5. It is scarcely necessary to observe that the data on which this table is constructed are assumed, and are probably very far from the truth. They are fixed on as tending to illustrate the principle, -- which would be the same, whether the first profits were fifty per cent or five, -- or, whether an additional capital of ten quarters, or of one hundred, were required to obtain the same produce from the cultivation of new land. In proportion as the capital employed on the land, consisted more of fixed capital, and less of circulating captial, would rent advance, and property {profits?} fall less rapidly.
6. This would be the effect of a constantly accumulating capital, in a country which refused to import foreign and cheaper corn.
But after profits have very much fallen, accumulation will be checked, and capital will be exported to be employed in those countries where food is cheap and profits high. All European colonies have been established with the capital of the mother countries, and have thereby checked accumulation. That part of the population too, which is employed in the foreign carrying trade, is fed with foreign corn. It cannot be doubted, that low profits, which are the inevitable effects of a really high price of corn,tend to draw capital abroad; this consideration ought therefore to be a powerful reason to prevent us from restricting importation.
7. By rent I always mean the remuneration given to the landlord for the use of the original power of the land. If either the landlord expends capital on his own land, or the capital of a preceding tenant is left upon it at the expiration of his lease, he may obtain what is indeed called a larger rent, but a portion of this is evidently paid for the use of capital. The other portion only is paid for the use of the orginal power of the land.
8. Excepting, as has been before observed, the real wages of labour should rise, or a worse system of agriculture be practised.
9. The low price of corn, caused by improvements in agriculture, would give a stimulus to population, by increasing profits and encouraging accumulation, which would again raise the price of corn and lower profits. But a larger population could be maintained at the same price of corn, the same profits, and the same rents. Improvements in agriculture may then be said to increase profits, and to lower for a time rents.
10. The causes, which render the acquisition of an additional quantity of corn more difficult are, in progressive countries, in constant operation, whilst marked improvements in agriculture, or in the implements of husbandry are of less frequent occurrence.
If these opposite causes acted with equal effect, corn would be subject only to accidental variation of price, arising from bad seasons, from greater or less real wages of labour, or from an alteration in the value of the precious metals, proceeding from their abundance or scarcity.
11. Through the price of all commodities is ultimately regulated by, and is always tending to, the cost of their production, including the general profits of stock, they are all subject, and perhaps corn more than most others, to an accidental price, proceeding from temporary causes.
12. It has been thought that the price of corn regulates the prices of all other things. This appears to me to be a mistake.
If the price of corn is affected by the rise or fall of the value of the precious metals themselves, then indeed will the price of commodities be also affected, but they vary, because the value of money varies, not because the value of corn is altered.
Commodities, I think, cannot materially rise or fall, whilst money and commodities continue in the same proportions, or rather whilst the cost of production of both estimated in corn continues the same. In the case of taxation, a part of the price is paid for the liberty of using the commodity, and does not constitute its real price.
13. Mr Malthus has supplied me with a happy illustration -- he has correctly compared "soil to a great number of machines, all susceptible of continued improvement by the application of capital to them, buy yet of very different original qualities and powers." How, I would ask, can profits rise whilst we are obliged to make use of that machine which has the worst original qualities and powers? We cannot abandon the use of it; for it is the condition on which we obtain the food necessary for our population, and the demand for food is by the supposition not diminished -- but who would consent to use it if he could make greater profits elsewhere?
14. Excepting when the extension of commerce enables us to obtain food at really cheaper prices.
15. If by foreign commerce,or the discovery of machinery, the commodities consumed by the labourer should become much cheaper, wages would fall; and this, as we have before observed, would raise the profits of the farmer, and therefore, all other profits.
16. This principle is most ably stated by Mr Malthus in page 42 of "An Inquiry," &c.
17. It is this latter opinion which is chiefly insisted upon by Mr Malthus in his late publication, "The grounds of An Opinion,"&c.
18. As London is to be a depot for foreign corn, this store might be very great.
19. If it be true, as Mr Malthus observes, that in Ireland there are no manufactures in which capital could be profitably employed, capital would not be withdrawn from the land, and then there would be no loss of agricultural capital. Ireland would, in such case, have the same surplus corn produce, although it would be of less exchangeable value. Her revenue might be diminished;but if she would not, or could not manufacture goods, and would not cultivate the ground, she would have no revenue at all.
20. I by no means agree with Adam Smith, or with Mr Malthus, respecting the effects of taxation on the necessaries of life.
The former can find no term too severe by which to characterize them. Mr Malthus is more lenient. They both think that such taxes, incalculably more than any other, tend to diminish capital and production. I do not say that they are the best of taxes, but they do not, I think, subject us to any of the disadvantages of which Adam Smith speaks in foreign trade: nor do they produce effects very different from other taxes. Adam Smith thought that such taxes fell exclusively on the landholder; Mr Malthus thinks they are divided between the landholder and consumer. It appears to me that they are paid wholly by the consumer.
21. Page 22, Grounds, &c.
22. Grounds, &c. p. 32.
