“But Ella had nothing to do with it,” argued Ronald. “It comes into my share, and it is very hard that she should have to pay for what I have taken it into my head to do.”
“This is no concern of the laird’s or mine,” replied Callum. “We let the whole to your sister, and all we have to do is to ascertain the difference in the productiveness of different parts, and to charge according to the average.”
“Besides,” observed Angus, “the case would have stood the same if Murdoch or any body else had tilled the moor. Rent is not an arbitrary demand of the landlord, but a necessary consequence of the varying qualities of the soil.”
Callum grew very civil towards Angus at once.
“You have seen much of the world, Mr. Angus; and I dare say you have found discontent wherever you went upon this subject of rent. The farmers will have it that the landlord lowers their profits.”
“And the people,” observed Angus, “that rent is an arbitrary tax imposed on the consumer: each of which notions is as mistaken as the other.”
“I cannot say,” observed Ella, “that it is the laird that lessens my profits. He asked for no rent while my field was the lowest soil tilled; and he never would have asked it, if a worse land had not been taken into cultivation. It is therefore the different degree of fertility which causes rent, and not the will of the landlord.”
“And when the people complain,” said Angus, “that rent is paid by the consumer as an arbitrary tax, they forget or do not know that rent is the consequence and not the cause of high price. Your barley bannocks and Murdoch’s look pretty much alike on the table, and would sell for the same price; but yours are produced at near double the cost of his, and therefore Murdoch pays the laird a part of the profits of his.”
“And very fair,” observed Callum; “and so it will be with your fish in a little while, Mrs. Ella. Murdoch will sell fish which look like yours, and at the same price: but it will have cost him more time and labour to get them, and therefore the laird calls on you for a part of the profits which you have till now kept to yourself, and would have kept still if the fish had not brought a good enough price to tempt Murdoch to try his luck.”
Angus hoped that rent would go on to rise, being, as it is, a symptom of prosperity. Ronald wondered he could say so; for his part, he wished there was no such thing as rent.