suffered to be shaken, and must be vigorously defended, because it is on this truth that the maintenance of social order, the progress of public wealth, and the amelioration of the condition of mankind, are, in some degree, depending.

The produce of annual labour, whether it be viewed as private or national income, is distributed in the shape of wages of labour, profit of stock, or rent of land.

The French economists were well aware that this distribution ought to take place according to regular and general laws; but instead of seeking for these laws, they created them conformably to the system which they had adopted.*

Adam Smith was better informed, or more fortunate. He discovered these laws in the very nature

of things.

He states that the distribution of the national income is naturally regulated by the progressive, stationary, or retrograde state of national wealth. When wealth is progressive, more produce of the annual labour is distributed in wages of labour, profit of stock, and rent of land. When wealth is station ary, a smaller quantity of that produce goes to the labourers as wages, and to the land-holders as rent; and the profit of stock remains as before. When wealth is retrograde, the wages of labour sink so low that they are scarcely adequate to supply the most urgent wants of the labourers; rents also suffer a considerable diminution; but the profits of stock expe

* Physiocratie; Tableau Economique.

rience, on the contrary, a rise corresponding with the decline of national wealth. Not to be struck with the justness and truth of these laws, and to withhold a tribute of praise and admiration from the mind that discovered them, is equally impossible.

To these general and fundamental rules of the distribution of the produce of annual labour, Adam Smith has added some particular ones for the wages. of different labours, the profit of different capitals, and the rents of every different kind of soil.

I have already explained his doctrine concerning the wages of different labours, (book ii. chap. 7,) and the profit of different capitals, (book iii, chap. 5.) I shall therefore confine myself to a few observations on that part of his doctrine which relates to the rents of land, of which I have not hitherto had an opportunity to speak.

The writers on political economy are not agreed upon the causes which establish the rent of lands.

The French economists derive it from the original advances of the land-owner in clearing the land and putting it into a state of cultivation.

Adam Smith has combated this opinion with arguments drawn from the circumstance that land-owners demand a rent even for unimproved land; that those improvements are sometimes made by the stock of the tenant; and that land-owners sometimes demand rent for what is altogether incapable of human improvement.

He therefore regards the rent of land, considered as the price paid for the use of the land, as a monopoly-price, which is always determined by what

is left to the farmer after he has paid the wages of labour and deducted the customary profit of stock.*

This first point being once established, Adam Smith displays all the sagacity of his mind to cláss, according to general rules, the lands which always afford a rent, those which sometimes may and sometimes may not afford rent, and those which do not afford any rent. He has even endeavoured to class the different kinds of cultivation, according as they produce food, clothing, materials for dwellings, or articles that satisfy fancies and caprices: but his rules are overloaded with so many exceptions, they depend on so great a number of circumstances, and may be so easily criticized, that the impotence and inability of his efforts are felt at every page, at every line. We see that he is struggling in vain against the force of things, and that he cannot establish generalities where nature has dealt in individualities. Thus, after having laid it down as a principle that the rent of wheat-lands regulates in Europe the rent of all other cultivated lands, he is forced to acknowledge that, in many cases, meadows, vineyards, olive-grounds, mines, quarries, and even forests, yield a higher rent than wheat-lands. It is true that he has again attempted to generalize the particular cases. But these uncertain classifications were hardly worth the trouble which they cost him, since the rent of all lands, whatever be the mode of cultivating them, is always limited to that portion of produce which remains after deduction of the wages of labour and profit of stock; and since

* Wealth of Nations, vol. i. pages 250, 251.

this portion is more or less considerablé according as the state of wealth is progressive, stationary, or retrograde. Beyond these rules there is nothing but doubt, obscurity, and uncertainty. These are the bounds of the science.

The laws then which regulate the distribution of the annual produce of labour in the shape of wages of labour, profit of stock, and rent of land, are plain and positive, and can no longer be mistaken.

Of all the authors that have recommended a strict attention to those laws and developed their advantages, none, I think, have done it more successfully than the Earl of Lauderdale and Count Verri.

"Commerce," says the latter, "is so much the more active, as wealth is more equally distributed and diffused among a greater number of individuals. We see indeed, that in countries where wealth is badly distributed, where a naked and famished multitude afford a striking contrast with a small number of individuals overflowing with riches, the dealers in foreign and national commodities are few, and the prices of goods so high that little is exported.

The

annual re-production is reduced exactly to the absolute necessary. The soil where generations of oppresBors and oppressed succeed each other, is barren or uncultivated; every thing withers, every thing is dead until an enlightened legislator has the inclination and the power to point out the true road, and to cause it to be followed.*

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* Della Econom. Polit. § 6.

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The Earl of Lauderdale presents the same opinion in a stronger and still more striking light.

"The distribution of wealth," says the noble Earl, "not only regulates and decides the channels in which the industry of every country is embarked, and of course the articles in the production of which it excels; but a proper distribution of wealth insures the increase of opulence by sustaining a regular progressive demand in the home-market, and still more effectually by affording to those whose habits are likely to create a desire of supplanting labour, the power of executing it." To support this opinion, lord Lauderdale quotes a passage of Bacon, which proves that this vast and profound genius had a glimpse of every useful truth.

"Above all things," said Bacon, "good policy is to be used, that the treasures and monies in a state be not gathered into few hands. For, otherwise, a state may have a great stock, and yet starve. And money is like muck, not good except it be spread."*

Lord Lauderdale has not contented himself with rendering sensible the advantages of the distribution of wealth and of its circulation through all classes of civilized society; he has carried his views farther, and inferred from the present tendency of all nations to favour this circulation, that the industry which is employed in supplying the wants of the multitude, must always prosper more and more, whilst that which labours only for the luxury, pomp, and vanity of the higher and opulent classes, must insensibly decline. This consequence, which affords to his Lordship

* Lord Lauderdale's Inquiry, chap. 5, page 349, 853.