ay be derived from goods which sell for 2,000_l._ and from
those which sell for 10,000_l._; and consequently the variations of
those profits, independently of any increased or diminished quantity of
labour required for the goods in question, must affect their prices in
different proportions.

It appears too, that commodities may be lowered in value in consequence
of a real rise of wages, but they never can be raised from that cause.
On the other hand, they may rise from a fall of wages, as they then lose
the peculiar advantages of production, which high wages afforded them.

CHAPTER II.

ON RENT.

It remains however to be considered, whether the appropriation of land,
and the consequent creation of rent, will occasion any variation in the
relative value of commodities, independently of the quantity of labour
necessary to production. In order to understand this part of the
subject, we must inquire into the nature of rent, and the laws by which
its rise or fall is regulated. Rent is that portion of the produce of
the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and
indestructible powers of the soil. It is often however confounded with
the interest and profit of capital, and in popular language the term is
applied to whatever is annually paid by a farmer to his landlord. If,
of two adjoining farms of the same extent, and of the same natural
fertility, one had all the conveniences of farming buildings, were,
besides, properly drained and manured, and advantageously divided by
hedges, fences, and walls, while the other had none of these advantages,
more remuneration would naturally be paid for the use of one, than for
the use of the other; yet in both cases this remuneration would be
called rent. But it is evident, that a portion only of the money
annually to be paid for the improved farm, would be given for the
original and indestructible powers of the soil; the other portion would
be paid for the use of the capital which had been employed in
ameliorating the quality of the land, and in erecting such buildings as
were necessary to secure and preserve the produce. Adam Smith sometimes
speaks of rent, in the strict sense to which I am desirous of confining
it, but more often in the popular sense, in which the term is usually
employed. He tells us, that the demand for timber, and its consequent
high price, in the more southern countries of Europe, caused a rent to
be paid for forests in Norway,