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POLITICAL  ECONOMY

payments  which  neither  the  early  economists
nor  the  general  public  would  have  dreamt  of
regarding  as  rent.  Nevertheless,  the  inclusion
of  these  other  payments  is  strictly  as  logical
as  the  exclusion  of  certain  payments  had
been.  It  was  necessitated  by  the  new  discoveries ­
  made  in  the  course  of  the  more
careful  modern  analysis  of  value.  The  alternative ­
  was  to  introduce  an  entirely  new
symbol  to  indicate  these  other  payments
together  with  what  early  economists  understood ­
  by  economic  rent  ;  but  inasmuch
as  the  symbol  “  rent  ”  qualified  by  the
epithet  “  economic,”  had  already  become
embedded  in  the  phraseology  of  economic
science,  and  the  distinction  between  economic
rent  and  rent  in  the  ordinary  sense  was
clearly  recognised,  it  seemed  most  convenient ­
  not  to  discard  the  old  word,  but  to
broaden  its  application.  The  retention  of
the  old  word  absolutely  necessitated  a  broadening ­
  of  its  application,  because  it  was  found
that  the  law  which  governed  payments  for
land  governed  also  payments  for  certain
other  things.  One  could  not  speak  of  a  law
of  rent  unless  one  was  prepared  to  designate
these  other  payments  as  rent.  What  exactly
these  other  payments  are,  we  shall  learn  in
due  course.