Hence, if wages be as 10, the whole capital employed must be as 50; and if the farmer's profit on his capital be io per cent.,which is a reasonable rate, the farmer's income will be 5; that is, half the whole amount of the wages which he pays to hislabourers, Mr Jones, from whom I mainly take these details, has traced into other results the effects of the employment of auxiliarycapital.On this point of the great income of the capitalists employed in agriculture, he observes, (p.233):
"While the revenue of the capitalists equals only one tenth that of the labourers, they form no prominent part of thecommunity, and indeed must usually be peasants or labourers themselves.But a mass of profits equal to or exceedingone-half the wages of [agricultural] labour (which mass exists in England) naturally converts the class receiving it into anumerous and varied body.Their influence in a community in which they are the direct employers of almost all the labourers,becomes very considerable; and what is in some respects of more importance, such a rich and numerous body ofcapitalists,as, descending from the higher ranks they approach the body of labourers by various gradations till they almostmingle with them form a species of moral conductors by which the habits and feelings of the upper and middling classes arecommunicated downwards, and act more or less powerfully upon those of the very lowest ranks of the community."The above views of the effect of Auxiliary Capital on Rent are borrowed from a very able and original work on Rent,published in 1831, by Mr Richard Jones, who was subsequently Professor of Political Economy.at Haileybury College.Sofar as I know, he was the first person who solved the problem which we have been considering; how Rents becomeabsolutely larger and yet a smaller part of the produce.
Different kinds of Rent.
All that has been said applies only to Farmers' rents; that is, rents paid to a landlord by a capitalist who employs labourers.
The capitalist employs his capital for Profit; and the rate of profit is determined by competition with other capitalists.If hecould not get this profit by farming, he would remove his capital to some other employment.
But this fact thus assumedthat capitalists can remove their capital from farming, and will do so, if farming does not payisnot generally true;is, in fact, true only in England and a few districts elsewhere.Nor is it true that the land is cultivated bycapitalists employing others to labour, selling their produce and living upon the proceeds.Over the greater part of the earth'ssurface, cultivation is carried on by persons who raise their subsistence from the soil, and pay a portion to the owner of thesoil, in this case the payments to the owner of the soilrents, that isare determined not by competition, but by custom.
And thus, in fact, land has been held, and rent has been paid, on very different principles from that which we have described.
According to the mode of holding the cultivators have been classed as Métayers, Serfs, Ryots, Cottiers.
These are thus characterized by Mr Jones, who introduced this classification into Political Economy.
The Métayer is a peasant tenant, extracting his own wages and subsistence from the soil.He pays a produce rent to theowner of the land.The landlord supplies him with stock.
`This mode of tenure prevails largely in France and Italy, and was the common tenure among the Greeks and Romans:
(Métayers = Medietarii).
Serf rents are labour rents: that is, the owner of the land sets aside a portion of the land for cultivation by the peasant andleaves him to extract his own subsistence from it; and lie exacts as a rent for the land, thus given to the cultivator, a certainquantity of labour to be employed on the remainder of the estate, for the benefit of the lord.
These rents have prevailed on a larger scale in Eastern Europein Russia, Hungary, Poland, Livonia and Esthonia, and inGermany.There are, or were lately, remnants of them in the Scottish highlands, (Jones, p.45).
Ryot rents are produce rents paid by a labourer raising his own wages from the soil, to the sovereign, as the proprietor ofthe soil, (Jones, p.109).
They are peculiar to Asia, India, Persia, Turkey; probably exist in China.
Cottier rents are rents contracted to be paid in money by peasant tenants, extracting their own subsistence from the soil.
They exist in Ireland.
Mr Mill, who has borrowed Mr Jones's classification in the main, puts Ryot rents and Cottier rents in the same chapter: butthe differences between the two are important, as we shall see.
Mr Mill has an excellent chapter in which he shows how the difference between Farmers' rents and other rents depends onthe difference between Competition and Custom, as the general rule of economical proceedings (Polit.Econ.p.282).
"Under the rule of individual property, the division of the produce is the result of two determining agencies: Competition,and Custom.It is important to ascertain the amount of influence which belongs to each of these causes, and in what mannerthe operation of one is modified by the other.
