Vlll INTRODUCTION. 



of wealth of most countries? For instance, are there one 

 half the number of proprietors and occupiers of land now 

 in England there were 30 or 40 years ago ? Is it not 

 a notorious fact that large landed proprietors buy up all the 

 small farms and lots of land they can meet with? I have 

 known parishes that had 40 or more small proprietors and 

 occupiers of land, where now there is not more than one 

 third of that number ; the remainder generally become 

 labourers, nearly their only resource, throwing an extra 

 quantity of the article of labour into a market sufficiently 

 supplied, and, consequently, depreciating its value below a 

 just and equitable price, the landlord and fundholder reap 

 ing the benefit from the depreciation. But it will be asked, 

 why will farmers give a greater rent than they can afford ? 

 I answer, because those farmers, that still have a little 

 money left, must rent a farm at some price ; they cannot do 

 any thing else ; all other trades and occupations are already 

 overdone. The landlord is enabled to keep up his high 

 rents by throwing three or four farms into one, thereby 

 creating a competition, by reducing the number in the 

 market ; while, as I before said, two or three of these 

 farmers must, probably, go to the parish ; the one that gets 

 the enlarged farm will curtail his expenses to meet the high 

 rent, by reducing the number of labourers kept on the four 

 farms ; thus he impoverishes the farm, and that in return 

 impoverishes him, until perhaps in a short time his resource 

 also is the same degraded station, the parish. 



I by no means intend unqualified censure to any class, 

 for it is not reasonable to expect land-owners will take low 

 rents while they can get high ones, any more than any other 

 classes will dispose of their property at a less value than it 

 will bring in the market. It is the business of legislators, 

 by wise enactments, to regulate, either directly or indirectly, 

 those matters, and prevent unjust monopoly. 



In manufactures, some of the arts, and navigation, this 

 monopolizing system, chiefly through the aid of steam power, 

 is still more apparent. Suppose, for a moment, that, within 

 ten years from the present date, one-third of the human 

 labour now required in Great Britain be superseded by ma 

 chinery, in addition to the present amount, there would then 

 be nearly half the population unemployed, or unprofitably 

 employed, the evils of which, if not counteracted, must over 

 whelm the country in inevitable confusion : in a word, means 



