5 1 8 History of the English Landed Interest. 



man, while temporary improvements, tlie fruits of wiiicli, as 

 often as not, cease altogether after a time, are supposedly 

 carried out in the interests of the tenant-for-life. But the 

 returns from the landlord's outlay, whether expended on per- 

 manent or temporary improvements of the land, are surely 

 interest on his capital. They may be called rents, just as the 

 French designate the interest on their Government Stock 

 rent; but call them either rents or interest, they are the 

 profits of improving the soil — in other words, of increasing 

 the rate of production — and they are therefore a large item 

 in the cost of production. 



How far then may the soil now-a-days be called the land- 

 lord's manufacturing plant, and his rents the profits of a 

 commercial undertaking. The Duke of Argyll would call 

 them wholly so, and even Professor Marshall has gone so 

 far as to admit that the soil in a new country resembles 

 manufacturing plant, and in an old one is " often as much 

 an artificial product as those pieces of earth which have 

 been arranged into brick walls." But the latter economist 

 also maintains that " the soil receives an income of heat and 

 light, of rain and air ; and, in urban land, of advantages of 

 situation, all of which are independent of man's efforts. Conse- 

 quently he adheres to the old distinction made by him in his 

 Principles of Economics, between producers' profits which are 

 true rents and those which are quasi-rents.^ No one, however, 

 will deny that the landlord helps to earn his livelihood in 

 rents, by sharing largely in the costs of production; if so, he 

 has as much right to the protection of the community as the 

 tenant. His expenditure of capital adds to the productive 

 powers of the soil just as much as, probably more than, the 

 skill of the farmer, or the industry of the labourer. Loosen 

 his fixity of tenure, or lessen his profits, and you will decrease 

 his outlay in agricultural improvements or frighten his capital 

 entirely off the land. 



Was Adam Smith then, right after all, when he argued that 

 prices are dependent on rents ? Before we can either say yes 



^ Compare Unseen Foundations of Society, Duke of Argj'll, and The 

 Economic Review, " On Rent." A. Marshall, March, 1893. 



