said five Shires than in the other; and within the said Shires cheaper or dearer as the way to London was more or less long, or rather more or less chargeable. For if the said five Shires did really produce as much Commodity as by all endeavour was possible; then what is wanting must be brought from afar, and that which is near advanced in price accordingly; or if the said Shires by greater labour than now is used ... could be fertilized, then will the Rent be as much more advanced as the excess of encrease exceeds that of labour."[1] The hint here given, that the rent of lands depends not upon their differing technical fertility, but upon their proximity to markets, is subsequently developed into one of the mathematical formulæ whose definiteness appealed so strongly to Petty's mind. "Land of the same quantity and quality in England," he says, "is generally worth four or five times as much as in Ireland, and but one-quarter or one-third what it is worth in Holland, because England is four or five times better peopled than Ireland, and but a quarter as well as Holland."[2]
Bearing in mind that, according to Petty's view of the matter,—a view shared by seventeenth century economists generally,—rent is a criterion of prosperity and its rise the surest sign of growing wealth, we can see how his theory that high rents were directly due to dense population explains his advocacy of wholesale schemes of "transplantation" in order to increase the wealth and power of the State. Thus, protesting that the suggestion is but "a
- ↑ Treatise of Taxes, 33; Writings, i. 51, 52. In another part of the same tract (p. 30; Writings, i. 48, 49) he says: "If the Corn which feedeth London or an Army be brought forty miles thither, then the Corn growing within a mile of London, or the quarters of such Army, shall have added unto its natural price, so much as the charge of bringing it thirty-nine miles doth amount unto. ... Hence it comes to pass that Lands intrinsically alike near populous places, such as where the perimeter of the Area that feeds them is great, will not only yield more Rent for these Reasons, but also more years purchase then in remote places, by reason of the pleasure and honour extraordinary of having lands there; for Omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci."
- ↑ Political Arithmetick, 67; Writings, i. 286.
