WEALTH OF NATIONS. 145 



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 relative 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 re- 

 placing 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 as making 

 their price vary, and with it the rent of the mines. 



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