though it diminished by one-tenth the fertility of land. Because the farmer must be content to remunerate himself out of nine-tenths, it is, they say, as though the other tenth were not in existence. But this is not so. Undoubtedly, if the fertility of the land were reduced by onetenth, provided the same relation subsisted between supply and demand, the former must get for the ninetenths as much as he, under other circumstances, would get for the whole. The case to be considered, however, is one where the farmer gets a price for the nine-tenths sufficient to cover the expenses of the whole, and where another party, the clergyman, for instance, gets a present of the other tenth. Now this other tenth will, undoubtedly, be employed in encouraging the industry of various tradesmen and manufacturers, and, so far, in contributing to the effectual demand which enables the farmer to cultivate:-and so far as it has this effect, it must be regarded, pro tanto, as an abatement of the tax; for, if the imposition of a tithe enhance the selling price of corn, the existence of tithe constitutes an additional fund which enables the purchasers to pay it. This is a case where diminution of amount is in some degree compensated by increase of value; for what is taken from the farmer is not destroyed, but converted into equivalents, by which the worth of the remainder is augmented. But ours is a practical question. We are more concerned with the real state of the case, than with one which has not, as far as we know, been at any time realized anywhere, and which, while the law remains as it is, could not possibly be realized in the British Empire. For more than one-third of the land in Great Britain is, or may be considered as, TITHEFREE. According to a statement in the Edinburgh Encyclopædia, (Vol. ix. p. 32,) the total annual value of all the land in England and Wales, in 1815, amounted to L.29,476,850. It also appears, that lands of the annual value of L.7,904,378, are WHOLLY tithe-free; while lands of the annual value of L.856,183 are tithe-free in part; and lands of the annual value of L.498,823 pay only a low modus. Now upon these facts we cannot do better than avail ourselves of the VOL. XXXIII. NO. CCV.

conclusive reasoning of the Edinburgh Review; an authority which we will not be accused of selecting because of its partiality to the claims of a Church establishment. Having admitted that the principle of Ricardo holds good under the circumstances which he has supposed, the reviewer observes," that these are not the circumstances under which the agriculturists of Great Britain are, or ever have been placed. So far, indeed, is it from being true that all, or nearly all, our lands are affected by the burden of tithe, that it appears that almost a third part of the land of England and Wales is exempt from it, exclusive of considerable tracts in Ireland, and of the whole of Scotland. And such being the case, it is quite idle to suppose that the cultivators of the tithed lands have had any power so to narrow the supply of corn brought to market, as to throw any considerable portion of the burden of tithes on the consumers. Had the extent of tithe-free land been inconsiderable, they might have thrown the greater part of it upon them; but when they have had to come into competition, not with a few, but with a third of the cultivators of England, and all those of Scotland, it is obvious that the price of corn must have been regulated by the price for which it can be raised on the last lands cultivated that are free from tithe, and not by what it could be raised for on the last lands cultivated that are subject to that charge. It appears, therefore, that if the whole land of the empire had been subject to tithes, the proposition advanced by Mr Ricardo, that tithes do not fall on rent, but on the consumer, would, under the existing restraints on importation, have been strictly true. Înasmuch, however, as this is not our situation-as a very large proportion of our lands is not subject to tithes, and the cultivators of the tithed lands are, in consequence, without the means of limiting the supply and raising the prices, the proposition advanced by Dr Smith, that tithes constitute a portion of the rent of the land, and that their payment has no effect on the price of corn, IS MOST

CERTAINLY CORRECT."

So far the reviewer is perfectly conclusive. It is clearly and unde

Y

niably true, that tithe cannot constitute any part of the market price of corn, when that price is regulated by the produce raised upon lands that are tithe-free. And it must, generally speaking, be so regulated, when so large a proportion of the lands employed in agriculture is so circumstanced. Price rises, not because tithe is paid, but because demand presses against supply. No man will cultivate his ground merely in order to pay a tithe, if he can do nothing more. Price must have risen in consequence of an increase in the effectual demand, before land which is subject to tithe will be cultivated; and thus the market price of all produce grown upon the lands of a better quality will have so far exceeded the cost price, as to leave, after paying the profits of stock and the wages of labour, a very considerable residuum, which will be shared between the clergyman and the landlord; the clergyman separating his tenth, and the landlord ap. propriating the remainder.

But we do not agree with this able writer, that even if all lands were subject to a uniform tithe, that burden could be thrown upon the consumer in any case, beyond the precise point of time when the market price was just sufficient to pay the tithe, the profits of stock, and the other expenses of cultivation. Up to that point of time, the land would not be cultivated; for no one would consent to cultivate it at a loss. And after that point of time there would begin to accumulate that residuum above the cost price, which constitutes the fund out of which tithe and rent must be finally paid. So that the tithe would be thrown up upon what may be denominated the surplus profits; and, therefore, could not, in any such case, constitute any portion of the expenses of produc

tion.

This, however, will be said to be the question-Would it be thus thrown up, or would it be projected upon the consumers? Projected upon the consumers, say Ricardo and his disciples; because corn is a necessary which the public must purchase, and for which the farmers can, accordingly, get their own price. Now this position directly contradicts what we should have thought

might almost pass for a truism, namely, that the market governs the farmer, not the farmer the market. If that be true, it is undoubtedly true, that the farmer, in taking land, will consider not what price he may be able to extort, but what price the public are willing to give for his produce. His bargain with the landlord will, therefore, be made with reference to existing prices, and he will consent to pay only such a rent as leaves him able to pay the other burdens to which the land is liable, after having replaced his capital and realized his profits. At least, no prudent man would make any other kind of bargain. It may be added, that if the farmer may govern the market so as to make the consumer pay the tithe, there is no reason why he may not also govern it so as to make him pay the rent, or, indeed, to carry prices to any height that might be dictated by his cupidity.

But farmers have no such power over the market. If they had, it would be, ultimately, most injurious to themselves. Like other dealers, they will consider themselves sufficiently remunerated if they are able to replace their capital, with the ordinary profits of stock. And like other dealers they will only calculate upon being able so to do, when a willingness to give remunerating prices has been previously evinced by the public. To act upon any other principle, would be to reverse the maxim which, in all such matters, usually governs the conduct of mankind.

If farmers may throw the tithe on the consumers, in the manner Ricardo has supposed, there is no reason why they might not throw upon them a sum equivalent to tithe, supposing tithe to be extinguished. So that, at all events, the public would not benefit by their extinction, unless farmers may be supposed to be more willing to pay a tax, than to realize a personal advantage.

If the landowner united in his own person the characters of landlord and cultivator, it is clear that the charge of tithe must fall upon him. And we fully subscribe to the dictum of Colonel Thomson," that what he cannot keep himself, he can never recover from others by the invention of selling it to them with their eyes open.”

"If it is urged," says the Colonel, "that such landowners might recover the tax from the consumers, by raising the price of corn,-the answer is, that the operation of their individual interests will prevent it. If they raise the price of corn, it is manifest that less must be sold. A high price spins out the consumption of a deficient harvest, and would cause only a portion of equal magnitude to be consumed out of a plentiful one. But none of the landowners would place so much confidence in union among his brethren, as either to throw away corn already in his barns, when he had the option of selling it, or refuse to grow it, when by the sale of it he could obtain what he considers a reasonable profit. The quantity of corn grown and sold, therefore, will not be diminished by any such combination; and if the quantity is not diminished, the price for which it is sold cannot be increased. If there was no monopoly gain, the case would be very different indeed. For then the tax would oblige the landowners to contract their growth, till the price rose to what would pay them for their trouble; in the same manner as other producers do in similar circumstances. And the landowners themselves will actually do this, with respect to that portion of their produce which will not pay them the necessary profits of stock."

His observations are no less valuable or conclusive upon that case, which has furnished their most plausible topics to the advocates of the contrary opinion.

"The cheval de bataille of those who believe that taxes on agricultural produce fall on the consumers, is the malt tax. If a tax is laid on malt, the price of beer rises till the tax is recovered to the dealers; and it would do the same if the tax were laid on barley. What then, they say, so clear as that the tax falls on the consumers? The fallacy here is in bringing forward only half the case. If a tax is laid on barley, the quantity of land laid down with barley will be diminished, in such a manner as according to the guesses of the growers will cause the price to rise to what, after paying the tax, will make it as advantageous to grow barley as any thing else. And though the

guesses may be rough and imperfect the first year, they will be better in every succeeding year, and will in the end attain to the greatest exactness that can be desired. But if the price of barley is raised through the quantity being diminished, the prices of some other kinds of produce must fall, through the quantity grown being increased,-for the land will be employed in growing something else. The landowners, therefore, furnish the tax, and in the first instance recover it from the consumers of barley in the price. But on the other hand they suffer a reduction of the prices of other kinds of produce; which makes a deduction from their recovery of the tax, and a set-off to the consumers of agricultural produce against the increased price paid for the article taxed. The consumers of beer pay a higher price for their barley, and consume less; but the consumers of wheat or of something else, pay a lower price for what they consume, and consume more. There is some loss of business to maltsters, brewers, and publicans; but there is an increase of business to millers, bakers, or whoever are the dealers in the articles whose consumption is increased. And as no man lives on beer alone, the tax will be compensated, at all events, in a certain degree, not only to the consumers of agricultural produce in the aggregate, but to every individual consumer of beer also. And if it should turn out in the end, that the aggregate gains of the consumers, by the reduction of the prices of other things, are equal to their losses by the rise of barley,or, in other words, that they have paid the same sum for the whole produce as before, the consumers will be just where they were, with the exception of the altered proportions which have been forced upon them, and the landowners will have furnished the tax without recovery."

Nor, upon the assertion that, inasmuch as tithe has a tendency to throw a certain portion of land out of cultivation, and thereby create a diminution of produce, the price must be raised till it makes the produce the same as before, because men cannot go without the produce, are his reasonings less pertinent or constraining.

"The fallacy," he says, "here, as

has been mentioned already is in the inattention to the nature of effectual demand, and the assumption that the produce cannot be diminished. It is not true that men say, we must and will have such and such a quantity of corn, whatever may be the price.' But they say, we will have as much as it is more convenient for us to pay for at the price for which the grower will grow it, than do without it. It is a question of equilibrium, between the inconvenience of paying a high price, and the inconvenience of economizing in the use of corn; and whatever may be the laws by which the magnitude of these two inconveniences severally vary, there must be an equilibrium somewhere, at a point short of consuming the old quantity. That men cannot live with out a certain quantity, meaning thereby some quantity, of food, is true; but it is not true that men are living on a fixed quantity, which will not be diminished on an increase of price. At the siege of Gibraltar, General Elliott ascertained by experiment upon himself, that a man can live on four ounces of food per day. If this is assumed as the smallest quantity on which life can be sustained, it is still, in the first place, not true that the community, or any considerable portion of its members, are living on four ounces of food per day; and, secondly, even if it was true, the result of an increase of price would be, not that the same quantity of food would continue to be bought by the consumers, whatever was the price, but that the population would begin to decrease by all the modes consequent on insufficient food, and that for this decrement there would be no food bought at all. So far from there being any necessity that the same quantity of food shall be bought, it does not even follow that the buyers shall all live to buy. But there is no necessity for pushing the argument to this length. It is sufficient to at tend to the fact, that when there is necessity for the consumption being diminished, because the corn is not there to be consumed, an increase of price is the engine that carries it into effect; a clear proof that increase of price diminishes consump

tion."

Upon this part of the subject it can be scarcely necessary to add a

sentence more. Colonel Thomson has settled the question. Tithe is not paid by the consumer, even as rent is not paid by the consumer. Both are paid out of that surplus fund which, according to the settled laws which regulate the growth and the sale of agricultural produce, MUST be accumulated, though neither landlords nor clergymen were in existence.

Upon the whole, we are not surprised at the prejudice which some of our political economists cherish against Universities. They must consider that, by their means, in the person of Colonel Thomson, a most hopeful disciple has been woefully perverted. Had it not been for his pernicious scientific education, and his acquaintance with logic, he never would have been a dissenter from their views, or led to question the soundness of the principles upon which they proposed to carry on their sapping and mining operations against the Established Church.

Before we take leave of him, we cannot but observe, that, while we are thankful for the instruction which his pages have imparted to us, we. lament that his discussion of the question has not been somewhat more expanded. We fear that many of his readers will have reason to consider him liable to the censure which Horace pronounces, when he says, "Brevis esse laboro, obscurus fio." This cannot proceed from barrenness of imagination. Colonel Thomson's illustrations are as ready and pertinent, as his reasoning is perspicuous and strong. It is therefore solely to be attributed to the severity of the school in which he has been trained, to the rigidly scientific habits into which his mind has been disciplined; and we could wish to succeed in persuading him, that, without in the least departing from academic dignity and scholastic strictness, it would be possible for him to convey his thoughts in a manner much more level to the capacities of all sorts and descriptions of readers. He can have no interest in hiding his light under a bushel.

But we must return to our subject. Whether tithes are, or are not, paid by the consumer, are they not a tax upon industry? We think not; and we shall give our reasons. Those who take the most adverse view of