100. “As population increases, rents estimated in corn increase, and the price of corn rises; rents, therefore, doubly tend to increase.” Prove this.
101. Professor Rogers adduces, in refutation of the common theory of rent, the fact that land near New York pays a high rent, while land of the same natural fertility in the Western States pays no rent. How far do you admit the force of this objection?
102. Examine the following doctrine:
“If invention and improvement still go on, the efficiency of labor will be further increased, and the amount of labor and capital necessary to produce a given result further diminished. The same causes will lead to the utilization of this new gain in productive power for the production of more wealth; the margin of cultivation will be again extended, and rent will increase, both in proportion and amount, without any increase in wages and interest. And so, ... will ... rent constantly increase, though population should remain stationary.”—Henry George, “Progress and Poverty” (p. 226).
103. What answer is made to Mr. Carey's objection to Ricardo's theory of rent, that in point of fact the poorer, not the richer, lands are first brought under cultivation?
104. Explain how land, “even apart from differences of situation,... would all of it, on a certain supposition, pay rent.”
105. Explain clearly how it is possible for the land of a country which is all of uniform fertility to pay rent.
106. “If the earth had a perfectly smooth surface the same everywhere, [pg 645] and if it were all tilled and cultivated in exactly the same way, there would be no such thing as rent.” Examine this proposition.
107. Show that rent does not increase the price of bread.
108. How is it shown that “rent does not really form any part of the expenses of production or of the advances of the capitalist?”