by a
company, vary according to the law which Lord Lauderdale has laid down:
they fall in proportion as the sellers augment their quantity, and rise
in proportion to the eagerness of the buyers to purchase them; their
price has no necessary connexion with their natural value: but the
prices of commodities, which are subject to competition, and whose
quantity may be increased in any moderate degree, will ultimately
depend, not on the state of demand and supply, but on the increased or
diminished cost of their production.

CHAPTER XXIX.

MR. MALTHUS'S OPINIONS ON RENT.

Although the nature of rent has in the former pages of this work been
treated on at some length; yet I consider myself bound to notice some
opinions on the subject, which appear to me erroneous, and which are the
more important, as they are found in the writings of one to whom, of all
men of the present day, some branches of economical science are the most
indebted. Of Mr. Malthus's Essay on Population, I am happy in the
opportunity here afforded me of expressing my admiration. The assaults
of the opponents of this great work have only served to prove its
strength; and I am persuaded that its just reputation will spread with
the cultivation of that science of which it is so eminent an ornament.
Mr. Malthus too--has satisfactorily explained the principles of rent,
and shewed that it rises or falls in proportion to the relative
advantages, either of fertility or situation, of the different lands in
cultivation, and has thereby thrown much light on many difficult points
connected with the subject of rent, which were before either unknown, or
very imperfectly understood; yet he appears to me to have fallen into
some errors, which his authority makes it the more necessary, whilst his
characteristic candour renders it less unpleasing to notice. One of
these errors lies in supposing rent to be a clear gain and a new
creation of riches.

I do not assent to all the opinions of Mr. Buchanan concerning rent; but
with those expressed in the following passage, quoted from his work by
Mr. Malthus, I fully agree; and therefore I must dissent from Mr.
Malthus's comment on them.

"In this view it (rent) can form no general addition to the stock of the
community, as the neat surplus in question is nothing more than a
revenue transferred from one class to another; and from the mere
circumstance of its thus changing hands, it is clear that no fund can
arise, o