tithe be imposed, which takes from these five pieces of land 10, 9, 8, 7, and 6 bushels respectively, the fifth quality still being the one which regulates the price, but returning to the farmer, after payment of tithe, no more than 54 bushels:
The land producing 100 bushels reduced to 90 will yield a rent of 90-54, or 36 bushels.
That producing 90 bushels reduced to 81, a rent of 81-54, or 27 bushels.
That producing 80 bushels reduced to 72, a rent of 72-54, or 18 bushels.
That producing 70 bushels reduced to 63, a rent of 63-54, or 9 bushels.
and that producing 60 bushels, reduced to 54, will yield, as before, no rent. So that the rent of the first quality of land has lost four bushels; of the second, three; of the third, two; and of the fourth, one: that is, each has lost exactly one tenth. A tax, therefore, of a fixed proportion of the produce lowers, in the same proportion, corn-rent.
But it is only corn-rent that is lowered, and not rent estimated in money, or in any other commodity. For, in the same proportion as corn-rent is reduced in quantity, the corn composing it is raised in value. Under the tithe, 54 bushels will be worth in the market what 60 were before; and nine tenths will in all cases sell for as much as the whole ten tenths previously sold for. The landlords will therefore be compensated in value and price for what they lose in quantity, and will suffer only so far as they consume their rent in kind, or, after receiving it in money, expend it in agricultural produce; that is, they only suffer as consumers of agricultural produce, and in common with all the other consumers. Considered as landlords, they have the same income as before; the tithe, therefore, falls on the consumer, and not on the landlord.
The same effect would