WEALTH OF NATIONS. 217 



of both labour and capital from place to place, and in 

 the same trade, which the laws of apprenticeship do in 

 preventing the circulation of labour from place to 

 place, and from trade to trade. The poor laws of 

 England are shown by Dr. Smith to have the most 

 mischievous effects on the circulation of labour, and 

 indeed of capital also. But these have now happily 

 ceased thus to operate, as have in all our municipal 

 towns, except London, the exclusive privileges of 

 corporations. 



iv. The rent of land forms the subject of the eleventh 

 and last chapter of the first book. It is not the profit 

 of the stock vested in land, or even of that vested in 

 its improvement, but the portion of the produce paid 

 to the owner for the natural powers or productiveness 

 of the soil. This subdivision consists of three parts 

 produce always affording rent, produce sometimes 

 affording rent, sometimes not, and variations in the re- 

 lative value of these two kinds of produce, whether 

 compared with each other, or with other commodities. 



1. The articles necessary to the food of man always 

 enable the land on which they are raised to yield a 

 rent, beside both supporting the labourers by wages, 

 and replacing the cultivator's stock with a profit. 

 The first part of the chapter enters minutely into the 

 prices of these articles relatively, and in comparison of 

 money or other commodities. 



2. Certain articles of clothing, as wool and the skins 

 of wild animals, articles used in building, as timber, 

 stone, fuel as coal, some metals, all yield rent in 

 certain situations and certain circumstances, not in 

 others. 



3. The value of articles only occasionally yielding 

 rent will vary with that of the produce that always 

 yields it. Some of the precious metals are dependent 

 not on one district, but on the market of the world, 

 from the metals being everywhere the instrument or 

 medium of exchange. These things are to be regarded 



V" OF THE 



UNIVERSITY 



