Human food seems to be the only produce of land which always and
neces-407 [ 1 ]
sarily affords some rent to the landlord. Other sorts of produce sometimes may and sometimes may not, according to different circumstances.
After food, clothing and lodging are the two great wants of mankind.
408 [ 2 ]
Land in its original rude state can afford the materials of clothing and
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lodging to a much greater number of people than it can feed. In its im-proved state it can sometimes feed a greater number of people than it can supply with those materials; at least in the way in which they require them, and are willing to pay for them. In the one state, therefore, there is always a superabundance of those materials, which are frequently, upon that account, of little or no value. In the other there is often a scarcity, which necessarily augments their value. In the one state a great part of them is thrown away as useless, and the price of what is used is considered as equal only to the labour and expense of fitting it for use, and can, there-fore, afford no rent to the landlord. In the other they are all made use of, and there is frequently a demand for more than can be had. Somebody is always willing to give more for every part of them than what is sufficient to pay the expense of bringing them to market. Their price, therefore, can always afford some rent to the landlord.
The skins of the larger animals were the original materials of
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ing. Among nations of hunters and shepherds, therefore, whose food con-sists chiefly in the flesh of those animals, every man, by providing him-self with food, provides himhim-self with the materials of more clothing than he can wear. If there was no foreign commerce, the greater part of them would be thrown away as things of no value. This was probably the case among the hunting nations of North America before their country was dis-covered by the Europeans, with whom they now exchange their surplus peltry for blankets, fire-arms, and brandy, which gives it some value. In the present commercial state of the known world, the most barbarous na-tions, I believe, among whom land property is established, have some for-eign commerce of this kind, and find among their wealthier neighbours such a demand for all the materials of clothing which their land produces, and which can neither be wrought up nor consumed at home, as raises their price above what it costs to send them to those wealthier neighbours.
It affords, therefore, some rent to the landlord. When the greater part G.ed. p179 of the highland cattle were consumed on their own hills, the exportation
of their hides made the most considerable article of the commerce of that
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country, and what they were exchanged for afforded some addition to the rent of the highland estates. The wool of England, which in old times could neither be consumed nor wrought up at home, found a market in the then wealthier and more industrious country of Flanders, and its price afforded something to the rent of the land which produced it. In countries not better cultivated than England was then, or than the highlands of Scotland are now, and which had no foreign commerce, the materials of clothing would evidently be so superabundant that a great part of them would be thrown away as useless, and no part could afford any rent to the landlord.
The materials of lodging cannot always be transported to so great a
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tance as those of clothing, and do not so readily become an object of foreign commerce. When they are superabundant in the country which produces them, it frequently happens, even in the present commercial state of the world, that they are of no value to the landlord. A good stone quarry in the neighbourhood of London would afford a considerable rent. In many parts of Scotland and Wales it affords none. Barren timber for building is of great value in a populous and well-cultivated country, and the land which pro-duces it affords a considerable rent. But in many parts of North America the landlord would be much obliged to anybody who would carry away the greater part of his large trees. In some parts of the highlands of Scotland the bark is the only part of the wood which, for want of roads and water-carriage, can be sent to market. The timber is left to rot upon the ground.
When the materials of lodging are so superabundant, the part made use of is worth only the labour and expense of fitting it for that use. It affords no rent to the landlord, who generally grants the use of it to whoever takes the trouble of asking it. The demand of wealthier nations, however, some-times enables him to get a rent for it. The paving of the streets of London has enabled the owners of some barren rocks on the coast of Scotland to
draw a rent from what never afforded any before. The woods of Norway G.ed. p180 and of the coasts of the Baltic find a market in many parts of Great
Bri-tain which they could not find at home, and thereby afford some rent to their proprietors.
Countries are populous not in proportion to the number of people whom
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their produce can clothe and lodge, but in proportion to that of those whom it can feed. When food is provided, it is easy to find the necessary cloth-ing and lodgcloth-ing. But though these are at hand, it may often be difficult to find food. In some parts even of the British dominions what is called a house may be built by one day’s labour of one man. The simplest spe-cies of clothing, the skins of animals, require somewhat more labour to dress and prepare them for use. They do not, however, require a great deal. Among savage and barbarous nations, a hundredth or little more than a hundredth part of the labour of the whole year will be sufficient to provide them with such clothing and lodging as satisfy the greater part of the people. All the other ninety-nine parts are frequently no more than enough to provide them with food.
The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith But when by the improvement and cultivation of land the labour of one
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family can provide food for two, the labour of half the society becomes suf-ficient to provide food for the whole. The other half, therefore, or at least the greater part of them, can be employed in providing other things, or in satisfying the other wants and fancies of mankind. Clothing and lodging, household furniture, and what is called Equipage, are the principal objects of the greater part of those wants and fancies. The rich man consumes no more food than his poor neighbour. In quality it may be very different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour and art; but in quant-ity it is very nearly the same. But compare the spacious palace and great
wardrobe of the one with the hovel and the few rags of the other, and you G.ed. p181 will be sensible that the difference between their clothing, lodging, and
household furniture is almost as great in quantity as it is in quality. The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniences and ornaments of building, dress, equipage, and household furniture, seems to have no limit or cer-tain boundary. Those, therefore, who have the command of more food than they themselves can consume, are always willing to exchange the surplus, or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for gratifications of this other kind. What is over and above satisfying the limited desire is given for the amusement of those desires which cannot be satisfied, but seem to be al-together endless. The poor, in order to obtain food, exert themselves to gratify those fancies of the rich, and to obtain it more certainly they vie with one another in the cheapness and perfection of their work. The num-ber of workmen increases with the increasing quantity of food, or with the growing improvement and cultivation of the lands; and as the nature of their business admits of the utmost subdivisions of labour, the quantity of materials which they can work up increases in a much greater propor-tion than their numbers. Hence arises a demand for every sort of material which human invention can employ, either usefully or ornamentally, in
building, dress, equipage, or household furniture; for the fossils and min- G.ed. p182 erals contained in the bowels of the earth; the precious metals, and the
precious stones.
Food is in this manner not only the original source of rent, but every
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other part of the produce of land which afterwards affords rent derives that part of its value from the improvement of the powers of labour in producing food by means of the improvement and cultivation of land.
Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which afterwards
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afford rent, do not afford it always. Even in improved and cultivated coun-tries, the demand for them is not always such as to afford a greater price than what is sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with it or-dinary profits, the stock which must be employed in bringing them to mar-ket. Whether it is or is not such depends upon different circumstances.
Whether a coal-mine, for example, can afford any rent depends partly
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upon its fertility, and partly upon its situation.
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A mine of any kind may be said to be either fertile or barren,
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ing as the quantity of mineral which can be brought from it by a certain quantity of labour is greater or less than what can be brought by an equal quantity from the greater part of other mines of the same kind.
Some coal-mines advantageously situated cannot be wrought on
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count of their barrenness. The produce does not pay the expense. They can afford neither profit nor rent.
There are some of which the produce is barely sufficient to pay the
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bour, and replace, together with it ordinary profits, the stock employed in working them. They afford some profit to the undertaker of the work, but no rent to the landlord. They can be wrought advantageously by nobody but the landlord, who, being himself undertaker of the work, gets the or-dinary profit of the capital which he employs in it. Many coal-mines in Scotland are wrought in this manner, and can be wrought in no other. The landlord will allow nobody else to work them without paying some rent, and nobody can afford to pay any.
Other coal-mines in the same country, sufficiently fertile, cannot be
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wrought on account of their situation. A quantity of mineral sufficient to defray the expense of working could be brought from the mine by the or-dinary, or even less than the oror-dinary, quantity of labour; but in an inland country, thinly inhabited, and without either good roads or water-carriage, this quantity could not be sold.
Coals are a less agreeable fuel than wood: they are said, too, to be less
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wholesome. The expense of coals, therefore, at the place where they are G.ed. p183 consumed, must generally be somewhat less than that of wood.
The price of wood again varies with the state of agriculture, nearly in
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the same manner, and exactly for the same reason, as the price of cattle. In its rude beginnings the greater part of every country is covered with wood, which is then a mere encumberance of no value to the landlord, who would gladly give it to anybody for the cutting. As agriculture advances, the woods are partly cleared by the progress of tillage, and partly go to decay in consequence of the increased number of cattle. These, though they do not increase in the same proportion as corn, which is altogether the acquisition of human industry, yet multiply under the care and protection of men, who store up in the season of plenty what may maintain them in that of scarcity, who through the whole year furnish them with a greater quantity of food than uncultivated nature provides for them, and who by destroying and extirpating their enemies, secure them in the free enjoyment of all that she provides. Numerous herds of cattle, when allowed to wander through the woods, though they do not destroy the old trees, hinder any young ones from coming up so that in the course of a century or two the whole forest goes to ruin. The scarcity of wood then raises its price. It affords a good rent, and the landlord sometimes finds that he can scarce employ his best lands more advantageously than in growing barren timber, of which the greatness of the profit often compensates the lateness of the returns. This
The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith
seems in the present times to be nearly the state of things in several parts of Great Britain, where the profit of planting is found to be equal to that of either corn or pasture. The advantage which the landlord derives from planting can nowhere exceed, at least for any considerable time, the rent which these could afford him; and in an inland country which is highly cultivated, it will frequently not fall much short of this rent. Upon the sea-coast of a well improved country, indeed, if coals can conveniently be had for fuel, it may sometimes be cheaper to bring barren timber for building from less cultivated foreign countries than to raise it at home. In the new town of Edinburgh, built within these few years, there is not, perhaps, a single stick of Scotch timber.
Whatever may be the price of wood, if that of coals is such that the
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pense of a coal fire is nearly equal to that of a wood one, we may be assured G.ed. p184 that at that place, and in these circumstances, the price of coals is as high
as it can be. It seems to be so in some of the inland parts of England, par-ticularly in Oxfordshire, where it is usual, even in the fires of the common people, to mix coals and wood together, and where the difference in the expense of those two sorts of fuel cannot, therefore, be very great.
Coals, in the coal countries, are everywhere much below this highest
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price. If they were not, they could not bear the expense of a distant car-riage, either by land or by water. A small quantity only could be sold, and the coal masters and coal proprietors find it more for their interest to sell a great quantity at a price somewhat above the lowest, than a small quant-ity at the highest. The most fertile coal-mine, too, regulates the price of coals at all the other mines in its neighbourhood. Both the proprietor and the undertaker of the work find, the one that he can get a greater rent, the other that he can get a greater profit, by somewhat underselling all their neighbours. Their neighbours are soon obliged to sell at the same price, though they cannot so well afford it, and though it always diminishes, and sometimes takes away altogether both their rent and their profit. Some works are abandoned altogether; others can afford no rent, and can be wrought only by the proprietor.
The lowest price at which coals can be sold for any considerable time is,
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like that of all other commodities, the price which is barely sufficient to re-place, together with its ordinary profits, the stock which must be employed in bringing them to market. At as coal-mine for which the landlord can get no rent, but which he must either work himself or let it alone altogether, the price of coals must generally be nearly about this price.
Rent, even where coals afford one, has generally a smaller share in
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their prices than in that of most other parts of the rude produce of land.
The rent of an estate above ground commonly amounts to what is supposed to be a third of the gross produce; and it is generally a rent certain and independent of the occasional variations in the crop. In coal-mines a fifth
of the gross produce is a very great rent; a tenth the common rent, and it G.ed. p185 is seldom a rent certain, but depends upon the occasional variations in the
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produce. These are so great that, in a country where thirty years’ purchase is considered as a moderate price for the property of a landed estate, ten years’ purchase is regarded as a good price for that of a coal-mine.
The value of a coal-mine to the proprietor frequently depends as much
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upon its situation as upon its fertility. That of a metallic mine depends more upon its fertility, and less upon its situation. The coarse, and still more the precious metals, when separated from the ore, are so valuable that they can generally bear the expense of a very long land, and of the most distant sea carriage. Their market is not confined to the countries in the neighbourhood of the mine, but extends to the whole world. The copper of Japan makes an article of commerce in Europe; the iron of Spain in that of Chili and Peru. The silver of Peru finds its way, not only to Europe, but from Europe to China.
The price of coals in Westmoreland or Shropshire can have little effect
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on their price at Newcastle; and their price in the Lionnois can have none at all. The productions of such distant coal-mines can never be brought into competition with one another. But the productions of the most distant metallic mines frequently may, and in fact commonly are. The price, there-fore, of the coarse, and still more that of the precious metals, at the most fertile mines in the world, must necessarily more or less affect their price
on their price at Newcastle; and their price in the Lionnois can have none at all. The productions of such distant coal-mines can never be brought into competition with one another. But the productions of the most distant metallic mines frequently may, and in fact commonly are. The price, there-fore, of the coarse, and still more that of the precious metals, at the most fertile mines in the world, must necessarily more or less affect their price