An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

125

Adam Smith

by a kelp shore of this kind, demands a rent for it as much as for

his corn-fields.

The sea in the neighbourhood of the islands of Shetland is more

than commonly abundant in fish, which makes a great part of the

subsistence of their inhabitants. But, in order to profit by the pro-

duce of the water, they must have a habitation upon the

neighbouring land. The rent of the landlord is in proportion, not

to what the farmer can make by the land, but to what he can make

both by the land and the water. It is partly paid in sea-fish; and

one of the very few instances in which rent makes a part of the

price of that commodity, is to be found in that country.

The rent of land, therefore, considered as the price paid for the

use of the land, is naturally a monopoly price. It is not at all pro-

portioned to what the landlord may have laid out upon the im-

provement of the land, or to what he can afford to take, but to

what the farmer can afford to give.

Such parts only of the produce of land can commonly be brought

to market, of which the ordinary price is sufficient to replace the

stock which must be employed in bringing them thither, together

with its ordinary profits. If the ordinary price is more than this,

the surplus part of it will naturally go to the rent of the land. If it

is not more, though the commodity may be brought to market, it

can afford no rent to the landlord. Whether the price is, or is not

more, depends upon the demand.

There are some parts of the produce of land, for which the de-

mand must always be such as to afford a greater price than what is

sufficient to bring them to market; and there are others for which

it either may or may not be such as to afford this greater price.

The former must always afford a rent to the landlord. The latter

sometimes may and sometimes may not, according to different

circumstances.

Rent, it is to be observed, therefore, enters into the composition

of the price of commodities in a different way from wages and

profit. High or low wages and profit are the causes of high or low

price; high or low rent is the effect of it. It is because high or low

wages and profit must be paid, in order to bring a particular com-

modity to market, that its price is high or low. But it is because its

price is high or low, a great deal more, or very little more, or no

more, than what is sufficient to pay those wages and profit, that it

affords a high rent, or a low rent, or no rent at all.

The particular consideration, first, of those parts of the produce

of land which always afford some rent; secondly, of those which

sometimes may and sometimes may not afford rent; and, thirdly,

of the variations which, in the different periods of improvement,

naturally take place in the relative value of those two different

sorts of rude produce, when compared both with one another and

---

126

The Wealth of Nations

with manufactured commodities, will divide this chapter into three

parts.

P

P

P

P

PAR

AR

AR

AR

ART   I.

T   I.

T   I.

T   I.

T   I. —   Of the Produce of Land which always affords Rent.

As men, like all other animals, naturally multiply in proportion

to the means of their subsistence, food is always more or less in

demand. It can always purchase or command a greater or smaller

quantity of labour, and somebody can always be found who is

willing to do something in order to obtain it. The quantity of

labour, indeed, which it can purchase, is not always equal to what

it could maintain, if managed in the most economical manner, on

account of the high wages which are sometimes given to labour;

but it can always purchase such a quantity of labour as it can

maintain, according to the rate at which that sort of labour is

commonly maintained in the neighbourhood.

But land, in almost any situation, produces a greater quantity of

food than what is sufficient to maintain all the labour necessary

for bringing it to market, in the most liberal way in which that

labour is ever maintained. The surplus, too, is always more than

sufficient to replace the stock which employed that labour, to-

gether with its profits. Something, therefore, always remains for a

rent to the landlord.

The most desert moors in Norway and Scotland produce some

sort of pasture for cattle, of which the milk and the increase are

always more than sufficient, not only to maintain all the labour

necessary for tending them, and to pay the ordinary profit to the

farmer or the owner of the herd or flock, but to afford some small

rent to the landlord. The rent increases in proportion to the good-

ness of the pasture. The same extent of ground not only maintains

a greater number of cattle, but as they we brought within a smaller

compass, less labour becomes requisite to tend them, and to col-

lect their produce. The landlord gains both ways; by the increase

of the produce, and by the diminution of the labour which must

be maintained out of it.

The rent of land not only varies with its fertility, whatever be its

produce, but with its situation, whatever be its fertility. Land in

the neighbourhood of a town gives a greater rent than land equally

fertile in a distant part of the country. Though it may cost no

more labour to cultivate the one than the other, it must always

cost more to bring the produce of the distant land to market. A

greater quantity of labour, therefore, must be maintained out of

it; and the surplus, from which are drawn both the profit of the

farmer and the rent of the landlord, must be diminished. But in

remote parts of the country, the rate of profit, as has already been

shewn, is generally higher than in the neighbourhood of a large

town. A smaller proportion of this diminished surplus, therefore,

---