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X.

always the mafters. When the regulation, there- CHA P. fore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always juft and equitable; but it is fometimes otherwife when in favour of the mafters. Thus the law which obliges the masters in feveral different trades to pay their workmen in money and not in goods, is quite juft and equitable. It imposes no real hardship upon the mafters. It only obliges them to pay that value in money, which they pretended to pay, but did not always really pay, in goods. This law is in favour of the workmen; but the 8th of George III. is in favour of the mafters. When mafters combine together in order to reduce the wages of their workmen, they commonly enter into a private bond or agreement, not to give more than a certain wage under a certain penalty. Were the workmen to enter into a contrary combination of the fame kind, not to accept of a certain wage under a certain penalty, the law would punish them very feverely; and if it dealt impartially, it would treat the mafters in the fame manner. But the 8th of George III. enforces by law that very regulation which mafters fometimes attempt to establish by fuch combinations. The complaint of the workmen, that it puts the ablest and moft induftrious upon the fame footing with an ordinary workman, feems perfectly well founded.

In ancient times too it was ufual to attempt to regulate the profits of merchants and other dealers, by rating the price both of provisions and other goods. The affize of bread is, fo far

as

I.

BOOK as I know, the only remnant of this ancient ufage. Where there is an exclufive corporation it may perhaps be proper to regulate the price of the firft neceffary of life. But where there is none, the competition will regulate it much better than any affize. The method of fixing the affize of bread established by the 31ft of George II. could not be put in practice in Scotland, on account of a defect in the law; its execution depending upon the office of clerk of the market, which does not exift there. This defect was not remedied till the third of George III. The want of an affize occafioned no fenfible inconveniency, and the establishment of one in the few places where it has yet taken place, has produced no fenfible advantage. In the greater part of the towns of Scotland, however, there is an incorporation of bakers who claim exclufive privileges, through they are not very ftrictly guarded.

The proportion between the different rates both of wages and profit in the different employ ments of labour and ftock, feems not to be much affected, as has already been obferved, by the riches or poverty, the advancing, ftationary, or declining state of the fociety. Such revolutions in the public welfare, though they affect the general rates both of wages and profit, must in the end affect them equally in all different employments. The proportion between them, therefore, must remain the fame, and cannot well be altered, at least for any confiderable time, by any fuch revolutions.

CHAP.

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CHAP. XI.

Of the Rent of Land.

XI.

ENT, confidered as the price paid for the c HA P. use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumftances of the land. In adjufting the terms of the leafe, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater fhare of the produce than what is fufficient to keep up the ftock from which he furnishes the feed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other inftruments. of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself without being a lofer, and the landlord feldom means to leave him any more. Whatever part of the produce, or, what is the fame thing, whatever part of its price, is over and above this fhare, he naturally endeavours to referve to himself as the rent of his land, which is evidently the highest the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumftances of the land. Sometimes, indeed, the liberality, more frequently the ignorance, of the landlord, makes him accept of fomewhat lefs than this portion; and fometimes too, though more rarely, the ignorance of the tenant makes him undertake to pay fomewhat more, or to content himself with fomewhat lefs, than the ordinary profits of farming ftock in the neighbourhood. This por

I.

BOOK tion, however, may ftill be confidered as the natural rent of land, or the rent for which it is naturally meant that land fhould for the most part be let.

The rent of land, it may be thought, is frequently no more than a reasonable profit or intereft for the stock laid out by the landlord upon its improvement. This, no doubt, may be partly the cafe upon fome occafions; for it can scarce ever be more than partly the cafe. The landlord demands a rent even for unimproved land, and the fuppofed intereft or profit upon the expence of improvement is generally an addition to this original rent. Thofe improvements, befides, are not always made by the stock of the landlord, but fometimes by that of the tenant. When the lease comes to be renewed, however, the landlord commonly demands the fame augmentation of rent, as if they had been all made by his own.

He fometimes demands rent for what is altogether incapable of human improvement. Kelp is a fpecies of fea-weed, which, when burnt, yields an alkaline falt, ufeful for making glafs, foap, and for feveral other purposes. It grows in feveral parts of Great Britain, particularly in Scotland, upon fuch rocks only as lie within the high water-mark, which are twice every day covered with the fea, and of which the produce, therefore, was never augmented by human industry. The landlord, however, whofe eftate is bounded by a kelp fhore of this kind, demands a rent for it as much as for his corn fields.

The fea in the neighbourhood of the islands of Shetland is more than commonly abundant in

fifh, which make a great part of the fubfiftence CHAP. of their inhabitants. But in order to profit by XI. the produce of the water, they muft have a habitation upon the neighbouring land. The rent of the landlord is in proportion, not to what the farmer can make by the land, but to what he can make both by the land and by the water. It is partly paid in fea-fifh; and one of the very few instances in which rent makes a part of the price of that commodity, is to be found in that country.

The rent of land, therefore, confidered as the price paid for the ufe of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all proportioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the improvement of the land, or to what he can. afford to take; but to what the farmer can afford to give.

Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought to market of which the ordinary price is fufficient to replace the stock which must be employed in bringing them thither, together with its ordinary profits. If the ordinary price is more than this, the furplus part of it will naturally go to the rent of the land. If it is not more, though the commodity may be brought to market, it can afford no rent to the landlord. Whether the price is, or is not more, depends upon the demand.

There are fome parts of the produce of land for which the demand must always be fuch as to afford a greater price than what is fufficient to bring them to market; and there are others for

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