this I must decidedly object. The French statistics produced in the former part of the article, were obviously mere calculations, without taking into account the whole of the facts in the case, as shown before; and the English statistics contradict the conclusion. The Professor says, (on page 35,) "The number of agricultural laborers in Great Britain has been constantly decreasing in the proportion which it bore to the whole population and the crop. Thus, Mr. Porter informs us, (Progress of the Nation, vol. i., p. 148,) that the total number of families in Great Britain has increased, between 1811 and 1831, from 2,544,215 to 3,414,175, or at the rate of 34 per cent; the number of families employed in agriculture has increased only from 896,998 to 961,134, or at the rate of 7 per cent. It was shown by the census of 1841, that the number of persons employed in agricultural labor was less absolutely and of course still less proportionally than in 1831. We are not yet furnished with the information upon this point obtained by the census of 1851, but there can be no doubt, that the same decrease in the proportion of agricultural laborers has continued down to the present period." Now, this information exactly accords with our previous deductions, and contradicts those of the Professor.

The large farmers and large landowners in England have constantly been swallowing up the small ones, and forcing this part of the agricultural population into the cities, to increase the middle or the working classes, as the case may be; and although the number of persons having incomes of fifteen dollars a week and upwards to fifty, may have increased in a larger ratio than population, this has been produced, as I have before intimated, by the accretion of smaller capitals, and therefore sustains my previous statement, that the number of capitalists is rapidly decreasing. While the number of taxable individuals has increased, in relation to population, at the rate of 150 per cent, the increase of the wealth of that class has been "very nearly threefold greater," than the increase of the class itself. And, in relation to population, the landowners have decreased within the same period 750 per cent; therefore each of the 150 of the taxable individuals must have absorbed the capital of five of the missing landowners. Notwithstanding the rapid relative decrease of the English agricultural population, (350 per cent in twenty years,) we are informed, both by the statistics from the Edinburgh Review, and the quotations from Mr. Porter, of the "exceeding great increase of agricultural production in the same period; showing that the land has not been going out of cultivation, but that the labor has been driven off, and replaced by a larger proportionate amount of capital, in the shape of improved machinery; and therefore the wages of labor must have been reduced to the minimum of subsistence, and their numbers thinned, either by the operation of nature's immutable law, or forced into the large towns, to compete for subsistence with the manufacturing populations. Thus, while (according to Professor Smith) "the labor cost of agricultural products has been diminished," capital has increased unequally in the hands of a few, and increased its power over labor, while rent also has increased. Thus the Professor has assisted me to demonstrate those facts, of which I was previously aware, and for which I owe him my most cordial thanks.

From the last quotation he proceeds as follows: "It certainly was a plausible figment of the imagination, that men in the first instance appropriate the most fertile soils, and only take the inferior grades into cultivation, as they are driven to it by necessity; for forty years the assertion that they did so, stood uncontradicted." Now I beg leave to say, with all due

deference to Professor Smith and the Carey school in general, that in my humble opinion, it is not, at this moment, of the slightest imaginable consequence, whether the assertion were or were not a figment of the imagination, for the principle of rent derived from it, could operate only so long as society remained in the agricultural state. As soon as Commerce and manufactures began to collect people into large masses that principle of rent was modified, and could only operate to the smallest possible extent, and another principle of rent, kindred in its operation, supervened, which had, and continues to have, the same effect as the original. And although this principle was not perceived by Malthus, Ricardo, or McCulloch, many of the general axioms, and the final conclusions of those writers, remain intact, and that is the reason why it may be said, that I belong to the same school. But, notwitstanding, this "figment of the imagination" must be placed to the account of the Professor's favorite author upon political economy, Adam Smith, as I have before demonstrated, though he did not carry it out to its legitimate results. He also perceived and enunciated that part of the ultimate principle of rent which operates by the collection of large masses of people in cities, requiring food and raw materials of every description to be carried from a greater distance, and therefore requiring an extra amount of labor for the same relative supply of necessaries to a given point; leaving out that part of the principle operating by the necessary abstraction of fertility by the increase of population-the loss of manure in various ways, and the consequent extra amount of labor required to obtain materials to keep up the fertility of the poorer and more distant soils.

The Professor thinks that the admission in the June article "that mankind will at all times cultivate the most available soils, those that will produce the largest returns for the labor and capital ready at the time to be invested," oversets the Malthusian theory-assisted also by the following assertion: "And that it is not until labor is cheapened by competition, that society can be forced into the expenses of clearing and draining, which, in some instances, cost more than the land was originally worth." Now, I must say, that I do not perceive any material difference between either of these propositions and the general principles of the Malthusian and the Ricardo theory. It cannot be supposed that an individual possessing common sense, or the common instincts of nature, would go two miles from his dwelling to cultivate a piece of land, when he might cultivate other land of equal quality at one half the distance, or that he would go to the expense of clearing and draining, while there was other land to cultivate that would pay the common rate of profit. It is evident, therefore, that if an individual go two miles instead of one, to cultivate a piece of land, it would be because it was "the most available," or, in other words, its relative fertility must be such as to overpay the extra cost of labor required; and in regard to clearing and draining it is also evident, that as soon as labor and capital are sufficiently cheap and plentiful to allow of the cultivation of such land, bringing the common rate of profit, or the next best rate to the common rate, it will be cultivated. It is obvious, therefore, that so long as selfinterest is the universal motive of mankind, the rate of profit could not increase; simply because every individual would take the most available or the best land first. There is no other way of accounting correctly for the decrease of the rate of profit upon capital.

Money and the precious metals might be increased indefinitely, but this would not decrease the rate of profit upon capital. The precious metals

have the least pretension to be called capital, of any existing commodity. Under these circumstances their relative value would be lowered, but the principal and interest would maintain the same relation to each other as before, and the rate of profit would still be indicated by a decrease in the rate of interest. From these premises we are therefore bound to say, that if "food increased faster than population," the rate of profit must also increase, which neither Mr. Carey nor Professor Smith will assert. Whether "Malthus and Ricardo, if alive, would emphatically have declined such testimony" as that which I have just quoted from a former article, I am not able to say, but this I may be allowed to say, that I never guarantied (by implication or otherwise) anything beyond their general and ultimate conclusions. I therefore cannot be held accountable for their errors and mistakes. But I cannot admit that their theory of cultivation was an error, though, as I have before stated, it is now of no consequence whether it were so or not; one thing is certain, that there are more than twenty millions of acres of land in England untilled, which the "corn law" failed to force into cultivation; as also the present low rate of profit; and yet England imported in 1850, seventy-two millions of bushels of grain.

Professor Smith has also quoted Professor Johnson to show that, in his opinion, the loss of manure, by the sewerage of each town of a thousand inhabitants, is equal to the fertility required for the production of a thousand quarters of wheat, which I should presume does not assist the Professor's theory of production. Although quoted from a free-trade article in the North British Review, I must beg leave to differ, both from the reviewer and Professor Johnson, for although these calculations are very ingenious, and well calculated to attract the unthinking, little or no dependence can be placed upon them. It is pretty well understood, that this is the only loss of manure permitted in England, and there can be no doubt that this loss is overrated, as party writers are apt to overrate small matters. For sixty years England has been an importer of raw produce to a considerable extent, and more especially within the last thirty, she has imported vast quantities of grain, beef, pork, lard, butter, cheese, eggs, coffee, tea, sugar, spices, cotton, hemp, flax, tallow, hides, &c., besides manures. Thus it is not too much to say, that she imports one-third of her consumption, and, according to the writer in the North British Review, "the importation of food bears a higher proportion to the home produce, than the annual addition to the population." And yet, with all the refuse matter remaining from this large and increasing quantity of food and raw material grown upon other soils, the average fertility of land in England has not reached more than twenty-eight bushels-an amount far from equal to the production of the virgin soils of America. It is not pretended by any of the writers quoted by the Professor, that any of the land in England is going out of cultivation, or becoming less valuable, which it ought to do, under the operation of such large importations, if Mr. Carey's theory were true. On the contrary, we find, according to the necessary sequence of the Malthusian and Ricardo theory, that the importations of grain are constantly increasing "in a higher proportion to the home produce than the annual addition to the population." Thus the production of food in England is relatively decreasing, under all these favorable circumstances, and while she has twenty millions of acres of uncultivated land. But if, as according to Professor Johnson, the loss of manure by sewerage be great, there is still one thing to console us, the labor and capital which it would require to collect it, is not

also lost. This again brings to mind the fallacy of the theory of the superior relative increase of food; labor-made fertility, although it may tend to keep up the rate of profit, can never increase it; because, first, the extra labor must be paid for out of the extra crop; and, secondly, what is saved is previously abstracted from other soils. Thus, if the mass of human beings did not abstract one atom of fertility from the earth, nor were there one atom wasted, we could not reach beyond the original fertility, and the rate of profit would even then diminish, from the cost of the extra labor required in cultivation.

I should have preferred to have closed this article at this point, which is already too long, but there is another important point, which I must beg to be excused for noticing, with regard to the continued depreciation of capital. The Professor acknowledges the error he fell into in a former article, but afterward endeavors to confuse and mystify the subject. His original proposition stands thus: "Mr. Carey shows that capital in land obeys the same law as capital invested in machinery; among other things, like other commodities, it will never bring as much as it cost to produce," because the progress of capital and improvement enables man to reproduce the same thing with less expenditure of labor." And he thus acknowledges its general incorrectness: "The proposition which I stated of course did not relate to an immediate sale. It is doubtless true, as a general rule, that any piece of machinery, upon its completion, will bring its cost. Every improved machine for which a patent can be procured, will, during the duration of the patent, produce more than the cost and the ordinary rate of profit. But every improvement is such in virtue of the fact that it cheapens something else. The moment it comes into use, the commodity, whatever it may be, the process of obtaining which it facilitates, is offered in the market at reduced cost. But all existing commodities of the same kind must also fall to the same price. They will bring only what it now costs to produce them."

Now, I think it would be difficult to imagine a more complete repudiation of any proposition than the Professor has been forced into, in the present in tance. He has acknowledged that "every improved machine will, during the term of the patent, produce more than the cost and the ordinary rate of profit." And, in fact, that all commodities "will bring what it now costs to produce them," and of course a profit besides, or, instead of improvements continuing to increase, machinery must cease to exist, and society, instead of becoming more numerous and wealthy, must decrease in number. I merely mention these circumstances to show the Professor how persons are "betrayed by the necessities of a false system into flagrant inconsistencies." In speaking of improved methods, the Professor says: "The moment it comes into use the commodity is offered at reduced cost." By which I presume he meant to say, "at reduced price." But I humbly conceive that this depends upon circumstances, and is not true as a general rule. It is not for the interest of individuals who invent improved methods to reduce the price of their machinery below that of the old; for although in some instances it may cost less, they generally expect and always obtain, if it be really an improvement, a greater price, and consequently an increased profit. Neither is it for the interest of the manufacturer who uses improved machinery immediately to reduce the price of his commodity. They each have an interest opposed to this; both would naturally wish to be paid for extra capital expended, before the price is reduced; and therefore this is not

If this

done unless the state of the market enforces it. It is not the interest of the public which the inventor or manufacturer wishes to serve, but his own. And as improvements cannot become general at once, the old machinery is generally worn out in due time, having paid its cost and profit long before that period, which enables the manufacturer to replace it with new. were not the case, who would be found to invest capital in machinery? The Professor endeavors further to illustrate his views upon this subject by borrowing an idea from M. Bastiat, who says he can now purchase a Bible for fifty cents, or half a day's labor, which formerly cost the labor of three hundred days to produce a worse copy. We must remember, however, that fifty cents is what it now costs to produce it.

The idea, also, expressed in the following quotation, if I rightly understand it, is also erroneous: "Every step in improvement gives labor an additional command over some one of the constituents of capital, and consequently raises the rate, between the value of existing labor and the sum total of capital." If it is intended to say, as I presume it is, that these improvements in labor increase its relative value to that of capital, I must object to the assertion as being contrary to fact. The Professor has himself given us an incident by which we may prove the matter, pro or con. It is stated that we can now purchase a Bible for the price of half a day's labor, which at one time would take the price of three hundred days' labor to purchase. Now, let us suppose the value of the raw material necessary for the production of the Book to have remained stationary at one-eighth of a day's labor. At one time it would take 2,400 times as much raw material to purchase the Book as was required for its production; whereas at present it would require only four times as much. Has labor gained "additional command" over capital, or has capital gained additional command over labor in this instance? It matters not whether raw material has increased in price, or whether labor has decreased; or whether each have moved in the direction indicated; it shows the same operating principle: all improvements increase the relative value of the land. It is not therefore true, "that the capital of a nation which is making the slightest industrial progress, will each day command less labor than it would the preceding day." The amount of capital being limited, by circumstances which we have previously explained, while it requires less labor each succeeding day to effect the same amount of production upon a given amount of capital-capital must, of course, as we have seen in the instance above, continue to purchase or command, a larger amount of labor instead of a smaller. In continuation of the subject the Professor says: "To show that the same proposition holds good as to land, it is only necessary to demonstrate that it owes its whole value to labor." And then quotes from a speech of Mr. Webster's at Buffalo, to show, that "without human labor land is not worth a rush, from Dan to Beersheba." I must beg, however, to differ from both these great authorities, with all due humility. But the Professor turns round upon his own proposition and Mr. Webster's opinion, and restates the proposition in the following manner: "Now the proposition is, that the land will not bring as much as the cost of the labor in and near it, to which it owes its entire value. In the case of a farm in the neighborhood of a city suggested by R. S., the difficulty is to enumerate and estimate the value of the labor expended in the city, and to apportion it among the various tracts which have had their value enhanced by such expenditure." The second proposition is a direct acknowledgment that the first was untenable. It is admit