District.1849. 1864.1849. 1858.
Thalers.Population
per sq. mi.
Königsberg, 0.731.16 20762298
Gumbinnen, 0.590.76 20592249
Danzig, 1.021.51 26562926
Marienwerder, 0.631.06 19442135
Posen, 0.691.07 27892857
Bromberg, 0.691.10 21162322
Stettin, 1.071.73 23552614
Cöslin, 0.831.30 17351940
Stralsund, 0.951.50 2347 2549
Breslau, 1.191.45 47335034
Liegnitz, 1.171.75 36763763
Oppeln, 0.861.20 39734433
Potsdam, 1.081.59 33173640
Frankfort, 1.292.00 24462660
Magdeburg, 2.312.98 32903508
Werseburg, 2.353.03 39344270
Erfurt, 2.042.55 56215735
Münster, ....2.03 31923299
Minden, 2.482.62 48414808

Compare the review of rents in the states of the Zollverein, in v. Viehbahn, Statistik, II, 979. It is difficult[TN 5] to compare different countries with one another in this respect, because it is seldom certain whether the word rent means exactly the same thing in them. Besides, it should not be overlooked, how difficult it is to ascertain what rent, in the strict sense of the term, as used by Ricardo, is.

[156-3] Moreover, the rise of rents, in so far as it depends on the greater cost of transportation to a growing market, becomes progressively slower. The concentric circles about that point increase in a greater ratio than the radii.

[156-4] As to the history of rents in England, a comparison of the years from 1480 to 1484, with the most recent times, shows that the amount of rent estimated in money in agricultural districts, where no very great "improvements" have been made, have increased as 1 to 80-100, while the price of wheat has increased 12-fold and wages 10-fold. (Rogers, in the Statist. Journal, 1864, 77.) According to Hume, History of England, ch. 33, it seems that rents under Henry VIII. were only 1/10 of those usually paid in his time, while the price of commodities was only ¼ of the modern. Davenant, Works, II, 217, 221, estimates the aggregate rent of land, houses and mines, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, at £6,000,000; about 1698, at £14,000,000; capitalized respectively at £72,000,000 and £252,000,000. About 1714, J. Bellers, Proposals for Employing the Poor, puts it at £15,000,000; about 1726, Erasm. Phillips, State of the Nation in Respect to Commerce etc., at £20,000,000; about 1771, A. Young, at £16,000,000; about 1800, Beeke, Observations on the Income-Tax, at £20,000,000; about 1804, Wakefield, Essay on Political Economy, at £28,000,000; about 1838, McCulloch, Statist., I, 535, at £29,500,000. The poor tax in England and Wales, in 1841, was on a valuation of £32,655,000. (Porter, Progress, VI, 2, 614); 1864-5, the annual value of lands, £46,403,853 (Stat. Journal, 1869.) Moreover, the income from houses, railroads, etc. (real property other than lands), increased very much more than that received from pieces of farming land; between 1845 and 1864-5, the former by 392.8 per cent., and the latter by 27.9 per cent. (Hildebrand's Jahrbb., 1869, II, 383 seq.); and the income tax of 1857 on £47,109,000. There was a still more rapid growth of rent in Scotland. In 1770, it was only £1,000,000-1,200,000: in 1795, £2,000,000; in 1842, £5,586,000. (McCulloch, I, 576, ff.) In Ireland, about 1776, it was only $900,000, according to Petty. (Political Anatomy of Ireland, I, 113.) A. Young assumed it to be £6,000,000 in 1778; Newenham, View of Ireland, about 1808, £15,000,000. In many parts of the Rosendale Forest in Lancashire, the land is leased by the ell, at £121, and even at £131 per acre; i. e., more than the whole forest of 15,300 acres was rented for in the time of James I. In many of the moorland portions of Lancashire, rent has risen in 150 years, 1,500 and even 3,000 per cent. (Edinburg Rev., 1843, Febr., 223.)

The amount of rents in Prussia, Krug assumed to be in 1804, 50,000,000 thalers, and von Viebahn, Zollverein Statistik, II, 974, in 1862, 116,500,000 thalers. Lavergne assumed the rents of France after 1850 to be 1,600,000,000 francs (Revue des deux Mondes, Mars, 1868); and Dutot, Journal des Economistes, Juin, 1870, in 1870, at 2,000,000,000. In Norway, the capitalized value of all the land was assessed at 13,000,000,000 thalers in specie, in 1665; in 1802, at 25,500,000; in 1839, at 64,000,000 thalers. Blom, Statistik von Norwegen, I, 145. The older such estimates are, the more unreliable they are.

[156-5] In Paris, in 1834, the square toise = 37 sq. feet, in the Rue Richelieu and Rue St. Honoré, cost 1,500 to 2,000 francs; in Rue neuve Vivienne, 2,500 to 3,500 francs; in 1857, from 200 to 500 francs per square meter, = 10 sq. feet, was very usual. (Wolowski.) Before the gates of Paris, the rent amounted to as high as 250 francs per hectare; at Fontainebleau, to only from 30 to 40. (Journal des Economistes, Mars, 1856, 337.) In Market Square, Philadelphia, land was worth from 3,000 to 4,000 francs per sq. toise, and in Wall Street, New York, about 4,000 francs. (M. Chevalier, Letters sur l'Amérique, 1836, I, 355.) In St. Petersburg, after 6 years, the house frequently falls to the owner of the area. (Storch. by Rau, I, 248 f.) In Manchester, the Custom House area cost from 10 to 12 pounds sterling per square yard; in the center of the city, as high of £40, that is, nearly £200,000 per acre. In Liverpool, in the neighborhood of the Exchange and of Town Hall, the cost is from 30 to 40 pounds sterling. (Athenæum, Dec. 4, 1852.) In London, a corner building on London street, erected for £70,000, with only three front windows, pays a rental of £22,000. (Allg. Zeitung, 1 Febr., 1866.) The villa at Misenum—a very beautiful location—which the mother of the Gracchi bought for about 5,000 thalers, came into the possession of L. Lucullus, consul in the year B. C. 74, for about 33 times as much. Mommsen, Römisch. Gesch., II, 382.

SECTION CLVII.

HISTORY OF RENT.—IMPROVEMENTS IN THE ART OF AGRICULTURE.

Improvements in the art of agriculture which are confined to individual husbandmen leave rent unaffected. They do not perceptibly lower the price of agricultural products, and only effect an increase of the reward of enterprise which is entirely personal to the more skillful producers and does not attach to the ground itself.

But how is it when these improvements become general throughout the country? If population and consumption remain unchanged, the supply of agricultural products will exceed the demand. This would compel farmers, if there be no avenue open to exports, to curtail their production. The least fertile and most disadvantageously situated parcels of land will be abandoned to a greater or less extent, and the least productive capital devoted to agriculture, withdrawn. In this way, rent goes down both relatively and absolutely, although the owners of land may be able to partially cover their loss by the gain which results to them as consumers and capitalists.[157-1] (§ 186). After a time, however, and as a consequence of the diminished price of corn, population and consumption will increase, and entail an extension of agriculture and a consequent rise in rents.[157-2] If it, relatively speaking, reaches the same point as before, it still is absolutely much greater than before. Let us suppose that there are three classes of land of equal extent in a country, which for an equal outlay of capital produce 100,000, 80,000 and 70,000 bushels yearly. The rent of the land here would be equal to at least 40,000 bushels. If the yield of production now doubles, while the demand for agricultural products also doubles, the aggregate harvest will be 200,000 + 160,000 + 140,000 bushels, and consequently rent will have risen to at least 80,000 bushels. But this increase of rent has injured no one. If the population increases in a less degree than the productiveness of the land, the consumer may, to a certain extent, gain largely, and the landowner better his condition. However, great agricultural improvements spread so gradually over a country, that, as a rule, the demand for agricultural products can keep pace with the increased supply. But even in this case, that transitory absolute decline of rent may be avoided; and it cannot be claimed universally, as it is by many who are satisfied with mumbling Ricardo's words after him, that an increase of rent is possible only by an enhancement of the price of the products of the soil. Where the development of a people's economy is a normal one, the rent of land is wont to increase gradually, but at the same time to constitute a diminishing quota of the entire national income.[157-3]