changeable value, not only sufficient to procure all the clothes, food, and other necessaries consumed by those employed in working it, and bringing the produce to market, but also to afford the common and ordinary profits to him who advances the stock necessary to carry on the undertaking. The return for capital from the poorest mine paying no rent, would regulate the rent of all the other more productive mines. This mine is supposed to yield the usual profits of stock. All that the other mines produce more than this will necessarily be paid to the owners for rent. Since this principle is precisely the same as that which we have already laid down respecting land, it will not be necessary further to enlarge on it."

19. Mill, as usual copying Ricardo, says " Agricultural productions are not the only commodities which have several different costs of production at once, and which in consequence of that difference and in proportion to it, afford a rent. Mines are also an instance. Almost all kinds of raw material extracted from the interior of the earth-metals, coals, precious stones, &c., are obtained from mines differing considerably in fertility, that is, yielding very different quantities of the product to the same quantity of labour and capital."

Now, let us observe the necessary consequence of such doctrines. If the rent of mines arises solely from differences in the fertility of mines, and is only paid in consequence of that difference, it manifestly follows that if all the mines were of equal fertility there could be no such thing as rent. A doctrine too absurd to require a moment's refutation. It would be manifestly just as absurd to say that rent is paid for houses because houses are of different sizes; and that if all the houses in a great city, like London and Paris, were of the same size there could not be any such thing as rent or that freights are paid for ships because ships are of different sizes, and that if all ships were of the same size there could be no such thing as freights: or that wages or salary are paid to men because men differ in capacity, and that if all men were of equal capacity there could be no such thing as wages or salary and so on in innumerable cases; in short, if the RicardoMill theory be true, prices are only paid for anything because things differ in quality or degree.

1 Principles of Political Economy, B. III., ch. 5, § 3.

Nay more, this doctrine of Ricardo and Mill leads to consequences which are, if possible, even still more absurd. For as they say that Rent only arises from differences of fertility between different mines, it would follow that if there were but a single mine or quarry no rent could be paid for it! If this were true, kelp-shores could only have paid a rent because there were shores of different fertility; and if there had been only a single kelpshore no rent could have been paid for it! Nor is this by any means an imaginary case. There is but a single mine of plumbago in England, and according to the doctrine of Ricardo and Mill no rent can be paid for it; a doctrine at which the owner of the mine would doubtless smile. Nor could any rent be paid for the quarries of Paros, Carrara, or Pentelicus: a doctrine so manifestly absurd as to require no refutation.

But, in fact, Mill has himself entirely overthrown this theory of Rent. He says a little further on-" Whatever be the causes, it is a fact that mines of different degrees of richness are in operation, and since the value of the produce must be proportional to the cost of production at the worst mine (fertility and situation taken together), it is more than proportional to that of the best. All mines superior in produce to the worst actually worked will yield, therefore, a rent equal to the excess. They may yield more, and the worst mine may itself yield a rent. Mines being comparatively few, their qualities do not graduate gently into one another as the qualities of land do; and the demand may be such as to keep the value of the produce considerably above the cost of production at the worst mine now worked, without being sufficient to bring into operation a still worse."

Now, if this be true, which it undoubtedly is, what becomes of the doctrine that mines only pay a rent in consequence of their being of different degrees of fertility, and that the Rent is the excess of the more fertile mines above the least fertile one? Is it not obvious from this passage of Mill that the Value of the produce is due entirely to the Intensity of the Demand for the produce and the Limitation of the Supply of it? And that it is a mere accident that mines differ in degrees of fertility? If all the mines pay a rent, how can it be essential to Rent that they should differ in fertility? As M. H. Passy truly observes, this is to take the circumstances which make a difference in the rate of Rent for the cause which produces Rent. The same principle

manifestly governs the Rent of land and the Rent of Mines: only it so happens that the differences of land usually graduate more gently than the differences of mines. But in all cases these differences are the mere accident of Rent, and not its essence. And so the Ricardo-Mill theory of Rent vanishes into air!

Mill has applied the same theory to fisheries; but after the full consideration and refutation already given of the theory as applied to land and mines it would be superfluous to refute it as regards fisheries.

20. We thus see that the doctrine first positively announced by Anderson, and adopted by all Economists since, that Rent does not influence the price of agricultural products such as corn, is true. Such a product is brought into a common market which no single producer can influence, and therefore he must conform himself to its conditions. A certain general price is necessary to attract a certain supply; and the differences in the cost of production of each particular parcel can have no influence on its price. The supply will be produced so long as its value affords the cost of labour and ordinary profits. No one created the land itself, and therefore remuneration for the use of it is not part of the necessary cost of production and if any particular parcel of its produce will not afford both ordinary profits and Rent, Rent, of course, will vanish first. The producers of corn are far too numerous to combine to limit the supply. For a considerable time it was attempted to limit the supply of foreign corn by prohibitive or protective legislation, but all such laws have been for ever rendered impossible in this country; and consequently corn will come in from foreign countries so long as the value of it here will yield the ordinary profits of trade.

But where the producers are fewer in number the case is different. The owners of mines of different sorts are comparatively few, and they can without any great difficulty come to an agreement to limit the supply. It has been alleged that the owners of coal mines have on several occasions agreed to limit the supply in order to maintain it at a certain level in order to preserve their rents. Though the same rule would evidently apply to minerals as to corn, if the producers were too numerous to combine. Minerals of all sorts are the free gift of nature, and not the creation of man, and therefore a remuneration for them is not a

part of the necessary cost of production: and if there were no arbitrary limitation of supply they would continue to be produced so long as the producers obtained ordinary profits.

But the case is different with shops. In these Rent does undoubtedly enter into price; because in such cases it is part of the necessary cost of production. No man created the land or the minerals; but shops are not the gift of nature. They are created by the expenditure of capital, which is part of the necessary cost of production, and it must be replaced in the price of the articles. Moreover each shop is a little market in itself, over which the producer has complete command, only controlled by other producers who are all in a similar position. A retail shopkeeper buys his goods at a certain price from the wholesale dealer, and he has a certain price to pay for rent; or if he built the shop himself he must have laid out a certain capital on it, and must have a certain interest on that expenditure. He must also provide for his own maintenance. He expects to have a certain amount of custom; he therefore fixes such a price upon his articles as he estimates will provide for all these things. If he cannot obtain these returns he must give up his business. All his competitors are in exactly the same condition, and thus the producers have the command of the market. The prices which each may fix are only controlled by what he thinks his customers will give, and his fellow-competitors will enforce as well as himself. None of these competitors however can afford to sell below that amount any more than he can. Consequently in such cases rent is a part of the necessary cost of production, as being only the interest on capital expended and production must cease unless such interest is afforded: and therefore in such cases it necessarily and justly forms a part of price.

It is easily seen that this is true by any one who considers the difference between the prices of fish, fruit, and vegetables as sold in shops where the shop is the fixed capital, and the same articles sold by costermongers in the street, whose only fixed capital is a barrow.

21. What we have said now is sufficient to explain the general principles of Rent, and to shew the entirely unphilosophical nature of Ricardo's theory, which has been adopted by so many Economists in this country, but which the greater number of the more eminent French Economists repudiate. Mill himself acknowledges

that Economics is to be treated as a Physical Science. It is surprising that he did not perceive that Ricardo's system of breaking up the phenomena of Economics into several classes of cases, and explaining each class by a distinct Theory of Value, is just as absurd as it would be to break up the phenomena of Optics into several classes, and to explain each by a distinct Theory of Light.

It is also surprising that he did not perceive that the admissions he makes himself are fatal to the theory he admires so much. When he says" If the whole land of a country were required for cultivation all of it might yield a rent," and when he says that all the mines in a country may yield a rent, is not such an admission fatal to the doctrine that differences of advantage are essential to Rent?

If all lands and mines can pay Rent how can Rent be "the difference between the unequal returns to different parts of the capital employed on the soil," or the "price of the privilege which the inequality of the returns to different portions of agricultural produce confers on all except the least favoured portion?

Thus he in one place defines Rent to be the excess of the returns of all portions above the worst, thereby expressly excluding the worst portion from the capacity of paying Rent, and then he says in another place that all portions, even the worst, may pay Rent! Can anything be more contradictory or absurd?

22. Moreover, Anderson's theory of Rent is quite different from Ricardo's, as generally understood. Anderson makes the value of corn spring entirely from demand, and the increasing demand lead to the increase of price, which permits additional cost to be bestowed on bringing inferior land into cultivation.

Ricardo makes the increase of price to proceed from the increased labour bestowed on producing the corn, and from the extracts given above it is quite clear that Ricardo's doctrine is that the bringing of worse lands into cultivation must precede, and is the cause of, the increase of the price; and this is the sense which both his opponents, Chalmers and Thompson, and his admirer, McCulloch, attribute to him. But Mill, in accordance with Anderson, says justly 2-"The higher the market value of produce, the lower are the soils to which cultivation can descend, Principles of Political Economy, B. II., ch. 16, § 2.

2 Ibid.