merchant, the physician, the shipowner, the artist. In every career we encounter these two classes of efforts—the second imperatively requires to be spread over an indeterminate number of consumers, employers, or customers, and it is impossible to imagine such a distribution without reference to the mechanism of interest. [p208]
Great efforts have been made of late to remove the hatred which exists in the popular mind against capital,—infamous, infernal capital, as it is called. It has been exhibited to the masses as a voracious and insatiable monster, more destructive than cholera, more frightful than revolution, exercising on the body politic the action of a vampire, whose power of suction goes on increasing indefinitely. Vires acquirit eundo. The tongue of this blood-sucker is called usury, revenue, hire, rent, interest. A writer, who might have acquired reputation by his great powers, and who has preferred to gain notoriety by his paradoxes, has been pleased to scatter these paradoxes among a people already in the delirium of a revolutionary fever. I, too, have an apparent paradox to submit to the reader; and I beg him to examine it, and see whether it be not in reality a great and consoling truth.