1826.] Rich and Poor. 243 
solemn warnings, and the most earnest deprecations. Humanity in- 
deed! When was his humanity known before to go upon a quixotic 
expedition to benefit the people in spite of themselves? No, no; 
nothing but personal interests ever made men so zealous and resolute, as 
were the landlords, in imposing the law, or so stubborn and tempestuous, 
as they now shew themselves, in refusing to abandon it.—The farmer 
too—what cares the landlord, or what need he care, about him? He is 
capable of taking care of himself. If he cannot live by the employment 
of his capital on the land, he leaves it; he neither farms to oblige the 
landlord; nor does the landlord let his land, with a view to the farmer's 
advantage, but his own. 
But beat the landlord out of the field in this way, and he will summon 
his fast friend the economist to his aid. Rent, says the economist, 
has no effect whatever upon the prices of corn. “ Hear, hear !” cries, the 
delighted landlord. It is merely, resumes the economist, the residuum 
of expense upon cultivation ; and who has a better title to that than the 
owner of the soil? The corn that is grown upon the best land will 
fetch no higher price than the corn of the poorest—the land that 
requires one quantity of labour than that which requires double, treble, 
quadruple. The land, which requires the greatest quantity of labour, 
regulates the price of corn; labour must be paid for; this land re- 
quiring the greatest quantity of labour would not be worked, unless that 
labour were paid for ; there cannot be two permanent prices for the same 
article ; and so the land, which requires the /east labour gets the same 
price for its produce, as that which demands the greatest. There is 
therefore a surplus on the best lands over and above the expenses, and 
that surplus or residuum constitutes rent; and thus the best land, of 
course, produces the greatest rent. But then clearly rent has nothing 
to do with the prices; it is an effect, and not a cause of price. Thus 
are we be-noodled by the logic of the learned. 
And wondrously fine, no doubt, the logic is; but we have to do with 
hard facts, and not dry strings of words. We are sure there is no land 
in the country actually employed in the growth of corn, which, with the 
same labour and expense, will produce a quantity double that of 
another—much less treble or quadruple. Land of the superior cast 
would be otherwise employed. We are sure again, there is no land 
actually employed in the growth of corn, which does not pay a rent. 
The poorer land pays the lower rent ; but that lower rent, all of it, goes 
into the price of the corn. If the acre be thirty shillings, and the 
produce twenty bushels, the rent will and must enhance the price of 
corn, at least, eighteen pence the bushel. Unless the grower can get 
a price to cover his labour and expense, and also his rent, he will not 
sell; and if he cannot sell at that price, he of course throws up the 
concern. 
There is truth in the economist’s story; but no practical truth, and 
certainly not the whole truth. He proceeds on the supposition, that the 
land which requires the greatest labour, or, which is the same thing, 
produces the smallest quantity of corn, pays no rent at all;—that the 
expense of working this poorest land governs the price of corn,— 
and that, as all corn, on whatever land it be grown—supposing the 
quality the same—brings the same price, the better land has profits, 
which the worst has not, which is the residuum, what is left, that is, 
_ when the outlay is replaced, and constitutes rent. 
2 
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