126 History of the English Landed Interest. 



Enquiry into the Nature and Progress of Retit, by Malthus ; 

 Essay on the Application of Capital to Land, by Sir E. "West; 

 and Enquiry into the Nature of the Corn Laws, by Dr. James 

 Anderson. 



The theory depends upon an exact definition of the term 

 rent ; and though at the present day such a definition is quite 

 obsolete, it was to a certain extent at this early period the true 

 economic meaning of the term. It was as follows: "Rent is the 

 price paid by the cultivator to the owner of land for the use 

 of its productive powers, and is equal to the excess of the price 

 of the produce of the land over the cost of production on that 

 land." In a highly civilised community then, where competi- 

 tion is a constant element in the letting of land, the proprietor 

 is in theory entitled to the remainder of the price of the soil's 

 produce after the farmer has paid the wages of labour, and 

 received the customary return for his capital and trouble. Of 

 course even Ricardo would have admitted that, in practice, 

 custom and sentiment largely affect the question of amount. 

 Assuming, however, that the theoretical definition was at this 

 period correct, we must conclude that rent depended on the 

 price obtained from agricultural produce. It does not, how- 

 ever, follow that the price of agricultural produce depends 

 upon the rent. But in order to understand this we must 

 explain the phrase " margin of cultivation," 



There is some land in every country which does not pay for 

 cultivation. In England and all densely populated countries 

 it is generally the most barren soil. In Australia and other 

 sparsely inhabited places it is, possibly, some of the most fertile 

 but distant land. There is therefore a margin of cultivable 

 soil which only pays as rent a purely nominal sum. Rent, 

 therefore, is the difference between the price of the produce of 

 any land and that of the produce of land at the margin of 

 cultivation. It rises or falls in inverse ratio to the contraction 

 or expansion in the margin of cultivation. If the producer's 

 surplus be increased, the margin of cultivation widens ; and if 

 it decreases, the margin of cultivation narrows. The producer's 

 surplus is increased whenever, coiteris parihiis, {a) the inventions 

 of machinery lower the cost of production ; (6) a rise takes place 



