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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

The landlord gains both ways; by the increase of the pro-duce, and by the diminution of the labour which must bemaintained out of it.

The rent of land not only varies with its fertility, whateverbe its produce, but with its situation, whatever be its fertility.Land in the neighbourhood of a town gives a greater rentthan land equally fertile in a distant part of the country.Though it may cost no more labour to cultivate the one thanthe other, it must always cost more to bring the produce ofthe distant land to market. A greater quantity of labour,therefore, must be maintained out of it; and the surplus, fromwhich are drawn both the profit of the farmer and the rentof the landlord, must be diminished. But in remote partsof the country, the rate of profits, as has already been shewn,is generally higher than in the neighbourhood of a largetown. A smaller proportion of this diminished surplus, there-fore, must belong to the landlord.

Good roads, canals, and navigable rivers, by diminishingthe expense of carriage, put the remote parts of the countrymore nearly upon a level with those in the neighbourhood ofthe town. They are upon that account the greatest of allimprovements. They encourage the cultivation of the remote,which must always be the most extensive circle of the coun-try. They are advantageous to the town, by breakingdown the monopoly of the country in its neighbourhood.They are advantageous even to that part of the country.Though they introduce some rival commodities into the oldmarket, they open many new markets to its produce. Mo-nopoly, besides, is a great enemy to good management, whichcan never be universally established but in consequence ofthat free and universal competition which forces every bodyto have recourse to it, for the sake of self-defence. It is notmore than fifty years ago, that some ot the counties in theneighbourhood of London petitioned the parliament againstthe extension of the turnpike roads into the remoter counties.Those remoter counties, they pretended, from the cheapnessof labour, would be able to sell their grass and yorn cheaperin the London market than themselves, and would therebyreduce their rents, and ruin their cultivation. Their rents,however, have risen, and their cultivation has been improvedsince that time.

A corn-field of moderate fertility produces a much greaterquantity of food for man than the best pasture of equal ex-