imself in readiness to register the names of the laborers who apply to
him--his task consists in drafting leases and receipts.

Not satisfied with the lightness of his duties, the proprietor does not
intend to bear even the deficit resulting from his idleness; he throws
it upon the shoulders of the producer, of whom he always demands the
same reward. When the farm-rent of a piece of land is once raised to its
highest point, the proprietor never lowers it; high prices, the scarcity
of labor, the disadvantages of the season, even pestilence itself, have
no effect upon him--why should he suffer from hard times when he does
not labor?

Here commences a new series of phenomena.

Say--who reasons with marvellous clearness whenever he assails taxation,
but who is blind to the fact that the proprietor, as well as the
tax-gatherer, steals from the tenant, and in the same manner--says in
his second letter to Malthus:--

"If the collector of taxes and those who employ him consume one-sixth
of the products, they thereby compel the producers to feed, clothe, and
support themselves on five-sixths of what they produce. They admit this,
but say at the same time that it is possible for each one to live on
five-sixths of what he produces.

"I admit that, if they insist upon it; but I ask if they believe that the
producer would live as well, in case they demanded of him, instead of
one-sixth, two-sixths, or one-third, of their products? No; but he would
still live. Then I ask whether he would still live, in case they should
rob him of two-thirds,... then three-quarters? But I hear no reply."

If the master of the French economists had been less blinded by his
proprietary prejudices, he would have seen that farm-rent has precisely
the same effect.

Take a family of peasants composed of six persons,--father, mother, and
four children,--living in the country, and cultivating a small piece of
ground. Let us suppose that by hard labor they manage, as the saying is,
to make both ends meet; that, having lodged, warmed, clothed, and fed
themselves, they are clear of debt, but have laid up nothing. Taking the
years together, they contrive to live. If the year is prosperous, the
father drinks a little more wine, the daughters buy themselves a dress,
the sons a hat; they eat a little cheese, and, occasionally, some meat.
I say that these people are on the road to wreck and ruin.

For, by the third corollary of our axiom, they owe to them