the seed, and in the maintenance of the
farmer's family, servants, and cattle, during
at least a great part of the first year of his occupancy,
or till he can receive some return
from the land. The annual expenses consist
in the seed, in the wear and tear of instruments
of husbandry, and in the annual maintenance
of the farmer's servants and cattle,
and of his family too, so far as any part of
them can be considered as servants employed
in cultivation. That part of the produce of
the land which remains to him after paying
the rent, ought to be sufficient, first, to replace
to him, within a reasonable time, at
least during the term of his occupancy, the
whole of his original expenses, together with
the ordinary profits of stock; and, secondly,
to replace to him annually the whole
of his annual expenses, together likewise
with the ordinary profits of stock. Those two
sorts of expenses are two capitals which the
farmer employs in cultivation; and unless
they are regularly restored to him, together
with a reasonable profit, he cannot carry on
his employment upon a level with other employments;
but, from a regard to his own
interest, must desert it as soon as possible,
and see some other. That part of the produce
of the land which is thus necessary for
enabling the farmer to continue his business,
ought to be considered as a fund sacred to
cultivation, which, if the landlord violates,
he necessarily reduces the produce of his own
land, and, in a few years, not only disables
the farmer from paying this racked rent, but
from paying the reasonable rent which he
might otherwise have got for his land. The
rent which properly belongs to the landlord,
is no more than the neat produce which remains
after paying, in the completest manner,
all the necessary expenses which must be previously
laid out, in order to raise the gross or
the whole produce. It is because the labour
of the cultivators, over and above paying
completely all those necessary expenses, affords
a neat produce of this kind, that this
class of people are in this system peculiarly
distinguished by the honourable appellation
of the productive class. Their original and
annual expenses are for the same reason called,
in this system, productive expenses, because,
over and above replacing their own
value, they occasion the annual reproduction
of this neat produce.
The ground expenses, as they are called,
or what the landlord lays out upon the improvement
of his land, are, in this system,
too, honoured with the appellation of productive
expenses. Till the whole of those expenses,
together with the ordinary profits of
stock, have been completely repaid to him by
the advanced rent which he gets from his
land, that advanced rent ought to be regarded
as sacred and inviolable, both by the
church and by the king; ought to be subject
neither to tithe nor to taxation. If it is otherwise,
by discouraging the improvement of
land, the church discourages the future increase
of her own tithes, and the king the future
increase of his own taxes. As in a well
ordered state of things, therefore, those ground
expenses, over and above reproducing in the
completest manner their own value, occasion
likewise, after a certain time, a reproduction
of neat produce, they are in this system
considered as productive expenses.
The ground expenses of the landlord, however,
together with the original and the annual
expenses of the farmer, are the only
three sorts of expenses which in this system
are considered as productive. All other expenses,
and all other orders of people, even
those who, in the common apprehensions of
men, are regarded as the most productive,
are, in this account of things, represented as
altogether barren and unproductive.
Artificers and manufacturers, in particular,
whose industry, in the common apprehensions
of men, increases so much the value of the
rude produce of land, are in this system represented
as a class of people altogether
barren and unproductive. Their labour, it is
said, replaces only the stock which employs
them, together with its ordinary profits.
That stock consists in the materials, tools,
and wages, advanced to them by their employer;
and is the fund destined for their
employment and maintenance. Its profits
are the fund destined for the maintenance of
their employer. Their employer, as he advances
to them the stock of materials, tools,
and wages, necessary for their employment,
so he advances to himself what is necessary
for his own maintenance; and this maintenance
he generally proportions to the profit
which he expects to make by the price of their
work. Unless its price repays to him the
maintenance which he advances to himself, as
well as the materials, tools, and wages, which
he advances to his workmen, it evidently does
not repay to him the whole expense which he
lays out upon it. The profits of manufacturing
stock, therefore, are not, like the rent
of land, a neat produce which remains after
completely repaying the whole expense which
must be laid out in order to obtain them.
The stock of the farmer yields him a profit,
as well as that of the master manufacturer;
and it yields a rent likewise to another person,
which that of the master manufacturer does
not. The expense, therefore, laid out in employing
and maintaining artificers and manufacturers,
does no more than continue, if one
may say so, the existence of its own value,
and does not produce any new value. It is,
therefore, altogether a barren and unproductive
expense. The expense, on the contrary,
laid out in employing farmers and country
labourers, over and above continuing the existence
of its own value, produces a new value