[152-1] Compare J. Anderson, An Inquiry into the Nature of the Corn Laws, 1777. Extracts from the same in the Edinburgh Review, LIV, 91 ff. On the other hand, Buchanan, on Adam Smith, IV, 134, thinks that rent arises exclusively from the monopoly of the owners, and that without it the price of corn would be lower. It is certain, however, that if the land of a country be considered as one great piece of property, and under one great system of husbandry, the products of the soil might be offered permanently at a price corresponding to the average cost of production, on the better and worse pieces of land. (Umpfenback, N. Oek., 191.)
[152-2] Malthus, On the Policy of restricting the Importation of foreign Corn, 1815. Additions, 1817, to the Essay on the Principle of Population, III, ch. 8-12; Principles, 217 ff.
[152-3] Ricardo says that if air, water, elasticity and steam were of different qualities, and might be made objects of exclusive possession; and that if each kind could be had only in a moderate supply, they would, like land, produce a rent, according as they were brought into use, one kind after another. In the class of natural forces, also, the possession of a secret of production or of inimitable skill, or a legal right to its exclusive use, may produce something similar to rent. (Senior, Outlines, 91.) Hermann, Staatswirthsch. Unters., 163 ff., had already laid the foundation of this doctrine, and earlier yet, Canard, 17 seq., and Hufeland. I, 303 ff. See supra, § 120. Hence v. Mangoldt uses the word rent to designate all rarity-premiums. John Stuart Mill, III, ch. 5, 4. Schäffle speaks of the universal existence of a surplus; that is, of the factor of rent (Nat. Oek., I, Aufl., 140 ff.), and has recently developed this into a theory thoroughly systematic and detailed. (Nationalökonomische Theorie der ausschliessenden Absatzverhältnisse, 1867.)
According to him, rent is "the premium paid for the most economic course taken in the interest of society in general;" and hence he finds rent as much in superior labor and in a very advantageous outlay of capital. Yet he grants, that "exclusive custom (Kundschaft) on the basis of natural advantages occurs only in the case of land-rent." (59.) And even granting that he is right, that no rent is by itself forever secure (74 seq.), and that much rent is a premium paid for a search after and the appropriation of the best land, divination of the best situations, etc. (60 ff., 74 ff.), there still remains the great difference between rent and the extra income from labor and capital; that here the very transitory nature of the substratum, or basis, and the personal merit of the recipient, is the rule, while in the former case it is a rare exception. Willingly, therefore, as I recognize the possibility and fruitfulness of Schäffle's way of conceiving this subject (the latter, especially, for monographic purposes), I prefer, so far as the entire system is concerned, the keeping apart of the three branches of income corresponding to the three factors of production as has been usual since Adam Smith's time.
[152-4] John Stuart Mill, ch. 16, § 5. An example in Fawcett, Manual, 149 seq. This explains many objections to Ricardo's laws, which are the result of misconception. Thus, for instance, in Schmalz, Staatswirthschaftslehre, I, 81, Quarterly Review, XXXVI, 412 ff. Bastiat, Harmonies économiques, ch. 9, where rent is considered the interest on the capital laid out in bringing land under cultivation and improving it. If, however, we imagine an island to emerge suddenly from the waves in the vicinity of Naples, in consequence of an earthquake, no one can doubt that its land would sell at a very high rate and pay a very good rent. And yet no capital or labor has been laid out on it. A similar lesson is taught by the fact, that, in Scotland, rocks which are covered twice a day by the waves are leased for the sake of the sea-weed left on them. (Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I, ch. 11.) Also by the fact, that in Poulopinang, a cavity in which many edible swallows' nests are found, pays £500 a year rent. (Geogr. Ephemeriden, Oct., 1805, 134.) However, Bastiat, abstractly speaking, is right when he says, that every one by the importation of agricultural products from quarters which pay no rent, and still more by emigrating thither, may deprive the owners of land of the tribute imminent in rent.
But how would it be if the cost of transportation and emigration amounted to more than the rent? The case theoretically so important, in which all the land in the world is supposed to have been appropriated as private property, this writer, generally so lucid, treats in a surprisingly blind way (275 ff). It is remarkable that A. Walker, Science of Wealth, spite of his prejudices in favor of Bastiat's doctrines on the gratuitous nature of all natural forces, nevertheless follows, essentially, Ricardo's theory of rent, 294 ff.
A much more vulgar error yet is, that rent is the result of the capacity of the capital employed in the purchase of the land to produce some interest Thus Hamilton, Reports to the Congress on the Manufactures of the United States, 1793, and Canard, Principes, sec. 5. Per contra, compare Turgot's view, supra, § 42, note 1. Even Locke, Considerations on the Lowering of Interest, Works, II, 17 ff., maintained the closest parallel between rent and interest to be possible, with this difference only, that money was all of a kind but pieces of land of different degrees of fertility. Similarly Sir D. North, Discourse upon Trade, 1791, with his parallel of landlord and stocklord.
THEORY OF RENT.
(CONTINUED.)
Ricardo says that rent can never, not even in the slightest degree, constitute an element in the price of corn. This is certainly not a very happy way of expressing the truth, that a high rent is not the cause, but the effect, of a relatively high price of corn.[153-1] Ricardo would have been nearer right had he said that rent was not a component part of the price of every portion of the supply of corn brought to market.