Rents in England go up when the country is settled; but in Ireland it is quite the reverse: for the Repeal Rent rises when the people are worked up, and it is then they appear willing to come down with it.
The profit of a landlord and the profit of a shopkeeper partake equally of the character of rent. The former lives by tilling his land, and the latter by putting into a till (which is the same thing as tilling) his money.
It is an obvious truth in political economy that the more rent a tenant has to pay, the more a landlord will have to receive, and the better it will be for him. Thus, if a tenant pays no rent for a whole year, more rent will be due, and the value of the property would seem to be increased; at all events, the landlord's claim would be a larger one than if the rent had been regularly paid every quarter.
If a farmer pays five pounds a quarter for his farm, and gets twenty shillings a quarter for his corn, he may consider the difference between the maximum of one and the minimum of the other as the mean product.
The landlord and the tenant equally profit by consumption: for the more that is consumed, the greater the value of what is left. Thus, if a fire consumes a haystack, or consumption of a galloping nature carries off a horse, the owner would, according to political economists, be all the richer for it.
Capital and labour belong legitimately to the subject of rent. The greatest labour is sometimes employed in raising capital; as in the case of the labour bestowed on raising the capital for the statue of the Nelson column. Labour is often intimately connected with rent, for in some neighbourhoods there is a vast deal of labour in collecting it.
Quarter-day is the day when rent comes due. But, when due, it does not always come; and a landlord who expects his rent punctually at the quarter is too sanguine by half.
QUARTER DAY