Countries are populous not in proportion to the number of people whom their produce can clothe and lodge, but in proportion to that of those whom it can feed.When food is provided, it is easy to find the necessary clothing and lodging.But though these are at hand, it may often be difficult to find food.In some parts even of the British dominions what is called a house may be built by one day's labour of one man.The ******st species of clothing, the skins of animals, require somewhat more labour to dress and prepare them for use.They do not, however, require a great deal.Among savage and barbarous nations, a hundredth or little more than a hundredth part of the labour of the whole year will be sufficient to provide them with such clothing and lodging as satisfy the greater part of the people.All the other ninety-nine parts are frequently no more than enough to provide them with food.
But when by the improvement and cultivation of land the labour of one family can provide food for two, the labour of half the society becomes sufficient to provide food for the whole.The other half, therefore, or at least the greater part of them, can be employed in providing other things, or in satisfying the other wants and fancies of mankind.Clothing and lodging, household furniture, and what is called Equipage, are the principal objects of the greater part of those wants and fancies.The rich man consumes no more food than his poor neighbour.In quality it may be very different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour and art; but in quantity it is very nearly the same.But compare the spacious palace and great wardrobe of the one with the hovel and the few rags of the other, and you will be sensible that the difference between their clothing, lodging, and household furniture is almost as great in quantity as it is in quality.The desire of food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human stomach; but the desire of the conveniences and ornaments of building, dress, equipage, and household furniture, seems to have no limit or certain boundary.Those, therefore, who have the command of more food than they themselves can consume, are always willing to exchange the surplus, or, what is the same thing, the price of it, for gratifications of this other kind.What is over and above satisfying the limited desire is given for the amusement of those desires which cannot be satisfied, but seem to be altogether endless.The poor, in order to obtain food, exert themselves to gratify those fancies of the rich, and to obtain it more certainly they vie with one another in the cheapness and perfection of their work.The number of workmen increases with the increasing quantity of food, or with the growing improvement and cultivation of the lands; and as the nature of their business admits of the utmost subdivisions of labour, the quantity of materials which they can work up increases in a much greater proportion than their numbers.Hence arises a demand for every sort of material which human invention can employ, either usefully or ornamentally, in building, dress, equipage, or household furniture; for the fossils and minerals contained in the bowels of the earth; the precious metals, and the precious stones.
Food is in this manner not only the original source of rent, but every other part of the produce of land which afterwards affords rent derives that part of its value from the improvement of the powers of labour in producing food by means of the improvement and cultivation of land.
Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which afterwards afford rent, do not afford it always.Even in improved and cultivated countries, the demand for them is not always such as to afford a greater price than what is sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with it ordinary profits, the stock which must be employed in bringing them to market.Whether it is or is not such depends upon different circumstances.
Whether a coal-mine, for example, can afford any rent depends partly upon its fertility, and partly upon its situation.
A mine of any kind may be said to be either fertile or barren, according as the quantity of mineral which can be brought from it by a certain quantity of labour is greater or less than what can be brought by an equal quantity from the greater part of other mines of the same kind.
Some coal-mines advantageously situated cannot be wrought on account of their barrenness.The produce does not pay the expense.They can afford neither profit nor rent.
There are some of which the produce is barely sufficient to pay the labour, and replace, together with it ordinary profits, the stock employed in working them.They afford some profit to the undertaker of the work, but no rent to the landlord.They can be wrought advantageously by nobody but the landlord, who, being himself undertaker of the work, gets the ordinary profit of the capital which he employs in it.Many coal-mines in Scotland are wrought in this manner, and can be wrought in no other.The landlord will allow nobody else to work them without paying some rent, and nobody can afford to pay any.
Other coal-mines in the same country, sufficiently fertile, cannot be wrought on account of their situation.A quantity of mineral sufficient to defray the expense of working could be brought from the mine by the ordinary, or even less than the ordinary, quantity of labour; but in an inland country, thinly inhabited, and without either good roads or water-carriage, this quantity could not be sold.
Coals are a less agreeable fuel than wood: they are said, too, to be less wholesome.The expense of coals, therefore, at the place where they are consumed, must generally be somewhat less than that of wood.
