PROPERTY IN LAND.

MR. HOPKINS has sent the following communication in reference to the notice of his work entitled Greet Britain for the Last Forty Years. This is the letter we acknowledged on the 15th of March, but which the demands upon our space unavoidably post- poned till one of the Iiolyday weeks.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.

Broughton. Manchester, 5th March lt+34.

St R—In your review of my work, Great Britain for the last Forty, Yews, you appear net to have shown your usual candour and discrimination. You in- sinuate, more than once, that in my theory of Rent, I propose to destroy private property in land. Now, this being untrue, it is very unfair to try to attach odium of that kind to a theory to which you are opposed. In page 6 of the work, it is stated, that " The public welfare requires that land, under ftWEDO restrictions, should be considered exclusive private property ;" and not a sentence can be pointed out in the whole book opposed to what is there stated. Land in every populoits cottony is and must be private property ; and it is necessarily left to each and every individual owner, either to use his land himself, and to charge what he. Can get for his produce, or to suffer uthera to use the land on payment to hint of a rent. But the economists of the RICA RI/0 IkellUOI go fur- ther than this, and soy, that the unionist of the rent is caused, regulated, aid determined by the unequally productive power of labour employed on the land. Now this them }• may, I apprehend, be shown to be erroneous, without justly subjecting the party exposing it to the charge of ploposing to destroy private property in the land. When speakitg of rent in the economical meaning of the term, your, as ore of the RICA ROO it arises from the deeleasing fertility of the lin the contrary, teaie.:iin that it results simply front the right of rivAte pro- per ty, in the first awe, in the bust or Lett-situated soil enabling the owners to exact a rent, in: in thus doing to drive labour to an inferior soil earlier than it would toliel.ake go. Nuw, the question is, whether the our or the other of these firrurs a true hvsis for a theory of tent's The right of property, I con- tend, gives the potvre to exact the rent,—it is tl.e eircient cause, or what oae Ebonies would coil the primary moving power ; and the existence of i:ae. for soil can only £,r a time partially limit the are ant of the exaction. in the United States of America, new land, inferior in fertility or situation, belonging to the Government, is always on sale at a low price ; this deprives the owners of the better land or better-situated land, of the power of obtaining a high rent, as people prefer going to the new land on such terms to giving a high rent for the old. But, if no new land existed in that country, the owners of the old might charge such a rent as they chose to exact. In this way the lands of in- ferior degrees of fertility may all become private property, and a rent be exacted for any part or every part of the land, proportioned to Its relative fertility ; the best to use for tillage, the inferior for grazing or pasturing, and the worst for breeding game. What, however, could then prevent the owners of the old lanes, if they were induced to act together, from increasing their rents? There is, I contend, nothing to prevent them but absolute inability on the part of tenants to pay inure.

You have assumed, for the purpose of arguing this point, that the market is at one time supplied from land which yielded fifty bushels an acre, and then suppose that new comers must go to land yielding less than fifty bushels. But why should they du so, unless prevented by the owners from working on the best land? lfprevented by those owners, and thus driven to land which yielded only forty bushels, there would be a difference of ten iu the produce of labour ; but the point is not whether such a difference exists or not, but whether it is a consequence of a law of nature arising from difference in soils, independently of the civil right of private property in the land, or whether it is an effect of the exercise of that right in preventing the accumulation of labour on the best land, where it could produce fifty, and driving it to worse, where it can produce only forty. You say, it is a law of nature ; 1 contend that it is the result of the right of property.

You further say, that private property in land does not give a monopoly of it to the owners ; because, beyond the belt of cultivation, there is other and poorer land which may be had at a very low rent. But, having such a belt to fall back upon, when high rents are charged for the better lands, merely enables labourpartially to evade the payment of high rent for a time, by going to a less favourable situation. Inereasing rent is really operating in this way, iu this country. The existence of such a belt is, however, only an accidental circum- stance, which may impede the advance of rent ; but let all the land in a country be occupied, and then what is there even to check or impede the advance of rent ? Increasing rent may reduce wages on good lands, and drive labour in succession to interior lands, until all are occupied ; but where is labour then to

retreat ? It t submit to pay such further increase as may be required. But at each step in this course, the exercise of the right of property in the vat ious lands, is the primary operating cause of the increase of the rent ; the existence and the occupation of inferior soils are merely additional circumstances, which really do not touch the question as to the nature of rent.

The subject has been a little mystified by distinguishing between the cause and the regulator of rent. You say, "'Without quibbling about their cause, their measure will be the difference," &c. But this supposed measure or regulator of rent, is only an accessary circumstance, altogether incapable of controlling, regulating, or measuring the amount of rent that may be exacted. When a rent of 10 is taken from land yielding 50, wages will be proportiontilly lowered, and it will beconie equally advantageous for labour to go to land yielding 40. But let the owners, as they may, take 20 from the former land, and 10 from the latter, and the remainder would he only :in. A part of the labour might now go to land yielding only 90, and so on,—wages falling as rent was advanced. But those differences in the rents paid do not regulate the amount that may be taken, because the landowners, when acting together, have the power to increase that amount. The differences, then, merely regulate the relation which the mut of one lamd has to the rents of other hinds. Competition will always tend to equalize wages and profits on the different ,toils, 'whether the average of all the rents is high or low. The Rica ono ,:ehn,,1 of-takes this relation of one rent to another for the cause and regulator of the average amount of rent itself; cam:- petition determines the filmier, but the discretion of the owners fixes the latter. In your review, you write as if I had expressed a wish that landed property should be invaded ; in doing this you have most injuriously misrepresented me. What i put merely as cases to illustrate my argument, you have treated as recom- mendations. Private limpet ty in land is, however, as untouched by my theory as by that of Mr. Rica Roo. But the lilt:Ann° theory has, I contend, a most pernicious practical effect. It teaches that landowners cannot improve the con- dition of their labourers by lowering rents,—that they cannot exact too high a rent,—that if they do not take the full amount of rent which the tenant can be compelled to pay, be, the tenant, will keep the remainder himself as rent, and that it will never benefit the labourer. This theory also tends to mislead the public mind respecting the real cause of distress. Look at Ireland ; if the lhme.tnna theory were true, how hopeless would he her situation! In England, high rent is accompanied by distress among farming labourers ; and in giving an account of the causes which have affected the condition of the people, the nature and influence of rent had to be considered. And it being my decided con- viction that the Rica Roo theory is not only false, but extremely pernicious, I felt bound to expose it, and to show that rent is what it was supposed to be be- fore economists wrote upon it, simply the effect of private property in land.

TIMM A a 110FM a S.

We first address ourselves to the charge of " unfairness ;" and we think, if Mr. 110PKINS turn back to the review, he will see cause to admit that the accusation has been hastily made. We insinuated nothing. We never charged him with revosieg to invade or to destroy private property in land. The very first sentence acquitted him of evil intentions; almost imme- diately afterwards, we implied a doubt as to whether he had dis- tinctly seen the tendency of his own conclusions; and thence- forth we never even alluded to the author, confining ourselves to the theory. That theory we thought mischievous; we think so still, but without any idea of converting the author of Great Britain for the Last Forty Years to the same opinion.

Mr. HOPKINS traced the greater part of our evils to Rent; and the existence of Rent he attributed to Property in Land, without showing any mode by which these ills could be alleviated. Acquitting the author of the slightest wish to " invade landed property,' we conceive such a consummation is the fair conclusion from the premises. Pass we on to the other points. Two fallacies pervade his letter, as they pervaded his book. One consists in assuming that land- lords can combine together to raise rents. The other supposes that labour could be applied indefinitely to the 'same soil, yielding, the same return to each successive application as was yielded to the first. Upon the former fallacy it is scarcely necessary to com- ment. It may, however, be said, that such combination never could take place till all the land in the country was under cultiva- tion : even then it would be neutralized if foreign corn were ad- mitted : after all, rent. would still be governed by certain laws,

over which the landlords could exercise very little if any perma- nent control ; unless they interfered as legislators with the distri- bution of the gross produce, which would recoil upon themselves. The second fallacy, as going to the root of the matter, may re- quire a little closer examination.

Were there no property in land, Mr. HOPKINS says pretty plainly, both in his letter and in his book, all who pleased could

cultivate the best soils: sufficient (he seems to assume) would be raised from them to feed the community ; no rent would be paid ; the whole produce would be divided between labourer and capitalist; and the Economical Millennium would be reached. Putting aside the practical difficulties of such a state of things, can it be possible that any one who has attended to agriculture should be ignorant that there is a limit to the produce attainable from even the best soils. The present maximum in Great Britain, may, we believe, be rated at less than 50 bushels per acre, (though the amount is of no consequence to the argument). If the capital and labour now expended upon them were doubled, would the produce be doubled too ? Certainly not. The return to the outlay would be

less than that which could be got from inferior lands. Were the

expense trebled, quadrupled, quintupled, the profit at each increase would be less and less, till at length it would not return the cost.

Were it not so, a nation need never resort to the lower soils, till el- bow-room was actually wanting for the labourers to work upon the best : but seeing that it is so, we are unable to perceive how a general right to cultivate the superior could prevent a resort to the lower soils, since, cultivate how we may, time produce of the best would be insufficient to feed the people. Of tho impossibility of such a state of things ever existing in a civilized community, it is hardly necessary to speak. If every one who thought fit had a right to labour on any plot of ground he chose, the most probable produce would be a crop of armed men. The contentions during the processes of ploughing, sowing, and above all reaping, would be so great as to disorganize society; unless a tempo- rary right of property were given to the first occupant, which would combine all possible disadvantages. No rent, indeed, would be paid, for there would be no cultivation. The land would

be scratched, not tilled. The best soils alone would be employed,

and they would soon be exhausted. They would yield only what their unassisted fertility might produce, for their nature would never be improved ; even their natural qualities would be undeve-

loped. Who would drain, or enclose, or manure the land, when another might enjoy apart of or all the advantages of the outlay ?

Who would undertake permanent improvements, for others to

reap the benefit? Who would be at the trouble and expense of working the system of alternate cropping, when a rival at the

eleventh hour might step in to take an equal part or the whole of

the reward ? Of the scheme of no-property, there are three ex- amples, and, so far as we remember, only three,—amongst the

ancient Germans, as a piece of state policy ; amongst some of the

petty Negro tribes, as a custom; amongst the squatters of the back-woods, as a bit of robbery. The essentials for its practice,

and the results, are the same in all the cases,—a very scanty population ; great plenty of the best land; a barbarous and law- less state of society ; an entire absence of all the conveniences, all the necessaries, all the decencies of life.

In the useful sciences, one tolerable test of a theory is the prac- tical conclusion to which it leads. What is called the RicAnno theory (though first discovered by Dr. ANDERSON, in 1777) points to the advantage of free trade. Since, as society increases in num- ber (is the conclusion), our supplies of food must be had from lower soils at home, let us buy corn wherever we can buy it cheapest. Mr. Hoextes's theory leads to nothing, save (as we conceive) to excite the ignorant to aim at a division of lands. He implies, indeed, that the landlords should lower their rents, or rather should bestow a part of them upon the labourers. But will they do it ? Can they be made to do it, unless by force ? Or if they did it, would it raise wages? Would the charity dole benefit to any one save the individual recipients ? No. Would not the gain of the agricultural labourers be equivalent to the loss of those parties amongst whom the landlords now distribute it ? Yes. It is not a forced or a fresh distribution of existing wealth which is required, but the creation of additional wealth. This can only be done by increasing the productiveness of' industry,—by adding more fertile land to our territory, or by exchanging the produce of our labour for time produce of the fertile lands of other countries.