Note 157-7 — Chapter II

In France, between 1797 and 1847, the average price of wheat did not rise at all. Hipp. Passy mentions pieces of land which produced scarcely 12 hectolitres of wheat, but which now produce 20—an increased yield of 170 francs, attended by an increase in the cost of only 75 francs. (Journal des Economistes, 15 Oct., 1848.) Moreover, it may be that a not unimportant part of modern rises in the price of corn may be accounted for by the better quality of the corn caused by higher farming. (Inama Sternbeg, Gesch. der Preise, 10 seq.) Such facts, readily explainable by Ricardo's theory, remove the objection of Carey, Banfield and others, that the condition of the classes who own no land has, since the middle ages, unquestionably improved. Political Economy would be simply a theory of human degradation and impoverishment, if the law of rent was not counteracted by opposing causes. (Rœsler, Grundsätze, 210.) According to Berens, Krit. Dogmengeschichte, 213, the actual highness of rent is to be accounted for by the antagonism between the "soil-law (Bodengesetz) of the limited power of vegetation," and the "progress of civilization" (but surely only to the extent that the latter improves the art of agriculture). Thus, too, John Stuart Mill, Principles, I, ch. 12; II, ch. 11, 15 seq.; III, ch. 4 seq.; IV, ch. 2 ff.