f his own awkwardness of
expression, and upon that point alone all his critics seem to be in
tolerable agreement. Happily, it will be enough for my purpose if I
can lay down his essential premises without following him to the
remoter deductions.

Ricardo's pamphlet upon Malthus (1815) gives a starting-point. Ricardo
cordially adopts Malthus's theory of rent, but declares that it is
fatal to some of Malthus's conclusions. Malthus, we have seen, wished
to regard rent as in some sense a gift of Providence--a positive
blessing due to the fertility of the soil. Ricardo maintains, on the
contrary, that 'the interest of the landlord is necessarily opposed to
the interest of every other class in the community.'[296] The landlord
is prosperous when corn is scarce and dear; all other persons when it
is plentiful and cheap. This follows upon Malthus's own showing. As
men are forced to have recourse to inferior soils, the landlord
obtains a larger share of the whole produce; and, moreover, since corn
also becomes more valuable, will have a larger share of a more
valuable product. The question apparently in dispute--whether we
should be glad that some land is better than the worst, or sorry
because all is not equal to the best--seems rather idle. The real
question, however, is whether rent, being a blessing, should be kept
up by protection,[297] or, being a curse, should be brought down by
competition? What is the real working of the system? Set the trade
free, says Ricardo, and the capital will be withdrawn from the poor
land and employed upon manufactures, to be exchanged for the corn of
other countries.[298] The change must correspond to a more
advantageous distribution of capital, or it would not be adopted. The
principle involved in this last proposition is, he adds, one of the
'best established in the science of political economy, and by no one
is more readily admitted than by Mr. Malthus.' To enforce protection
would be, on Malthus's illustration, to compel us to use the 'worst
machines, when, at a less expense, we could hire the very best from
our neighbours.'[299] Briefly, then, the landlord's interest is
opposed to the national interest, because it enforces a worse
distribution of capital. He compels us to get corn from his worst
land, instead of getting it indirectly, but in greater quantity, from
our spinning-jennies.

For Ricardo, as for Malthus, the ultimate driving force is the
pressure of population. The mass of m