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willing to cultivate the first soil, giving twenty quarters by way of rent, as to cultivate the second soil subject to no claim for rent. In either case he would receive 80 quarters from the land. This increase of rent is not, as generally supposed, occasioned by improved agriculture, or by anything like a greater natural fertility in the soil. It results from the stress of population, which makes it necessary to resort to soils of a decreasing fertility. Rent varies in inverse proportion to the amount of produce obtained by means of capital and labour employed in cultivation; it increases when the profits of agriculture diminish, and diminishes when these increase. Profits are at their maximum in new countries, where good land is unappropriated; rents are at their maximum in old countries, where even the worst soils are appropriated.

In answer to this it may be said, first (though this may appear a begging of the question), that Ricardo's theory ignores the great basis of rent-the natural resources of land.

Revenue may be divided into three parts-wages, profit, rent. The first represents labour, the second capital, and the third natural agents or resources. A farm is rented because it is capable of producing food either for man or beast. A mine is rented because it produces mineral. It is this productiveness that gives rise to rent. But the fact that a farm of second-rate fertility is brought under cultivation in no way increases or diminishes the fertility

of the first.

Secondly, the theory of Ricardo assumes that, if soil were all of one quality, there would be no rent paid upon any of it. But this assumption leads to absurdity. Were all the soil of one quality (and it is quite as conceivable that this quality should be that of our

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worst as that it should equal our best) appropriation would still go Demand for corn takes no heed of the quality of soil. Whether there be two qualities or a hundred qualities, the demand must be the same. Demand not necessarily considering quality of soil, appropriation does not necessarily do so either. If there were two soils to choose from, appropriation would be made of the better; if there were but one soil, that would inevitably be monopolised. But soil monopolised is of course property; it is capable of use; it may be sold or hired. As certainly as land could be used were it of one quality the whole world over, as certainly as it could be sold, so certainly could it be hired or rented.

Thirdly, I would say that, almost as a necessity of circumstances, there are landlords and tenants on the first class of soil before there are on the second any cultivators at all.

Appropriation of land would be vain unless the appropriator had capital wherewith to turn the soil to account. Appropriation must therefore have been made first by the wealthy. Now be it recollected that, for long after the institution of rent, the farming of grain or cattle must have been almost the only means of acquiring wealth. Only the appropriators of the best soil would be wealthy; only the wealthy would be appropriators of the best soil; but when the secondary soil came to be thought of, either the owners of the first would appropriate it, or they would advance capital to others to do this; but before doing either they would be sure to take advantage of high prices and rent the first soil.

Fourthly, I would say that it is more difficult than Ricardo supposed to determine which are the most productive soils; and certainly it does not always happen that

these are the first occupied. The most fertile soil may fetch only half the rent of a soil far inferior, because of situation. The most fertile soils are generally the least remunerative at first; they are rich, but too rich, and have to be cleared of wood and many forms of vegetable life. It might conceivably have come about that the very first patch of earth ever appropriated was the least fertile; or we may conceive it to have been naturally the most fertile, but really the most impracticable. The best soils are likely to be yet undiscovered. A little reflection shows that in practice the passage from good to bad soils does not always take place; it takes place sometimes from bad to good.

Fifthly, Ricardo's theory supposes one of these two thingseither that rent will, in the course of circumstances, cease to exist, or that there will for ever remain a certain portion of the soil incapable of yielding rent. A theory should be judged, not only by the test of probability, but by the test of possibility. The test of possibility may be applied to Ricardo's theory here; and if it can be shown that rent must not necessarily come to an end, and that no part of the soil is necessarily bound to remain so unproductive as to yield no rent, that theory may be held insufficient as an explanation of the origin of rent. The disciple of Ricardo would admit that the soil at present capable of maintaining labour, but not of yielding rent, may yet be made capable of yielding rent. There is no theoretical reason for our denying that this descent from good soil to worse may go on until the very worst soil is reached. This worst soil is then the factor (according to Ricardo) which determines the rent of all the rest. But still there is no theoretical reason to deny that this worst soil

may be made better than that above it. This is theoretically possible. Sir Joseph Barks had a barren spot in his garden upon which nothing would grow. The refuse of lead mines is poisonous to all plants except one; that one (I forget its name) it was resolved to grow on the bare patch. Refuse was procured from the lead mines in Lanarkshire, and dug into the earth of this patch, which soon blossomed luxuriantly with the desired foliage. Some of the finest corn crops of the world are grown upon lands which, before the introduction of turnip husbandry, produced a very scanty supply of grass for a few head of cattle and some rabbits. In a review article I lately found the following sentence, which is nothing but truth: "Agriculture, destroyed by various causes, traverses the earth, flying from place to place where it is oppressed, and taking up its rest where it is permitted to breathe freely; it reigns at present where nothing was formerly to be seen but deserts; and places in which it once reigned are now only deserts." Thus we see that we can fix upon no spot of earth as that which will for ever remain the most fertile, and upon no spot as that which will for ever remain the least fertile. If this be so, the theory of Ricardo is not entitled to assume that there will for ever remain a portion of the earth incapable of yielding rent. The lowest soil of all-that which yields no rent-may be made better than that which does yield rent.

This being so, the follower of Ricardo must defend his doctrine by maintaining that when the lowest soil is raised to the standard of the second lowest, rent ceases to be yielded by that second lowest soil. The two would then virtually make one soil, the lowest, which would fix the rate of rent on all other soils. But again I say, that

theoretically we have no ground for denying that this reclamation or fertilisation may go on until all soils are raised to the standard of the best soil. And so he who accepts Ricardo's theory must maintain (once he is forced from the first position above referred to) that, in the progress of agricultural science, rent will, after a certain period, continue to diminish, and will ultimately disappear. But will landlords and tenants appear? Will it be a result, direct or indirect, of improved agriculture, that each portion of earth will be cultivated by its owner, who, however rich he become, will never lease it to another?

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It may be said in conclusion that Ricardo's theory of rent is at root the same as his theory of value. Both theories avoid a direct appeal to Demand, and take for cause and

effect what are only two effects of the same cause- -Demand. Were the disciple of Ricardo asked what determines the price of a loaf, he would say, the cost of producing it. Were he asked what determines the price of the corn that goes to the making of that loaf, he would consistently answer, the cost of producing it. Were he asked what determines the amount of rent paid for the soil on which this corn is grown, he would say, the expense of tilling it.

It is not the cultivation of a secondary soil, then, that gives rent to soil of the best class; the secondary soil is brought into cultivation because the first yields rent already. The quality of soil does not put any practical limit to our supplying public demand; but demand puts the limit to our use of inferior soil.

CESAR AND CICERO.*

THE almost simultaneous appearance of these two books, whose subject-matter SO very largely coincides, is what has induced us to place their titles together at the head of this article. In all save these coincidences, the two works are about as unlike as can well be. Mr. Froude calls his volume of 494 pages a "sketch," and there is no doubt that it possesses one characteristic of a certain sort of sketches. It lacks accuracy of detail; and there is an attempt to popularise the subject which is constantly misleading the author, and irritating the critical reader. It is barely allowable, for instance, for Mr. Froude to keep on calling the senators, especially those of the optimate party, "noble lords" and such like modern epithets. when he comes to speak of patricians and plebeians, meaning merely rich and poor, he is passing all licence of popular phraseology. The legal and political fiction by which Publius Clodius became eligible for the tribuneship was by no means the descent of a Claudius among the canaille," and is most inaptly compared to a Howard seeking adoption from a shopkeeper in the Strand." If we must find modern analogies for an incident which even in Roman history was unique, the Clodian

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adoption might more fitly be compared to the election of Mirabeau as a Deputy of the Tiers Etat, and his choice to sit in the popular chamber rather than among his own noble caste. A "sketch" of which this is one of the features, may be pronounced decidedly wanting in historical perspective, and this is only one of many similar defects in Mr. Froude's book. But there is yet another and a graver fault to be found with this "sketch" of Cæsar. The author is infected with the Boswellian mania to a degree that would have made Boswell himself stare and gasp. There is a schoolboy story of a lad who was asked what he knew of the early history of Britain. He replied, "the island of Britain was inhabited by the Ancient Britons, who were a race of savages until they were invaded by Julius Cæsar. He was a civilised man, a gentleman and a Christian." One is almost tempted to think that it was the same little boy who when he grew up wrote "Cæsar, a sketch," only that Mr. Froude, in his closing paragraph, goes even further than he did. It is not enough that his hero is the greatest of generals and statesmen; he must be blameless in private life, and in his death a sort of political Messiah. Nor does

*Cæsar: a Sketch. By J. A. Froude. Longmans.

The Correspondence of Cicero. Edited by R. Y. Tyrrell, Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor of Latin in the University of Dublin (Dublin University Press Series). Vol. I.

Longmans.

even this satisfy our author without a sneer at the age in which we live. "Ages of progress and equality are as credulous of evil as ages of faith are credulous of good, and reason (i.e., Mr. Froude's arguments)" will not modify convictions which do not originate in reason." Perhaps it is not wholly irrelevant to remark here, that they were ages of faith" in which Cæsar had the reputation of being no better than he should be; and that Mr. Froude himself has been the first to depict him as a sort of Philistine Saint.

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But it is the other conspicuous character of the latter Republican period who forms the link of connection between Mr. Froude's and Mr. Tyrrell's books. The careers of Cæsar and of Cicero were closely intertwined; the one cannot be fully understood without an adequate study of the other. Mr. Tyrrell's introduction might be perused with great advantage, if only as an antidote to Mr. Froude's extravagances. It were but faint praise to point out that the Dublin scholar never indulges in the irrelevant and inelegant modernisms of the Oxford historian. The simplicity of his style is only the echo of the soberness of his thought; and when he does venture upon modern illustration, it is always pertinent and apt. Thus "Tear 'em, the ex-Consul," is a real equivalent for cynicus consularis. Cicero was no cynic, either in the Greek or the English sense of the word. But he was precisely what Mr. Roebuck meant when he called himself "Tear 'em;" so that Mr. Tyrrell has most happily hit the true meaning of the passage. The only modern allusion in this edition of the letters to which serious exception can be taken is calling Cæsar the "Creator of France." We may safely leave our Ciceronian editor to discuss the propriety of this description with Professor Freeman,

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and turning away from merely verbal and formal criticism, proceed to examine the common subject-matter of both these works. The character and position of Cicero is the point of contact: and here it must be admitted that there is a prima facie presumption in Mr. Tyrrell's favour, because of the sobriety and moderation of his estimate. In Mr. Froude's view Cicero was on the wrong side, and no sneers or disparaging sentences are too bad for him. "Nature half-made a great man, and left him uncompleted." He was "a tragic combination of magnificent talents, high aspirations, and a true desire to do right, with an infirmity of purpose, and a latent insincerity of character which neutralised, and could almost make us forget his nobler qualities." "Cicero's natural place was at Cæsar's side: but to Cæsar alone of his contemporaries he was conscious of an inferiority which was intolerable to him. In his Own eyes he was always the first person." "Supreme as an orator he could always be; and an order of things was therefore most desirable where oratory held the highest place." There is a certain amount of truth in all this. Cicero was assuredly a very vain man; and he attached probably a far higher value to his oratorical and literary powers than they were really entitled to. But Cicero was neither a trimmer nor a time server. Mr. Tyrrell has very clearly shown how these charges of inconsistency arose, and what were the real facts of the case. Cicero's first entrance upon public life was in the capacity of an advocate; and every advocate is bound by his briefs. It is quite possible that he may have had some difficulty at first in choosing his side in politics: but it is abundantly manifest that once he had chosen, he stuck to his

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