WEALTH OF NATIONS. 215 



the farmer's interest to pay a consideration for the use 

 of the better land first cultivated ; so that, instead of 

 -he rent affecting the price of corn, the price of corn 

 affects the rent ; and that land is let at a rent because 

 corn cannot be grown any longer at the same price, 

 and not that corn is sold at the higher price because 

 land yields a rent. The price of corn again is always 

 regulated by the application of capital to inferior soils. 

 It never can materially rise above or fall materially 

 below the expense required for raising and bringing 

 to market the com produced on the worst soils actu- 

 ally cultivated. This is perhaps the most considerable 

 step that has been made in political economy since the 

 * Wealth of Nations ' was published. 



iii. The profits of stock are the subject of the third 

 subdivision. These vary with the wealth and pro- 

 perty of the community as wages do, but in a very 

 different manner; for the increase of capital, which 

 tends to raise the rate of wages, lowers by competition 

 the rate of profit, as indeed the rise of wages does 

 also. The progress of the community, however, in 

 prosperity, has a tendency to raise both the wages of 

 labour and the profits of stock ; while a retrograde 

 state of a country never fails to lower both profits and 

 wages. The profit of money, or interest, follow the 

 like rules. It depends upon the proportions of bor- 

 rowers to lenders ; that is, on the supply of money 

 compared with the demand for it, and the profits made 

 by those who borrow it to invest in trade. It de- 

 pends not at all upon the mere quantity of the pre- 

 cious metals. The profits of stock form generally the 

 subject of the ninth chapter. The tenth relates to the 

 rate of wages and profits in different employments, 

 and consists of two parts the one treating of the in- 

 equalities arising from the nature of the employment 

 of labour or capital, the other treating of the inequali- 

 ties produced by the policy of states. 



1. The inequalities of the first class affecting wages 



