Note 159-3 — Chapter II

Well discussed by Schäffle, Theorie, 65, 72, 83. Malthus considers the capital and labor expended in agriculture more productive than any other, because they produce not only the usual interest and wages, but also rent. If, therefore, the manufacturing and commercial profit of a country = 12 per cent., and the profit of capital employed in agriculture = 10 per cent., a corn law which compelled the capital engaged in manufactures and commerce to be devoted to agriculture would be productive of advantage to the national husbandry in general, if the increase in rent should amount to about 3 per cent. (On the Effects of the Corn Laws and of a Rise or Fall in the Price of Corn on the Agriculture and the general Wealth of the Country, 1815. The Grounds of an Opinion on the Policy of Restricting the Importation of Foreign Corn, 1815.) Compare supra, § 55, and the detailed rectification in Roscher, Nationalökonomik des Ackerbaues, etc., § 159 ff.