244 Rich and Poor. ; [Serr. 
But this is an idle, because a fanciful representation. The facts are 
otherwise. No doubt, the best land produces the best rents’; but all 
land, even the poorest, actually employed in the production of corn, 
pays rent, and that rent the farmer lays, and must lay upon his corn. 
e are wasting words perhaps; but the economists, in a variety of 
ways, exercise so pernicious an influence, that it is every day of more 
and more importance to strip and expose their theories to public scorn,— 
that is, just in proportion as those theories come to have a practical 
effect. The practical effect of their doctrine of rent is upon the minds 
of the less enlightened of the landowners—of course the great majority— 
who are thus encouraged and confirmed in their resistance to the ~ 
representations of distress. They are thus taught to believe, that rents 
have no effect upon the price of provisions, and therefore—as of course 
the higher the rents, the higher their gains,—why should they not take 
all possible means of augmenting that rent? They will not, it is true, 
trust to the spontaneous operations of these theories—they are not fools 
enough, and if the doctrine were true, are not wise enough 'to trust to 
general laws; but betake themselves to forcible measures to keep up 
the prices, which at least they see are to furnish the means of paying 
them their rents, while they can cover their real purposes with 
patriotic motives, and throw the odium of personal views from them- 
selves, by appealing to the doctrines and authorities of the philosophers. 
No; the undoubted fact is, no landlord in the country believes in the 
truth of this theory; or if he does, he does not trust, as we said, to its 
spontaneous operation, as, were it true, he safely might. He has no 
notion of land, capable of growing corn, which shall be worth nothing 
to him. He will have a rent out of it—the worse the land, the less the 
rent; but rent he will have. If it will not bear corn with a profit, it 
will something else; or if the price of corn really will not pay the 
expense of cultivation, and a rent,—if fair means will not do it, foul 
ones must, and such means are forthwith adopted to obtain the necessary 
price. The landlords naturally hang together; they have a common 
interest; the control is in their own hands; and they grant themselves, 
unblushingly, a monopoly. They exclude foreign supplies, and thus 
impose a price which will secure them the desirable rents. 
This is the real, the actual state of the case. No man ‘in his senses 
can doubt, that the greater the supply—supposing the demand the same 
—the lower must be the price of any article whatever. No man can 
doubt, that more bread could be eaten, than is eaten by a starving 
population. If, therefore, the ports were thrown open, and foreign corn 
had a free entrance into the country, the supply would be greater, and 
the price would be lower; for foreign corn can be bought at about half 
the current English price, and there cannot be two prices of the same 
article. Rents then, at the present rate, could not be paid, and thus 
prices would be shewn, beyond all evasion, to have an influence upon 
rents; and reciprocally,—with the exclusion of foreign corn, rents we 
may safely and boldly conclude have an influence upon prices. 
The doctrine of the economists then on the subject of rent, as to all 
practical and intelligible purposes, we scout and scorn. It is unworthy 
of the slightest consideration in the eyes of a statesman. It is of no 
earthly use to him; and we hold ourselves warranted and commanded to 
dismiss it from the question without further ceremony. 
On the other hand, we hold the fact to be indisputable, that rent is 
