OBJECTIONS. 101 



have certainly uot fallen iu anything like the 

 same ratio, whilst in unmerous cases they have 

 increased; and, therefore, there seems to be a 

 grievance, to the bottom of which we trust the 

 Board of xigriculture will get. It would be a 

 mistake, however, to suppose that a slis^ht re- 

 duction on the carriage of milk, or on tlxat of 

 other produce, would at the end of the year put 

 the farmer in the position he ought to occupy, 

 namely, one of fair competition all-round with 

 the foreign producer. Much else clearly is re- 

 quired than a reduction in railway rates. 



Rent. 



We do not propose to argue the question " What 

 is Rent? " because economists and philosophers 

 appear upon this as upon other matters to differ 

 exceedingly. Besides, we have already had some- 

 thing to say on the matter in Chapter II. 



We suggest, however, that it is both common- 

 sense and business (to say nothing of the morality 

 of it) that a man — call him a landlord or what 

 not — should receive a reasonable return on the 

 money he has invested in the purchase of his 

 land, and on the improvements he makes upon 

 or to it. This return, if one likes, may be called 

 " rent," or interest. The late Duke or Argyll 

 regarded the soil as the landlord's manufacturing 

 plant, whilst Professor Marshall has admitted 

 that not only the soil of a new country resembles 

 such plant, but that even in an old country like 

 England, for example, it is quite often an " essen- 



