ft out of our
consideration the effect of such a measure on foreign trade; we have
rather been supposing the case of an insulated country, having no
commercial connexion with other countries. We have seen that as the
demand of the country for corn and commodities would be the same,
whatever direction the bounty might take, there would be no temptation
to remove capital from one employment to another: but this would no
longer be the case if there were foreign commerce, and that commerce
were free. By altering the relative value of commodities and corn, by
producing so powerful an effect on their natural prices, we should be
applying a strong stimulus to the exportation of those commodities whose
natural prices were lowered, and an equal stimulus to the importation of
those commodities whose natural prices were raised, and thus such a
financial measure might entirely alter the natural distribution of
employments; to the advantage indeed of the foreign countries, but
ruinously to that in which so absurd a policy was adopted.

CHAPTER XXII.

DOCTRINE OF ADAM SMITH CONCERNING THE RENT OF LAND.

"Such parts only of the produce of land," says Adam Smith, "can commonly
be brought to market, of which the ordinary price is sufficient to
replace the stock which must be employed in bringing them thither,
together with its ordinary profits. If the ordinary price is more than
this, the surplus part of it will naturally go to the rent of land. _If
it is not more, though the commodity can be brought to market, it can
afford no rent to the landlord._ Whether the price is, or is not more,
depends upon the demand."

This passage would naturally lead the reader to conclude that its author
could not have mistaken the nature of rent, and that he must have seen
that the quality of land which the exigencies of society might require
to be taken into cultivation would depend on "_the ordinary price of its
produce," whether it were "sufficient to replace the stock, which must
be employed in cultivating it, together with its ordinary profits_."

But he had adopted the notion that "there were some parts of the produce
of land for which the demand must always be such as to afford a greater
price than what is sufficient to bring them to market;" and he
considered food as one of those parts.

He says, that "land, in almost any situation, produces a greater
quantity of food than what is sufficient to maintain all the labour
necessary for