A. (3.) Rents rise. B. (3.) Rents fall.
The effects are clearly contrasted. Under A, we see a tendency to a rise of rents (3), an increased cost of labor, and a fall of profits (2); under B, a fall of rents (3), a diminished cost of labor, and a rise of profits (2). We have, therefore, analyzed [pg 493] the forces belonging to the progress of industry, and found two distinct and antagonistic forces, working against each other. If, at any period, improvements (B) advance faster than population and capital (A), rent and money wages will tend downward and profits upward. If, on the other hand, population advances faster than improvements (B) either the laborers will submit to a reduction in the quantity or quality of their food, or, if not, rent and money wages will progressively rise, and profits will fall.
§ 5. Practical Results.
The reason why agricultural improvement seldom lowers rent is, that it seldom cheapens food, but only prevents it from growing dearer; and seldom, if ever, throws land out of cultivation, but only enables worse and worse land to be taken in for the supply of an increasing demand. What is sometimes called the natural state of a country which is but half cultivated, namely, that the land is highly productive, and food obtained in great abundance by little labor, is only true of unoccupied countries colonized by a civilized people. In the United States the worst land in cultivation is of a high quality (except sometimes in the immediate vicinity of markets or means of conveyance, where a bad quality is compensated by a good situation); and even if no further improvements were made in agriculture or locomotion, cultivation would have many steps yet to descend, before the increase of population and capital would be brought to a stand; but in Europe five hundred