RENT, in political economy, is a term applied to the profits drawn from land, houses, or other immovable property, termed in England "real property." It is colloquially applied to these profits only when the property is hired by a tenant who pays for the use of it. It was long before a distinction was made between such letting and hiring and that of any other commodtty, such as a ship or a wagon. But political economists found that there was a fundamental distinction, affecting large questions not only in political economy but in state politics. These are connected with the specialty that other profits, whether from the letting of articles or otherwise, arise out of the acts of those to whom the articles belong; but the rent of land is a fund that exists through external causes, over which the owner has no control, and in certain conditions mast exist whoever may draw it. When "the theory of rent." as it was termed, dawned upon the economists, and was but partially seen, they developed it in different formulas, which appeared to lie different theories, but in reality were crude forms, tending, though complicated in themselves, to the simple principle, that the pressure of population on the means of sub sistence creates rent on those lands where the means of subsistence can most easily be produced. In an enlarging and aggrandizing conntrylike Britain, the phenomenon is in constant gradual operation: but it will be best illustrated by supposing an instance of sudden and extensive action. Suppose there is an island in which 1000 people find enough for their wants in the natural produce of its most fertile soil. Suddenly 500 people become added to the population, and an increase of the existing food to the extent of one-half is required. The shape in which this increaso will take place will be compe tition, by the offer of an enhanced price for food, and that enhanced price will tempt people to bring under cultivation the inferior lands. The owners, however, of the old rich lands will not see their neighbors getting prices a third higher than themselves; they, too, will sell their produce at the market price, and the difference between this and the old value will be rent. It is of no moment, in the economic question of the existence of the element, that the owner of the rich soil does not let it; if he eats his bread cheaper than his fieighbor, that is merely the form in which he derives the advantage of rent. The importance of this view, both in politics and economics, is that rent must exist, and cannot be got rid of. Whoever has at his command better land than the worst that is cul
tivated, holds rent. It is in vain, therefore, to think of destroying the "monopoly," as it is sometimes called, of land-owners; it revives as naturally by an economic law, as water finds its level by a physical law. If you were to divide all the land in Britain to morrow in equal portions among the inhabitants, the value of it would begreatly deterior ated by the change, but in time some patches would become more valuable than others, and worth " rent," while the frugal and industrious would gradually be absorbing the portions of the idle and extravagant, and accumulating estates. In fact, to the mere consumer, it is of no moment who has the land, provided it Is in the hands that can render it most produc tive. To this end, it is more profitable that the `-and of a country should be in the market, and obtainable by those who, being ready to give most for it, are able to work it to most profit. In France, where ]and is divided among the owner's descendants, the consequent breaking up into small patches, not necessarily in the bands of persons able or Ni 1 1 hig to cultivate them, is detrimental to the value of the land at large. On the other hand, an entail system, such as that which predominated, and still to a certain extent exists iii Scotland, is detrimental, by keeping the land out of time market, and necessitating that it shall belong to a certain person, who has perhaps neither the ability nor the capital to turn it to its best purpose. In the struggle which terminated in the establishment of free trade in 1846, the " theory of rent" was referred to with much alarm, and it was said that when grain was brought from abroad, a reversal of the action creating rent would occur, from the inferior hinds falling out of cultivation. Some free-traders admitted this as a necessary evil, but others said that the expansion given to commerce would increase the demand for the produce of the soil, while the home-growers would have a monopoly from their vicinity. In fact, the increase of trade and riches has been so great, that the value of land has greatly increased since the establishment of free trade, and that although half our bread stuffs come from abroad. The great increase has been in the rearing of butcher-meat, which the increased wealth of the people has enabled them to buy.