This difference must proceed from the greater proportion of labouring and other inhabitants employed in consequence of tillage; which makes the expence of it far greater than that of pasture. And since, in the one and the other, every article of necessary expence or consumption, appears to be proportionally equal among those concerned in both, that is, proportional to the number of labouring inhabitants; it follows, that the proportion of people employed in agriculture, and upon the account of it, in different countries, is nearly in the ratio of the gross produce to the land-rent; or in other words, in the proportion of the consumption made by the farmers, and by those employed necessarily by them, to the net produce; which is the same thing.
Now as the consumption upon corn farms is 7⁄9, and that upon pasture 5⁄12, the proportion of these two fractions must mark the ratio between the populousness of pasture lands, and those in tillage; that is to say, tillage lands in England were, at that time, peopled in proportion to pasture lands, as 84 is to 45, or as 28 to 15.
This point being settled, I proceed to another; to wit, the application of this net produce or surplus of the quantity of food and necessaries remaining over and above the nourishment, consumption and expence, of the inhabitants employed in agriculture; and which we have observed above, to be equal to the land-rents of England, that is to say, to nine millions yearly.
Must not this of necessity be employed in the nourishment, and for the use of those whom we have called the free hands; who may be employed in manufactures, trades, or in any way the state pleases.
Now the number of people, I take to be very nearly in the proportion of the quantity of food they consume; especially when a society is taken thus, in such accumulative proportion, and when all are found under the same circumstances as to the plenty of the year.
The whole gross produce of England we have said to be 21,000,000l. sterling, of which 9 millions have remained for those not employed in agriculture; the farmers, therefore, and their attendants, must annually consume 12 millions; consequently the last class is to the first as 12 is to 9. If therefore, according to Dr. Davenant, there be 5,545,000 people in that kingdom, there must be about 3,168,571 employed or dependent upon agriculture, and 2,376,429 free hands for every other occupation. But this proportion of farmers will be found far less, if we reflect, that we have reckoned for them the total amount of the three articles above mentioned, that is to say, the total consumption they make, as well in manufactures, profits upon their labour, &c. as for food and necessaries; whereas there has been nothing reckoned for the free hands, but the land-rent: consequently there should be added to the number of the latter as many as are employed in supplying with all sorts of manufactures the whole of the farmers of England, and all those who depend upon them; and this number must be taken from one and added to the other class.
If this number be supposed to amount to four hundred thousand, it will do more than cast the balance upon the opposite side.
From these matters of fact (in so far as they are so) we may conclude:
I. That the raising of the rents of lands shews the increase of industry, as it swells the fund of subsistence consumed by the industrious; that is, by those who buy it.
II. That it may denote either an increase of inhabitants, or the depopulation of the land, in order to assemble the superfluous mouths in villages, towns, &c. where they may exercise their industry with greater conveniency.