THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

783

Some landlords, instead of raising the rent, take a finefor the renewal of the lease. This practice is in most casesthe expedient of a spendthrift, who for a sum of ready mo-ney sells a future revenue otVinuch greater value. It is inmost cases, therefore, hurtful to the landlord. It is frequentlyhurtful to the tenant, and it is always hurtful to the commu-nity. It frequently takes from the tenant so great a part ofhis capital, and thereby diminishes so much his ability tocultivate the laud, that he finds it more dillicult to pay asmall rent than it would otherwise have been to pay a greatone. Whatever diminishes his ability to cultivate, necessa-rily keeps down, below what it would otherwise have been,the most important part of the revenue of the community.By rendering the tax upon such fines a good deal heavierthan upon the ordinary rent, this hurtful practice might bediscouraged, to the no small advantage of all the differentparties concerned, of the landlord, of the tenant, of the so-vereign, and of the whole community.

Some leases prescribe to the tenant a certain mode of cul-tivation, and a certain succession of crops during the wholecontinuance of the lease. This condition, which is generallythe ell'ect of the landlord’s conceit of his own superior know-ledge (a conceit in most cases very ill founded), ought alwaysto be considered as an additional rent, as a rent in service in-stead of a rent in money. In order to discourage the prac-tice, which is generally a foolish one, this species of rentmight be valued rather high, and consequently taxed some-what higher than common money rents.

Some landlords, instead of a rent in money, require a rentin kind, in corn, cattle, poultry, wine, oil, eke. others againrequire a rent in service. Such rents are always more hurt-ful to the tenant than beneficial to the landlord. They eithertake more or keep more out of the pocket of the former, thanthey put into that of the latter. In every country where theytake place, the tenants are poor and beggarly, pretty muchaccording to the degree in which they take place. By va-luing, in the same manner, such rents rather high, and con-sequently taxing them somewhat higher than common moneyrents, a practice which is hurtful to the whole communitymight perhaps be sufficiently discouraged.

When the landlord chose to occupy himself a part of hisown lands, the rent might be valued according to an equita-ble arbitration of the farmers and landlords in the neighbour-