The Industrial Revolution

Bibliographic data

Monograph

Identifikator:: 1027928145

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-159926

Document type:: Monograph

Author:: Cunningham, William http://d-nb.info/gnd/128907487

Title:: The Industrial Revolution

Place of publication:: Cambridge

Publisher:: The University Press

Year of publication:: 1922

Scope:: xxii S., S. 404-886

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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THE LANDED INTEREST AND CORN LAWS 727 the price was as low as 44s., but on the other hand a prohibi- A.D ive duty was levied on importation when the price was below 50s, and only 6d. a quarter was charged on imported wheat when the price rose above 54s. The interruption to commerce, sven though no serious effort was made to cut off our food supply during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars’, seems to have given a practical and effective protection to home production ; prices rose and the process of bringing additional land into cultivation went on apace. As a matter of fact, however, the advantages to the com- and gave munity generally, which Sir John Sinclair had anticipated, healthy . . . . timulus to did not arise. By far the greater part of the gain which tillage for came from the war prices went to the proprietors of land, & Bme. Agriculturists took in new ground and had recourse to inferior soil and worse situated land, but additional supplies could only be obtained at an increasing rate of cost’. Those men, who had good and well situated arable land, were able to obtain the same high price, as was necessary to recompense the man who worked under less favourable conditions. The advantage which accrued from the superior properties or exposure of the land, did not affect the labourers at all, and could only go temporarily to the tenant during the period of his lease; the gain was eventually transferred to the owners of property, whether they were enterprising or not. As recourse was had to worse soil and the margin of cultivation descended, the land-owner and the tithe-owner gained. The rise of prices, which rendered more strenuous tillage possible, swelled their incomes immensely®, Though the farmer might | See above, p. 684. } 1 This law of diminishing return is a simple statement of a physical fact; it was brought into prominence by Ricardo, who made it the basis of his doctrine of Rent. It is well to remember too that the form of expression used by Ricardo might have been suggested by the actual occurrences of his time. Farming in 1815 was still largely extensive; a fall of prices resulted immediately in certain land going out of cultivation. If prices rose again it might be predicted with certainty that the same land would be brought back again into cultivation. It was thus perfectly possible to point out the land that was on the margin of cultivation and which paid no rent. Now that land is carefully prepared and drained, and the soil made, the conditions are very different ; and the language which applied to & time when most English farming was still extensive, is not exactly suitable to modern conditions when tillage is so highly intensive ‘Prothero, 104). In bad times land may fall ont of condition, but not immediately out of cultivation. » These were the facts for which Ricardo’s theory of Rent afforded the

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