-sense observer. In a curious paper of December
1804,[293] Cobbett points out that the landlords will always keep the
profits of farmers down to the average rate of equally agreeable
businesses. This granted, it is a short though important step to the
theory of rent. The English system had, in fact, spontaneously
analysed the problem. The landlord, farmer, and labourer represented
the three interests which might elsewhere be combined. Prices raised
by war and famine had led to the enclosure of wastes and the breaking
up of pastures. The 'margin of cultivation' was thus illustrated by
facts. Farmers were complaining that they could not make a profit if
prices were lowered. The landed classes were profiting by a rise of
price raised, according to a familiar law, in greater proportion than
the deficiency of the harvest. Facts of this kind were, one must
suppose, familiar to every land-agent; and to discover the law of
rent, it was only necessary for Malthus and West to put them in their
natural order. The egg had only to be put on its end, though that, as
we know, is often a difficult task. When the feat was accomplished
consequences followed which were fully developed by Ricardo.

FOOTNOTES:

[203] Mr. James Bonar's _Malthus and his Work_ (1885) gives an
admirable account of Malthus. The chief original authorities are a
life by Bishop Otter, prefixed to a second edition of the _Political
Economy_ (1831), and an article by Empson, Malthus's colleague, in the
_Edinburgh Review_ for January 1837.

[204] _Political Justice_ (3rd edition, 1798), ii. bk. viii. chap.
ix., p. 514.

[205] Wallace wrote in answer to Hume, _A Dissertation on the Numbers
of Mankind in Ancient and Modern Times_ (1753), and _Various Prospects
of Mankind_, and _Nature and Providence_ (1761). Godwin refers to the
last.

[206] _Political Justice_, ii. 520.

[207] _Ibid._ ii. 528.

[208] First published in 1795, after the first edition, as Godwin
remarks, of the _Political Justice_.

[209] _Ami des hommes_ (reprint of 1883), p. 15.

[210] _Ami des hommes_, p. 26.

[211] See the curious debate in _Parl. Hist._ xiv. 1318-1365.

[212] The seventh edition of Price's _Observations on Reversionary
Payments_, etc. (1812), contains a correspondence with Pitt (i. 216,
etc.). The editor, W. Morgan, accuses Pitt of adopting Price's plans
without due acknowledgment and afterwards spoiling them.

[213] _Essay on Population_, p. 18. In _Observations_, ii