ttingly suffered a loss in exchanging his products, by
which he was made to pay to himself one-tenth of his own farm-rent. Like
every one else, he produced 1, and received but 0.9

If, instead of nine hundred laborers, there had been but five hundred,
the whole amount of farm-rent would have been reduced to fifty; if there
had been but one hundred, it would have fallen to ten. We may posit,
then, the following axiom as a law of proprietary economy: INCREASE MUST
DIMINISH AS THE NUMBER OF IDLERS AUGMENTS.

_ _This first result will lead us to another more surprising still.
Its effect is to deliver us at one blow from all the evils of property,
without abolishing it, without wronging proprietors, and by a highly
conservative process.

We have just proved that, if the farm-rent in a community of one
thousand laborers is one hundred, that of nine hundred would be ninety,
that of eight hundred, eighty, that of one hundred, ten, &c. So that, in
a community where there was but one laborer, the farm-rent would be but
0.1; no matter how great the extent and value of the land appropriated.
Therefore, WITH A GIVEN LANDED CAPITAL, PRODUCTION IS PROPORTIONAL TO
LABOR, NOT TO PROPERTY.

Guided by this principle, let us try to ascertain the maximum increase
of all property whatever.

What is, essentially, a farm-lease? It is a contract by which the
proprietor yields to a tenant possession of his land, in consideration
of a portion of that which it yields him, the proprietor. If, in
consequence of an increase in his household, the tenant becomes ten
times as strong as the proprietor, he will produce ten times as
much. Would the proprietor in such a case be justified in raising the
farm-rent tenfold? His right is not, The more you produce, the more I
demand. It is, The more I sacrifice, the more I demand. The increase
in the tenant's household, the number of hands at his disposal, the
resources of his industry,--all these serve to increase production, but
bear no relation to the proprietor. His claims are to be measured by his
own productive capacity, not that of others. Property is the right of
increase, not a poll-tax. How could a man, hardly capable of cultivating
even a few acres by himself, demand of a community, on the ground of its
use of ten thousand acres of his property, ten thousand times as much
as he is incapable of producing from one acre? Why should the price of a
loan be governed by the skill and strength of the bor