he
universal fact, and therefore cannot be regarded as natural laws. On the
contrary, he shows that food has always grown faster than population,
and that the power to obtain subsistence has always increased most
rapidly in those countries, and at those times, in which population has
most rapidly increased, and in which cultivation has most rapidly
extended over those soils denominated by Mr. Ricardo inferior. The error
of all these writers is shown to be in taking _quantities_ instead of
_proportions_, and it is the law of proportions that constitutes the
novel feature of this work. Ricardo and Malthus assert that land, labor,
and capital are the agents of production, and are subject to different
laws, all tending to produce contrariety of interests, and that the
reason why such is the case is that land owes its value--or power to
command rent for its use--to _monopoly_, while capital is the
accumulated product of labor. Mr. Carey, on the contrary, shows, by a
vast variety of facts, that land owes its value to labor alone, and that
its selling price is _invariably_ less than would purchase the quantity
of labor required to induce its present condition were it restored to a
state of nature. It is, therefore, like steam-engines, mills, or ships,
to be considered as capital, the interest upon which is called rent, and
it is subject to the same laws as capital in any other form. With the
growth of wealth and population, the landlord is shown to be receiving a
constantly decreasing _proportion_ of the product of labor applied to
cultivation, but a constantly increasing _quantity_, because of the
rapid increase in the amount of the return as cultivation is improved
and extended.[27] So it is with the capitalist. The _rate_ of interest
falls as cultivation is improved, and capital is accumulated with
greater facility, and the capitalist receives a smaller _proportion_;
but the _quantity_ of commodities obtainable in return for the use of a
given amount of capital increases, and with every change in that
direction there is shown to be an increasing tendency to equality and to
improvement of condition, physical, moral, intellectual, and political.

According to the system of Mr. Ricardo, the interests of the land owner
and laborer, the capitalist and the employer of capital, are always
opposed to each other. Mr. Carey, on the contrary, proves, and we think
most conclusively, that "the interests of the capitalist and of the
empl