POLITICAL ECONOMY. 



47 



ing manner. One part of the fruits, produced by 

 labour, is destined to pay the proprietor tor the assist- 

 ance which the earth nas given to the labour of men, 

 ami also br the interest of all the capital successively 

 employed to improve the soil. This portion alone is 

 called the net revenue. Another part of the fruits re- 

 places what has been consumed in executing the la- 

 bour to which the crop is due, the seed and all the 

 cultivator's advances. Economists call this portion 

 the rcsnni}ilion. Another part remains for a profit to 

 the person who directed the labours of the ground : 

 it is proportionate to his industry, and the capital ad- 

 vanced by him. Government likewise takes a share 

 of all those fruits, and by various imposts, diminishes 

 the proprietor's rent, the cultivator's profit, and the 

 day-labourer's wages, in order to form a revenue for 

 another class of persons. Nor do the fruits, distributed 

 among the workmen, the superintendent of the labour, 

 and the proprietor, entirely remain with them in kind : 

 after having kept a portion requisite for their subsist- 

 ence, the whole then equally part with what remains, 

 in exchange for objects produced by the industry of 

 towns ; and it is by means of this exchange, that all 

 other classes of the nation are supplied with food. 



The net revenue of territorial produce is consider- 

 ed to be that portion, which remains with proprietors 

 after the expences of cultivation have been paid. Pro- 

 prietors frequently imagine that a system of cultiva- 

 tion is the better, the higher those rents are : what 

 concerns the nation, however, what should engage 

 the economist's undivided attention, is the gross pro- 

 duce, or the total amount of the crop ; by which sub- 

 sistence is provided for the whole nation, and the com- 

 fort of all classes is secured. The former compre- 

 hends but the revenue of the rich and idle ; the latter 

 farther comprehends the revenue of all such as labour, 

 or cause their capital to labour. 



But a gradual increase of the gross produce may 

 itself be the consequence of a state of suffering, if the 

 population, growing too numerous, can no longer 

 find a sufficient recompence in the wages of labour, 

 and if, struggling without protection against the pro- 

 prietors of land, to whom limitation of number gives 

 all the advantage of a monopoly, that population is 

 reduced to purchase by excessive labour so small an 

 augmentation of produce, as to leave it constantly de- 

 pressed by want. There is no department of political 

 economy, which ought not to be judged in its relation 

 to the happiness of the people in general ; and a sys- 

 tem of social order is always bad when the greater 

 part of the population suffers under it. 



Commercial wealth is augmented and distributed by 

 exchange ; and even the produce of the ground, so 

 soon as it is gathered in, belongs likewise to com- 

 merce. Territorial wealth, on the other hand, is 

 created by means of permanent contracts. With re- 

 gard to it, the economist's attention should first be di- 

 rected to the progress of cultivation ; next to the mode 

 in which the produce of the harvest is distributed 

 among those who contribute to its growth ; and lastly, 

 to the nature of those rights which belong to the pro- 

 prietors of land, and to the effects resulting from an 

 alienation of their property. 



The progress of social order, the additional security, 

 the protection which government holds out to the rights 

 of all, together with the increase of population, induce 

 the cultivator to entrust to the ground, for a longer or 

 shorter period, the labour which constitutes his wealth. 

 In the timorous condition of barbarism, he will not, at 



his own expense, increase the value of an immoveable Politic*! 

 possession, which perhaps he may be forced to abandon Economy, 

 at a moment'* warning. But in the security of com- """ ""V"* 

 plete civilization, he regards his immoveable t)oes- 

 aions as more completely safe than any other kirn! of 

 wealth. In the deserts of Arabia and Tartary ; ii the 

 savannahs of America, before civilization has begun ; 

 in the pastures of the Campagna di Roma, or theCtpi- 

 tanata de la Pouille, after it has ended, men are content- 

 ed with the natural fruits of the ground, with grass for 

 their cattle to browse ; and it those vast deserts yet re* 

 tain any value, they owe it less to the slight labour by 

 which the proprietor has inclosed them, than to the la- 

 bour by which the herdsman has multiplied the oxen 

 and sheep which feed upon them. 



When the population of such deserts has begun to 

 increase, and an agricultural life to succeed that of shep- 

 herds, men still abstain from committing to the ground 

 any labour, whose fruit they cannot gather tiTl after 

 many years have elapsed. The husbandman tills, to 

 reap in the following season ; the course of a twelve- 

 month is sufficient to give back all his advances. The 

 earth which he has sown, far from gaining a durable 

 value by his labour, is for a time impoverished by the 

 fruits it has borne. Instead of seeking to improve it 

 by more judicious cultivation, he gives it back to the 

 desert for repose, and next year tills another portion. 

 The custom of fallowing, a remnant of this half savage 

 mode of agriculture, continues to our own time in more 

 than three-fourths of Europe. 



But when population and wealth have at last increas- 

 ed, so as to make every kind of labour easy, and wlien 

 social order inspires security enough to induce the hue- 

 bandman to fix his labour in the ground, and transmit 

 it with the soil to his descendants, improvement alto- 

 gether changes the appearance of the earth. Then are 

 formed those plantations of gardens, orchards, vine- 

 yards, the enjoyment of which is destined for a late 

 posterity ; then are dug those canals for draining or ir- 

 rigation, which diffuse fertility ; then arise upon the 

 hills those hanging terraces, which characterized the 

 agriculture of ancient Canaan. A quick rotation of 

 crops of a different nature reanimates, instead of ex- 

 hausting, the strength of the soil ; rind a numerous po- 

 pulation lives on a space, which, according to the pri- 

 mitive system, would hardly have supported a few 

 scores of sheep. 



The trade or the manufactures of a country are not 

 to be called prosperous, because a small number of 

 merchants have amassed immense fortunes in it. On 

 the contrary, their extraordinary profits almost always 

 testify against the general prosperity of the country. 

 So likewise, in countries abandoned to pasturage, the 

 profits realized by some rich proprietors ought not to 

 be regarded as indicating a judicious system of agri- 

 culture. Some individuals, it is true, grow rich ; but 

 the nation which the land should maintain, or the food 

 which should support it, are nowhere to be found. It 

 is not even certain, that the net produce of the land 

 may not diminish, in proportion as its agriculture yields 

 a more abundant gross produce, and a greater number 

 of citizens live on its fruits; just as we see the net 

 produce of money, or its interest, diminish in propor- 

 tion as a country becomes more commercial, and con- 

 tains more capital. 



The first proprietors of land were doubtless them- 

 selves cultivators, and executed all kinds of field labour, 

 with their children and servants. To these, in ancient 

 times, were added slaves ; the continual state of war, 



