The Sun.
London, England, 1822-01-22 00:00:00

POR THE SUNS

AIODERN POLITICAL ECONOMY.
fLETTErt VIII.] • •
Mn. EDITOR-Mr. IticAttuo- has discovered
that" 1t is only• because la'nd_ is of different qua-
-titles with respect to its produce, and because,
in the progress of population,- land of an inferior
quality, or less adtantageously situated, is called
into cultivation, that rent is ever paid for the use
of it."—(p. 54.) Thus he 'finds that lands of
quality declining progressively, Will be.:required
for cultivation, as population advances 4 which
latter is true enough ; and it is also true that great.
demand for airicultural produce (as during ,the
war) and the high prices of it, owing to the abun
dant circulation of money, will extend cultivation
and enclosures, and make great and rapid im-
provements in the face of the country. .
But what doesAir..RicAnno mean in the fore-
going sentence ? It behoves those who write
elementary treatises, to be extremely clear and
precise in expression ; a little deViation or misun-
derstanding generates doubt, and makes room for
dispute ; If land less advantageously situated
will occasion the application of rent, then rent
might have existed as it does (though not in such
extreme proportions) if land had been all of one,
quality. Thus the charm or spell is broken, and
the magic castle tumbles, to pieces. Bad land
situated near London= is 'worth more than bad
land situated near York ; which again is worth

more than bad land situated near Stamford ; and
this latter is worth more than bad !add situated
near to no town at all. Thus it is also with good
land, and successive portions, as to quality, have
never been forced into cultivation in the manner
supposed. The . most substantial evidences we
have—the antiquity of. Roman stations; vestiges
of Saxon re-Mains ; Abbey claims and manorial
rights, shew that the meanest land in many parts
of the country has been in cultivation as long as
the richest; and from the very origin of free la-
bour and individual capital, haS drawn a rent,
though a lower one, as well as the other. It
yielded always less prodUce in quantity, or dif-
ferent in kind, and so it does now ; this is the
whole of the amazing matter, which, in other
words, has been blazoned all over the kingdom as
a wonderful disCovery of the nature and origiti of
rent !---46 When, in the progress of society, land
of the second degree of fertility 'is taken into
cultivation, rent immediately commences on that
of the first quality, and the amount of .that rent

will depend on the difference in the quality of
these two portions of land."—(Ricardo,page 54.)
In what Society, I pray, did this, or can this,
ever happen ? • This country was certainly not
peopled in this manner. North America, which
is now settling in a thousand places, does not
proceed on this principle. New countries,
indeed, are principally cultivated by proprietors
at first ; or by culprits•under the power of Go-
vernment ; and they rarely, by choice, begin
upon a bad soil. But, wherever they begin, and
settle and build (such is the gregarious tendency
of man) land around the scite acquires value, and
becomes desirable property ; it is presently worth
occupying at a rent ; while distant lands, much
better, are only held by grant, and are not occu-
pied at all :this is now the case in New South

~..
Wales and Van Dieman's lind.—There is still
an approach to truth, or to plausibility (which
does as well for a political economist) in the
account given by RICARDO ; for there certainly
is a tendency to possess and occupy the richer
portions of every part-of A newly settled country
first, and to leave the inferior parts in timber';
this takes place on every plantation, in fact ; and
it is also very certain, that when population be-
comes great, more of that which had been left
will be occupied :—But rent had commenced on
the first long before, and it only keeps, in due
proportion, higher than that which follows on
the other. The sum of all this, according to Mr.
ItidAitno, is that " the corn which is produced 1
with the greatest quantity of labour is the regu-
lator of the price of corn"—or in other words„
that " its value is regulated by the productive-
ness of the portion of capital last employed on
land, and paying no rent." Consequently—
'__‘ When land of inferior quality is taken into
cultivation, the exchangeable value, of raw pro-
duce will rise, because more labour is required to
produce it ;" in all which most grave deduction
there is not a syllable of truth. I

Let us go one step , further, and reach the
ne plus ultra of nonsense and absurdity, before
we proceed to deny the foregoing conclusions by
circumstance. Mr. IticAnDo's reasoning would
never have been sustained, even in the remotest
degree of probability, had he not introduced
now and then a sort of clencher, as bricklayers
put ties of wood in thin and weak walls to hold
them together :—IIe evermore insists that there
cannot be two rates of profit in farming ; this is.
the greatest outrage of all upon common sense,
and practical business ; for instead of being true
of farming (so uncertain by seasons and acci-
dents) it is not true of any business whatsoever.
—Of the other propositions I shall endeavour to
give a satisfactory account in my next.
I' am, Sir, Your's, &c.
APE MTS.

CEREBRAL EXAMINATION OF FRA nois GA U.
TIEZ.-The bodies of the two unfortunate men,
Peter ileatnao and Francois Gautiez, who
were executed in Leith Sands, on Wednesday
week, having been delivered over to the Pro-
fessor of Anatomy, agreeably to the sentence of
the Court of Adtniralty, the brain of one of the
deceased was inspected as early as possible
after death. The body of Francois Gautiez had
arrived at the dissecting-room, and the brain
was opened at about two hours and a quarter
from the period of execution. The vertebra of the
. .

neck had not been dislocated, and the appear-
ances of the brain differed in no respect from
those usually seen on examining that organ in
persons who have died from suffocation. •There
was little or no distension of the blood-vessels of
the brain, cereballum, or medulla oblongata ; no
effusion of blood either into the substance of the
brain or ventricles, and little effusion between
the membranes.—The other subject (Ileaman)
has not yet been dissected, but a very line full
length cast has been takew from him, by Mr.
Joseph.—(Edinburgh Courant; Jan. 19.)