Note 341 — Chapter III · : THE PESSIMISTS

“Wealth increases most rapidly in those countries where the disposable land is most fertile, where importation is least restricted, and where, through agricultural improvements, productions can be multiplied without any increase in the proportional quantity of labour, and where consequently the progress of rent is slow.” (Principles, ed. Gonner, p. 54.) The contrast between fertile lands, free exchange, and the development of agricultural science on the one hand, and the growth of rent on the other, is very strikingly brought out in this paragraph.