134 ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND, 



collected, and that which was in progress. Such an inter- 

 pretation would square with my theory that the population of 

 England in the Middle Ages, and indeed up to the beginning 

 of the seventeenth century, was almost exactly equal to the 

 number of quarters of wheat produced from such agriculture 

 as was possible at the time. This will give rather more than 

 six months' food to the population of the district, the residue 

 being a surplus for seed, or traffic with the towns which could 

 not supply themselves. 



It is clear that prices remaining the same, and produce 

 requiring the same cost to acquire it, no increase in rents was 

 possible. Nothing but the entirely artificial character of English 

 farmers' rents and the English corn laws could have blinded 

 Ricardo to the discovery of the fundamental law of rent, and have 

 induced him to believe that which is indeed an adequate ex- 

 planation of the difference between the rent of one plot of land 

 as compared with another plot, but is no explanation of the origin 

 of rent at all. Rents have risen because the cost of production 

 has diminished, and thereupon the competition for occupancy 

 has been greater. If the cost of production remains stationary 

 rents will remain stationary, and population will not increase, 

 unless it can be fed from foreign sources, or is content to lower 

 its standard of subsistence, as it actually did at the conclusion 

 of the eighteenth and for the first half of the nineteenth cen- 

 turies. If the market value of agricultural produce falls, all 

 other prices remaining the same, rents will fall. If the only 

 important fertility of land diminishes, the adequate and dis- 

 creet employment of capital in agriculture, rents will similarly 

 fall. The capitalist will not continuously cultivate at a loss, 

 though he may stupidly go on battling against high rents, defi- 

 cient produce, and a declining market, till he has lost his 

 capital. Even then the fall of rents may be local, owing to the 

 absurd manner in which the industry of the occupants is crip- 

 pled, or to the fact that his investments are rendered uncertain, 

 or that his stupidity is impenetrable. Foreign competition is 

 only one and that the slightest factor in agricultural depression. 



