216

POLITICAL  ECONOMY

no  other  fund  exists  out  of  which  it  can  be
paid.  But  this  is  not  denied.  By  “  entering
into  price  ”  is  meant  entering  as  a  determining
factor  into  price.  That  all  rent  which  is
incurred  in  connection  with  producing  does
not  exert  a  direct  influence  on  the  prices  of
things—though,  as  we  shall  discern  shortly,  it
may  be  involved  indirectly  in  the  settlement
of  price—can  be  deduced  instantly  from  the
theory  of  price  already  expounded.  Take
the  case  of  wheat.  From  the  supply  side  its
price  is  fixed  by  the  costs  of  the  marginal
producer  on  marginal  land.  Into  these  costs
ex  hypothesi  differential  rent  does  not  enter  ;
and  though  the  farmer  of  marginal  land  would
reckon  any  scarcity  rent  among  his  costs,  its
remission  would  not  cause  an  increased  supply
of  wheat  (and  so  an  alteration  of  price)
because,  were  a  scarcity  rent  ever  to  appear,
there  would  be  no  more  land  to  bring  into
cultivation.  Another  and  more  exact  way  of
putting  the  proof  is  to  apply  the  marginal
method  of  analysis  intensively  and  point  out
that  price  is  settled  by  the  cost  of  the  marginal
return  (whether  from  marginal  land  or  not)
which  should,  in  strict  theory,  be  the  same
on  every  field,  and  that  no  kind  of  rent  figures
in  this  cost.
All  farmers,  though  producing  at  different