Note 345 — Chapter III · : THE PESSIMISTS

Mr. Robert Thompson, in a paper read before the Royal Statistical Society on December 17, 1907, has shown how the average rent per acre, valued at 11s. 2d. in 1801-5, reached the figure of 20s. in 1841-45, and despite the abolition of protection continued to rise up to 1872-77, when it reached a maximum of 29s. 4d. It then continued to fall until it reached the present amount of 20s. The present figure is double what it was in Ricardo’s time, but considerable deductions are necessary in view of the improvements made in the character of the soil. Thompson, after making these deductions, puts the amount at 15s. 5d., leaving just 4s. 7d. for rent pure and simple. The 11s. for rent at the beginning of the century covered something besides economic rent. Considerable deductions are again necessary, but the amount of capital employed in agriculture was much less then.

One seems justified in saying that in England and even in France and other Protective countries the land has lost both in revenue and value during the last quarter of the nineteenth century almost all that it had gained from the time of Ricardo up till then. But is the recoil sufficient to justify Foville’s description of Ricardo’s vaunted law as a pure myth? We think not. It has the experience of seventy-five years behind it and of twenty-five years against it, that is all. Anyone who would predict a further fall in rent would certainly be running the risk of becoming a false prophet.