BY E. M. JOHNSTON, F.L.S. 



213 



1887, deals so thoroughly with all vexed questions of this 

 character. At page 200-201 (" Political Economy ") he 

 writes : — 



" From the law of rent, as it has been stated, we deduce the 

 very important conclusion that rent forms no part of the 

 price of agricultural produce. 



" No proposition which the political economist has occasion 

 to announce is so startling, at the first hearing, as this ; nor 

 does any other contend against such persistent incredulity. 

 And yet no proposition can be more clearly established." 



Notwithstanding what has been said, it is quite possible, 

 and has actually occurred recently to a large extent in 

 England, that a rise of agricultural labourers' wages there, or 

 what has the same effect, the opening up of large areas of 

 more fertile land, as in America, or both together, may have 

 the effect of throwing the poorer lands of any one place out 

 of cultivation, and thus directly diminish the value of rent 

 in that place. This is happening now, and for the last 

 fifteen years in England, mainly by the influx of cheaper 

 products from the distant vast plains of Dakota and other 

 fertile areas of America. But what does this involve? 

 Why, that for every 1,000 acres thrown out of crop cultivation, 

 thereby diminishing rent, about 30 breadwinners, equal to 173 

 persons, are directly deprived of employment. This is the 

 only way in which rent can be injuriously affected, but it is 

 a process which is equally disastrous to the local agricultural 

 labourer. It is also, on the other hand, advantageous to the 

 consumer so long as these themselves do not form too large 

 an element of the general population ; for otherwise their 

 cheapened foods of foreign creation might be more than 

 counterbalanced by their diminished earnings as producers, 

 and thus operate unfavourably upon their purchasing power 

 or real wages. 



But returning to the question of rent and price, it is clear, 

 as affirmed by Mr. P. A. Walker, " That in the same market, 

 at the same time, there is but one price for different equal 

 portions of any (similar description) of commodity;" and " We 

 have also seen that the normal price is fixed by the cost of 

 producing that portion of the supply which is produced at the 

 greatest disadvantage. Apply these principles to the case 

 in hand. England does not raise all the wheat needed for 

 the subsistence of her population (mainly mechanical and 

 industrial). Besides cultivating the most fertile of her own 

 fields she makes heavy draughts upon the United States, 

 France, Egypt, Hungary, India, and the Black Sea region. 

 For the wheat of all these countries, however, so far as it is 

 of the same quality, there is but one price. That price is 

 fixed by the cost of raising the million, say of bushels, which 

 are raited at the greatest disadvantage, which means at the 



