two cases, that in the case of an inadequate supply from an increase of population, there is the means of adding to that supply in one of the three modes spoken of; but that only lessens the insufficiency, it cannot remove it. Such additional supplies of raw produce being the consequence of the rise of price, which itself was the consequence of the insufficiency, it would be a self-contradiction to suppose the continuance of such supplies without the continuance of a relative deficiency. The supply, then, thus raised, must fall short of the demand; and so far as the deficiency extends, it is the ordinary case of a rise of price from a limitation of supply.

The subject may appear yet plainer, if we consider what is really meant by the rise in the price of raw produce. It will scarcely be disputed, that by such rise we mean that any given quantity of it would purchase more labour than the same quantity would have purchased before the rise took place. All commodities fall under one class or the other, and there is nothing but labour with which we could compare raw produce whereby to test its rise or fall. But the rule must be reciprocal; and if raw produce, when compared with labour, has risen, labour, as compared with raw produce, has fallen; and it is because of this fall in the price of labour, that more can be expended on inferior soils with a smaller return. It is true that a decline in the rate of profits might induce a resort to inferior soils and to the other two expedients, no less than a decline in the rate of wages; but an increase of population affords an obvious reason for the last, and none for the first. Labour falls from the increased supply of labourers, precisely as raw produce rises from the diminished supply.

It follows, therefore, that, as a general rule, where the demands of increasing numbers, is not met by improvements of the soil, additional supplies cannot be obtained without a reduction of wages. Thus, by way of illustration, let us suppose that a given quantity of land must produce twenty bushels to defray the expense of cultivation; that all the lands of that degree of fertility are cultivated; and that those of the next degree would produce but fifteen bushels. If population still increase, then the further supply of food it requires cannot be obtained from the inferior land, unless the capitalist will take a smaller profit, or the labourer lower wages; and supposing the ordinary rate of profits to continue unchanged, or even to have fallen one fourth, the only condition upon which the labourer will or can cultivate the inferior soil is, that he will take three fourths of the wages he formerly received, or yet less; and he is able to accommodate himself to the reduction by a difference in the quality of his food rather than of its quantity. And as the wealthy classes consume with undiminished liberality, the proportionate deficiency falls wholly on the labouring classes.

But Mr. Senior assumes that the price of raw produce rises with the wants and the wealth of an increasing community, and the case he has ingeniously put, by way of illustration, seems to support his position. It is that of a great metropolis, such as London, which annually requires for its consumption one million five hundred quarters of corn, of which the different portions can be produced at different rates of expense, according to their fertility and distance from market; and one portion, perhaps fifty thousand quarters, at an expense sufficient to absorb its whole value, and of course incapable of yielding rent. This portion, that which is last raised, "will continue to be produced as long as the wants and the wealth of the purchasers render them willing and able to purchase a quantity of corn, the whole of which cannot be supplied unless this last and most expensive portion is produced. If those wants and wealth should increase, it might become necessary to raise an additional supply at a still further additional expense;" which, as he properly remarks, could not be done, unless the market price of corn should rise sufficiently high to defray such expense.

Now, it is admitted in this case, that the rise which must take place in the price of corn does not necessarily imply lower wages on the part of the purchasers, or a diminished rate of consumption. But it is because the condition of the inhabitants of a great metropolis is very different from the labouring class of a community. The former have other sources of support than their labour, and the compensation which their industry receives is not regulated by that to agricultural labour. They are supported partly by the expenditure of the public revenue, as well as by the voluntary taxes levied on the lovers of metropolitan gayety and magnificence, and by the high order of skill and talent which are there accumulated, and by revenues drawn not merely from distant parts of the kingdom, but from remote colonies and foreign countries. With these resources, not only those who immediately received them, but also the vast multitude to whom they give employment and support, are able to meet the rise of price occasioned by an increased demand, without lessening

the quantity of raw produce they consume, since their wages rise with the rise of raw produce; and we might as soon expect the compensation received by an artist, an ingenious mechanist, or a professional man, affected by the price of ordinary labour, as that the consumption of a metropolis will be affected by the gradual rise of raw produce. Nay, if the wealth and resources of the metropolis were to increase, the average consumption of its inhabitants might also rather increase than fall off; and there is, probably, more animal food now consumed by each individual in London, than was consumed two hundred years ago. The influence, then, of a great city, in raising rents, is local and peculiar, and furnishes no more arguments on the general question of their progressive rise, than the high prices in an army.

The rise of price in the raw produce consumed by a metropolis which must thus take place with its increase of numbers, therefore, causes a rise of rents in the way stated by Mr. Senior; but the rise of price from the different distances from whence the supplies were drawn, cannot be much in any species of raw produce, except of milk, hay, and other products, which, from their cheapness, or liability to change, cannot be transported from a distance. Notwithstanding the poorness of much of the land near London, it is probable that a circle of twenty miles from it and around it would produce all the corn required for its consumption, and the cost of transportation per quarter, (equal to four hundred and eighty pounds,) from the extreme verge of the circle, would not exceed two shillings, and consequently could not raise rents more than six shillings an acre, on lands of the average fertility of three quarters, which sum is not one sixth of the present rent of such land. Of course, the mere effect of distance could have contributed little to the progress of rent, more especially as the facilities of transport by canals and improved roads has greatly exceeded the growth even of London itself.

The case then put by Mr. Senior, plausible as it at first seems, does not really afford any better support to the new theory of rent than the illustrations offered by Messrs. Ricardo, Mill, or M'Culloch; and in the fallacies that lurked under all of them, he might have found a better reason why that theory had not been adopted by foreign political economists, (including Storch and Say,) than that it was not comprehended by them.

From the preceding views, it follows, that the rent or profit of lands depends upon the quantity of labour which their products will purchase, over and above what has been expended in its production. This quantity of labour depends on the value of such surplus and its amount. As its value depends upon the proportion between the supply and the demand, it will be increased by the fresh demands of an increasing population. It is true that the supply may be also increased by expending more labour with a smaller return; but as this supposes a decline of wages, or, what is the same thing, a rise of raw produce, it also supposes that the additional supply has not been equal to the additional demand. We come to the same conclusion by another process. As the wages of labour, estimated in raw produce, gradually decline with the increase of population, (supposing improvement stationary,) the cost of cultivation gradually becomes less, and consequently the surplus becomes greater. Rent, therefore, naturally increases with the growth of population. An increase in the quantity produced tends to lower the price of raw produce, and if the difference of price should exceed the difference in quantity, (which is not probable,) it may lower rents. But should that be the case, the population, by the ever active principle of increase, would soon so increase the demand, as to restore the price of raw produce to its former level.

It follows, too, that where rents increase without any improvement in the productive powers of the soil, it implies a greater cheapness of labour, or smaller wages, estimated in raw produce; and where wages, thus estimated, continue the same, while rents have risen, the rise has been altogether the effect of improvements. This seems to have been the case with England for the last century. In that period, her labouring class has received the same real wages, that is, about a peck of wheat a day, and the great rise of rents which has taken place within the same period has, therefore, been owing to the various means by which both the gross product of the land has been increased, and the expense of cultivation has been diminished, such as the turnip and the drill husbandry, and yet more by the drainage of bogs and marshes, and the enclosure of commons. By this means it is computed, that the gross product of the soil was nearly trebled during the last century, though the population, in the same period, had only doubled; and thus the rise of rents was not attended with a fall of wages. A further cause of the extraordinary rise of rents in England, is to be found in the additional value which has been given to such

products of the soil as enter into the manufactures, and which, by the skill of her workmen and the excellence of her labouring machinery she is easily able to levy, not only on her numerous colonies and dependencies, but also on all foreign nations accessible to her commerce.

The true principles of rent having been thus investigated, we shall proceed, in the next number, to show, first, that the doctrine of the Ricardo school, which would connect the theory of profits with that of rent, is erroneous; and secondly, what appears to us to be the true theory of profits.

SUNSET AND MOONSHINE.

BY J. R. LOWELL.

THE sunset hath a glory for the soul,
Uplifting it from all earth's things apart
And building it a palace of pure art
Where it doth sit alone in crown'd control,
And o'er all space its eyes unsealed roll;
But the dear moonshine looks in on the heart,
Giving each kindly blood-drop warmer start,
And knits me with humanity's great whole;
It doth not bear me, as the sunset doth,
Forth of the city, but, on dull brick walls,
Silverly smileth, as 'twere nothing loath
To sanctify all that whereon it falls,

And with it my full heart goes forth and broods
In love o'er all life's sleeping multitudes.

THE BEE-TREE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF "A NEW HOME."

AMONG the various settlers of the wide West, there is no class which exhibits more striking peculiarities than that which, in spite of hard work, honesty, and sobriety, still continues hopelessly poor. None find more difficulty in the solution of the enigma presented by this state of things, than the sufferers themselves; and it is with some bitterness of spirit that they come at last to the conclusion, that the difference between their own condition and that of their prosperous neighbours, is entirely owing to their own "bad luck," while the prosperous neighbours look musingly at the ragged children and squalid wife, and regret that the head of the house "ha'n't no faculty." Perhaps neither view is quite correct.

In the very last place one would have selected for a dwelling,-in the centre of a wide expanse of low, marshy land, on a swelling knoll, which looks like an island, stands the forlorn dwelling of my good friend, Silas Ashburn, one of the most conspicuous victims of " the bad luck" alluded to. Silas was among the earliest settlers of our part of the country, and had half a county to choose from when he "located" in the swamp,-half a county of as beautiful dale and upland as can be found in the vicinity of the great lakes. But he says there is "the very first rate of pasturing" for his cows, (and well there may be on forty acres of wet grass!) and as for the agues, which have nearly made skeletons of himself and his family, his opinion is, that it would not have made a bit of difference if he had settled on the highest land in Michigan, since "everybody knows if you've got to have the ague, why you've got to, and all the highland and dry land, and Queen Ann* in the world wouldn't make no odds."

* Quinine.

Silas does not get rich, nor even comfortably well off, although he works, he says "like a tiger." This he thinks is because "rich folks ain't willing poor folks should live," and because he in particular, always has such bad luck. Why shouldn't he make money? Why should he not have a farm as well stocked, a house as well supplied, and a family as well clothed and cared for in all respects, as his old neighbour John Dean, who came with him from “ York State?" Dean has never speculated, nor hunted, nor fished, nor found honey, nor sent his family to pick berries for sale. All these has Silas done, and more. His family have worked hard; they have worn their old clothes till they well nigh dropped off; many a day, nay month, has passed, seeing potatoes almost their sole sustenance; and all this time Dean's family had plenty of everything they wanted, and Dean just jogged on, as easy as could be; hardly ever stirring from home, except on 'lection days; wasting a great deal of time too, (so Silas thinks,) "helping the women folks." "But some people get all the luck."

These and similar reflections seem to be scarcely ever absent from the mind of Silas Ashburn, producing anything but favourable results upon his character and temper. He cannot be brought to believe that Dean has made more money by splitting rails in the winter than his more enterprising neighbour by hunting deer, skilful and successful as he is. He will not notice that Dean often buys his venison for half the money he has earned while Silas was hunting it. He has never observed that while his own sallow helpmate goes barefoot and bonnetless to the brush-heap to fill her ragged apron with miserable fuel, the cold wind careering through her scanty covering, Mrs. Dean sits by a good fire, amply provided by her careful husband, patching for the twentieth time his great overcoat; and that by the time his Betsey has kindled her poor blaze, and sits cowering over it, shaking with ague, Mrs. Dean, with well-swept hearth, is busied in preparing her husband's comfortable supper.

These things Silas does not and will not see, and he ever resents fiercely any hint, however kindly and cautiously given, that the steady exercise of his own ability for labour, and a little more thrift on the part of his wife, would soon set all things right. When he spends a whole night "'coon-hunting," and is obliged to sleep half the next day, and feels good for nothing the day after, it is impossible to convince him that the varmint" had better been left to cumber on the ground, and the two or three dollars that the expedition cost him, been bestowed in the purchase of a blanket.

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"A blanket!" he would exclaim angrily; "don't be puttin' sich uppish notions into my folks' heads! Let 'em make comfortable out o' their old gowns, and if that don't do, let 'em sleep in their day-clothes, as I do! Nobody needn't suffer with a great fire to sleep by."

The children of this house are just what one would expect from such training. Labouring beyond their strength at such times as it suits their father to work, they have nevertheless abundant opportunity for idleness; and as the mother scarcely attempts to control them, they usually lounge listlessly by the fireside, or bask in the sunshine, when Ashburn is absent; and as a natural consequence of this irregular mode of life, the whole family are frequently prostrate with agues, suffering every variety of wretchedness, while there is perhaps no other case of disease in the neighbourhood. Then comes the twofold evil of a long period of inactivity, and a proportionately long doctor's bill; and as Silas is strictly honest, and means to rob no man of his due, the scanty comforts of the convalescents are cut down to almost nothing, and their recovery sadly delayed, that the heavy expenses of illness may be provided for. This is some of poor Ashburn's " bad luck."

.

One of the greatest temptations to our friend Silas, and to most of his class, is a bee-hunt. Neither deer, nor 'coons, nor prairie-hens, nor even bears, prove half as powerful enemies to anything like regular business, as do these little thrifty vagrants of the forest. The slightest hint of a bee-tree will entice Silas Ashburn and his sons from the most profitable job of the season, even though the defection is sure to result in entire loss of the offered advantage; and if the hunt prove successful, the luscious spoil is generally too tempting to allow of any care for the future, so long as the sweet'nin'" can be persuaded to last. "It costs nothing," will poor Mrs. Ashburn observe," let 'em enjoy it. It isn't often we have such good luck." As to the cost, close computation might lead to a different conclusion; but the Ashburns are not calculators.

It was on one of the lovely mornings of our ever lovely autumn, so early that the sun had scarcely touched the tops of the still verdant forest, that Silas Ashburn and his eldest son sallied forth for a day's chopping on the newly-purchased land of a rich settler, who had been but a few months among us. The tall form of the father, lean and

gaunt as the very image of famine, derived little grace from the rags which streamed from the elbows of his almost sleeveless coat, or flapped round the tops of his heavy boots, as he strode across the long causeway which formed the communication from his house to the dry land. Poor Joe's costume showed, if possible, a still greater need of the aid of that useful implement the needle. His mother is one who thinks little of the ancient proverb which commends the stich in time; and the clothing under her care sometimes falls in pieces, seam by seam, for want of the occasional aid which is rendered more especially necessary by the slightness of the original sewing; so that the brisk breeze of the morning gave the poor boy no faint resemblance to a tall young aspen,

"With all its leaves fast fluttering, all at once."

The little conversation which passed between the father and son was such as necessarily makes up much of the talk of the poor, turning on the difficulties and disappointments of life, and the expedients by which there may seem some slight hope of eluding these disagreeables.

"If we hadn't had sich bad luck this summer," said Mr. Ashburn, "losing that heifer, and the pony, and them three hogs, all in that plaguy spring-hole, too,-I thought to have bought that timbered forty of Dean. It would have squared out my farm jist about right."

"The pony didn't die in the spring-hole, father," said Joe.

"No, he did not, but he got his death there, for all. He never stopped shiverin' from the time he fell in. You thought he had the agur, but I know'd well enough what ailed him; but I wasn't a goin' to let Dean know, because he'd ha' thought himself so blam'd cunning, after all he'd said to me about that spring-hole. If the agur could kill, Joe, we'd all ha' been dead long ago."

Joe sighed a sigh of assent. They walked on musingly.

"This is going to be a good job of Keene's," continued Mr. Ashburn, turning to a brighter theme, as they crossed the road and struck into the "timbered land," on their way to the scene of the day's operations. "He has bought three eighties, all lying close together, and he'll want as much as forty cleared right off; and I've a good notion to take the fencin' of it as well as the choppin.' He's got plenty of money, and they say he don't shave quite so close as some. But I tell you, Joe, if I do take the job, you must turn to like a catamount, for I ain't a-going to make a nigger o' myself, and let my children do nothing but eat."

"Well, father," responded Joe, whose pale face gave token of anything but high living, I'll do what I can; but you know I never work two days at choppin' but what I have the agur like sixty, and a feller can't work when he's got the agur."

"Not while the fit's on, to be sure," said the father; "but I have worked many an afternoon after my fit was over, when my head felt as big as a half-bushel, and my hands would ha' sizzed if I'd put 'em in water. Poor folks has to go to work-but, Joe! if there isn't bees, by golley! I wonder if anybody's been a baitin' for 'em? Stop! hush! watch which way they go!"

And with breathless interest-forgetful of all troubles, past, present, and future— they paused to observe the capricious wheelings and flittings of the little cluster, as they tried every flower on which the sun shone, or returned again and again, to such as suited best their discriminating taste. At length, after a weary while, one suddenly rose into the air with a loud whizz, and after balancing a moment on a level with the tree-tops, darted off like a well-sent arrow toward the east, followed instantly by the whole busy company, till not a loiterer remained.

"Well! if this isn't luck!" exclaimed Ashburn, exultingly; "they make right for Keene's land! We'll have 'em; go ahead, Joe, and keep your eye on 'em!"

Joe obeyed so well in both points, that he not only outran his father, but very soon turned a summerset over a gnarled root or grub which lay in his path. This faux pas nearly demolished one side of his face, and what remained of his jacketsleeve, while his father, not quite so heedless, escaped falling, but tore his boot almost off with what he called "a contwisted stub of the toe."

But these were trifling inconveniences, and only taught them to use a little more caution in their eagerness. They followed on, unweariedly, crossed several fences and threaded much of Mr. Keene's tract of forest-land, scanning with practised eye every decayed tree, whether standing or prostrate, until at length, in the side of a gigantic but leafless oak, they espied, some forty feet from the ground, the "sweet home" of the immense swarm whose scouts had betrayed their hiding-place.